The Anatomist
We're all familiar with Gray's Anatomy as the quintessential text for learning human anatomy and physiology. Named for its creator, the British anatomist Henry Gray, this work is still being updated, published, and used in medical anatomy courses around the world. The title Gray's Anatomy even inspired the title of the TV series Grey's Anatomy. But how much do you know about how the original Gray's Anatomy was conceived? What made it such a brilliant contribution to anatomy education?
A book called The Anatomist: A True Story of Gray's Anatomy not only reveals the roots of the classic anatomy text, it tells the personal and fascinating stories of the principle players. We find out, for example, that it wasn't Gray who drew the classic dissection sketches that we've come to love, but rather his fellow anatomist Henry Van Dyke Carter.
Author Bill Hayes tells the fascinating story of Gray's Anatomy in the context of his own personal experience of learning human anatomy by dissecting cadavers at a west coast medical school. Hayes is a great storyteller, pulling the reader into his own adventures in discovering human anatomy. He then uses that to show the reader the kind of fascination with the human body that surely drove Gray and Carter in the process of creating their classic text.
If you have any interest in the story behind our discipline, you'll love this book!
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Also by Bill Hayes: Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood Sleep Demons: An Insomniac's Memoir |
| Here are today's updated versions of the classic Gray's Anatomy |
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