cyclopia

Term: cyclopia or cyclocephaly or synophthalmia

Origin: Anc Greek

 κύκλος/cyclos(=cycle)

>1/2 κυρτός/1/2cyrtos(=convex)  + 1/2 κοίλος/coilos(=concave)

+ώψ/ops(=sight, face)

literally meaning "round-eyed,"

History of word

Cyclops were represented in Greek Mythology as, a primordial race of giants (sons of Uranus /Sky) and Gaia/Earth), each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead. Warkany stated that the Babylonian tables  K3867 and K4064 in the British Museum refers to a monster which has one eye on its forehead. Homer tested that Ulysses contended with Polyphemus, in the land of Cyclops. In modern knowledge the term “cyclopia”  coined by  French naturalist Etienne Geoffroy Saint -Hilaire (1772 –1844), in 1832, in his classic 3- volume treatise aligned cyclopia with ethmocephaly and cedocephaly. Among many other contributions to science, he made a convincing case that defects in normal development led to congenital malformations.

Definition

Cyclopia is a rare congenital disorder and it is a form of holoprosencephaly characterized by the failure of the embryonic prosencephalon to properly divide the orbits of the eye into two cavities.