The Italian term sentinella came into our language as sentinel . The first meaning mentioned in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) refers to a surveillance or control service .
By extension, the person who is dedicated to carrying out this type of observation, prevention and care tasks is known as a sentinel. Generally the concept is reserved for the members of a security force who occupy a certain position to carry out this activity. Otherwise, notions such as guard or watchman are used.
For example: “A sentry detected strange movements on the border and notified his superiors: this is how the authorities managed to thwart the smuggling” , “The army base on the island is guarded by a dozen sentries twenty-four hours a day” , “ During the escape, the prisoners murdered a sentry .
In the military field, therefore, a sentinel is someone who is located in a place from where he can observe the panorama and thus protect certain facilities or individuals. Thanks to its location , the sentry can warn if there is someone in the vicinity.
In colloquial language, a sentinel is called someone who guards something or works for its conservation : “This environmental group is the sentinel of beach cleaning,” “For years I was the sentinel of this library,” “The academy is “the sentinel of our language.”
Sentinel , finally, is a word that appears in the name of a hill in the province of Buenos Aires ( Argentina ) and another in Mexicali ( Mexico ) and several towns in different countries .
We have to establish that the aforementioned Cerro del Centinela is located in the Progreso Delegation, in the municipality of Mexicali, and that it is also called “Weeishpa”. It has a height of about 781 meters and has the peculiarity that, throughout history, it has always been used to guide through the desert. It is so important that it not only appears on the shield of Imperial County but also on the shield of Mexicali.
Within the field of medicine, the term that concerns us now is also used. Specifically, there is talk, for example, of sentinel nodes that take center stage when a tumor appears. They are exactly the first lymphatic type into which a tumor drains.
When a biopsy is performed, those nodes are the ones that become the focus of action. And this surgical procedure on them is a way to know if the cancer has spread outside and towards the lymphatic system. In this way, the medical team that performs this operation will analyze the sentinel lymph nodes and if they discover that there is no cancer in them, what they will know is that the cancer has probably not spread.
Specifically, this type of biopsy is common in cases of breast cancer and also when there are melanomas.
Within the literature, the term in question has been used on many occasions. A good example of this is the novel “Sentinels of the Ice”, written by Silvia Martínez-Markus.