Meninges ( MEN ; Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, c1700 BC ) : The connective tissue coverings of the nervous system (Monro, 1783) that in mammals are divided concentrically from outside to inside into dura (Galen, c177), arachnoid (Blasius, 1666), and pia (Galen, c192), which often extends along blood vessels into the central nervous system (Meckel, 1817). A term equivalent to the Greek "meninx"-membrane, in the present context a fibrous membrane around the brain (Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, c1700 BC)-was used to describe a human head wound in the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, a c1700 BC copy of a manuscript composed c3200 BC; see Breasted (1930, pp. 65, 167, 171-172), Clarke & O'Malley (1996, p. 384), Allen (2005, p. 75).