Medica crus puellae palpat et dicit vulnus non grave esse.

Medica is the feminine form, so it means female doctor or woman doctor.

• medicus = a male doctor
• medica = a female doctor

A native English speaker may wonder this because English nouns usually do not change form for gender, but Latin often does.

Crus is a neuter third-declension noun meaning leg. In Latin, many neuter nouns have the same form in the nominative and accusative singular.

So:

• nominative singular: crus
• accusative singular: crus

That means the form itself does not change here, even though its job does. In this sentence, crus is the direct object of palpat, so it means the leg as the thing being touched or examined.

Here puellae is genitive singular, meaning of the girl.

So crus puellae means:

• the girl’s leg
• literally, the leg of the girl

A learner may notice that puellae can have several meanings in other contexts, such as dative singular or nominative plural, but here the meaning and structure make genitive singular the right choice.

Latin does not use an apostrophe-s construction like English girl’s. Instead, possession is usually shown by the genitive case.

So:

• English: the girl’s leg
• Latin: crus puellae

This is one of the most basic differences between English and Latin grammar.

Palpat is the third-person singular present active indicative of palpare.

It means something like:

• she touches
• she feels
• she examines by touch
• sometimes she strokes or she palpates

In a medical context, palpat suggests that the doctor is feeling/examining the leg with her hands.

This is a very common Latin construction called an indirect statement.

After verbs of saying, thinking, knowing, perceiving, and so on, Latin often uses:

• an accusative subject
• plus an infinitive

So after dicit (she says), Latin gives the content of what she says as:

• vulnus non grave esse

Literally, that is the wound not serious to be, but in natural English it means:

• that the wound is not serious

English often uses that; Latin usually uses the accusative-and-infinitive construction instead.

In an indirect statement, the subject goes into the accusative, not the nominative.

So logically vulnus is the subject of esse, but grammatically it is the accusative subject of the infinitive.

The tricky part is that vulnus is a neuter third-declension noun, and its nominative and accusative singular are the same:

• nominative: vulnus
• accusative: vulnus

So you cannot see the difference from the form alone. You have to recognize the construction after dicit.

Grave agrees with vulnus, which is neuter singular.

The adjective gravis, grave means heavy, serious, severe. Its neuter singular form is grave.

So:

• masculine/feminine singular: gravis
• neuter singular: grave

Because vulnus is neuter, Latin says vulnus non grave = the wound is not serious.

Because after dicit, Latin normally uses an infinitive to express what is said in an indirect statement.

So instead of a direct statement like:

• Vulnus non grave est. = The wound is not serious.

the sentence changes to indirect statement:

• dicit vulnus non grave esse = she says that the wound is not serious

The finite verb est becomes the infinitive esse.

Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order. It is very common for the verb, especially an infinitive in an indirect statement, to come at the end.

So vulnus non grave esse is a normal and natural order in Latin.

Latin often places words for emphasis, rhythm, or style rather than following a fixed English-style pattern.

Classical Latin has no articles.

So Latin does not have exact equivalents of English:

• the
• a/an

That means medica can mean:

• the female doctor
• a female doctor

and vulnus can mean:

• the wound
• a wound

The correct English article comes from the context.

Because the sentence has one clear subject, medica, followed by two actions:

• palpat = she touches/examines
• dicit = she says

So et means and, joining the two actions of the same subject:

• The female doctor examines the girl’s leg and says ...

Latin often leaves the subject unstated with later verbs if it is still the same person.

Either can be correct, depending on context.

Dicit is present tense, so it can mean:

• she says
• she is saying

English chooses between simple present and progressive more often than Latin does. Latin present tense can cover both ideas.

Yes, the form puellae can represent more than one case/number:

• genitive singular = of the girl
• dative singular = to/for the girl
• nominative plural = girls
• vocative plural = girls!

But here, in crus puellae, the meaning is clearly possessive, so genitive singular is the right interpretation: the girl’s leg.

A learner often expects -us nouns to be masculine because many second-declension masculine nouns end that way, like servus.

But crus and vulnus are different:

• they are third-declension
• they are neuter
• their -us ending is just part of their own declension pattern

So you cannot assume gender just from -us. In Latin, you always have to learn a noun’s gender and declension.

The sentence breaks down like this:

• Medica = subject
• crus puellae = direct object phrase of palpat
• palpat = first verb
• et = and
• dicit = second verb
• vulnus non grave esse = indirect statement, giving what she says

So the pattern is:

[Subject] + [first action] + and + [second action] + [what is said]

That is a very common Latin sentence structure.