ACETABULUM, in antiquity, a little vase or cup used at table to serve up things proper for sauce or seasoning, much after the manner of our salts and vinegar cruets. See VASE, and VESSEL.
Hence, Agricola, in his treatise of Roman measures, L. I., takes the name to have been formed from Acetum Vinegar; as supposing it principally designed to serve vinegar on.
Acetabulum is also used for a Roman measure, in use chiefly in medicine, for liquid matters. See MEASURE.
The acetabulum contained a cyathus and a half, as is proved by Agricola from two verses of Fannius, who, speaking of the cyathus, says it weighs ten drachms, and the acetabulum or oxubaphus, fifteen.
Billet, in his treatise of weights and measures prefixed to his translation of Pliny, makes the acetabulum of oil weigh two ounces and two scruples; the acetabulum of wine, two ounces, two drachms, a grain, and a third of a grain; and the acetabulum of honey, three ounces, three drachms, a scruple, and two siliquas. See CYATHUS, COTYLE, etc.
Acetabulum is also used in anatomy for a deep cavity in certain bones appointed for the reception of the large heads of other bones in order to their articulation. See BONE and ARTICULATION.
Thus, the cavity of the ischium or huckle-bone, which receives the head of the thigh-bone, is called acetabulum, cotyla, or cotyloides. See ISCHIUM, FEMUR, COTYLE, etc.
The acetabulum is lined and tipped round with a cartilage, whose circular margin is called supercilium. In its bottom lies a large mucilaginous gland. See MUCILAGINOUS, etc.
Acetabulum is also used by anatomists in the same sense with cotyledon. See COTYLEDONES.
