Gray's Anatomy

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This article is about the anatomy textbook. For the television series, see Grey's Anatomy. For other uses, see Gray's Anatomy (disambiguation).
An illustration from the 1918 edition
An illustration from the 1918 edition

Henry Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body (or Gray's Anatomy as it has commonly been shortened) is an English-language human anatomy textbook widely regarded as a classic work on the subject.

The book was first published under the title Gray's Anatomy: Descriptive and Surgical in the United Kingdom in 1858, and the following year in the United States. While studying the anatomical effects of infectious diseases, Gray contracted smallpox from his dying nephew and died shortly after the publication of the 1860 second edition, at the age of 34. Work on his much-praised book was continued by others and on November 24, 2004, the 39th British edition was released.

Contents

[edit] Origins

Henry Gray
Henry Gray

The British anatomist Henry Gray was born in 1827. He studied the development of the endocrine glands and spleen and in 1853 was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London. In 1855 he approached his colleague Dr Henry Vandyke Carter with his idea to produce an anatomy textbook for medical students. His death came just three years after the publication of his Anatomy Descriptive and Surgical.

The 1878 U.S. edition appears to have started edition numbering afresh (despite the British version's (twenty years earlier: 1858) prior publication in the U.S.). This "first" U.S. edition roughly corresponded to the eighth British edition, with consecutively numbered further U.S. editions appearing thereafter. This led to the existence, for many years, of two main "flavours" or "branches" of Gray's Anatomy: the U.S. and the British one. This can easily cause misunderstandings and confusion, especially when quoting from or trying to purchase a certain edition.

[edit] Most recent available editions

An illustration from the 1918 edition.
An illustration from the 1918 edition.

As of December 2007, the latest edition of Gray's Anatomy is the 39th edition, published on November 25, 2004, in the UK and November 24, 2004, in the U.S., which is also available in CD-ROM format. The publisher is Churchill Livingstone in the UK while it is C.V. Mosby in the U.S., and is published in New York City. The two books are almost identical, with minor changes made to take into account differences in British and American terminology (e.g. Adrenaline vs Epinephrine). According to the publisher's website, the 40th edition is due for release by the end of September 2008 ("Expected Release Date: 09/26/2008").

A version of Gray's Anatomy called Gray's Anatomy for Students has also been published. It was published on October 5, 2004, in the United Kingdom and October 15, 2004, in the United States, by Churchill Livingstone. However, it should be noted that this is an entirely new book, written from scratch, sharing only the name of the classic.

Older editions of the book continue to be reprinted and sold. On the World Wide Web, there are many offers for what seem to be reprints of the 1901 (probably U.S.) edition. Although such prints may serve artistic uses because their companion illustrations and anatomical cross sections are renowned for their rustic and often haunting presentation, they no longer represent up-to-date anatomical knowledge, as much less was known at the time, and much of what was known at that time has since been found to be incorrect.

Henry Gray wrote the original version of Gray's Anatomy with an audience of medical students and physicians in mind, especially surgeons. For many decades however, precisely because Gray's textbook became such a classic, successive editors made major efforts to preserve its position as possibly the most authoritative text on the subject in the English language. Toward this end, a long-term strategy appears to have been to have the book contain a fully comprehensive account of the anatomical and medical knowledge available at the time of publication of each edition[citation needed]. Given the explosion of medical knowledge in the 20th century, it is easily appreciated that this led to a vast expansion of the book, which threatened to collapse under its own weight in a metaphorical and physical sense. From the 35th edition onward, increased efforts have been made to reverse this trend and keep the book readable by students. Nevertheless, the 38th edition contained 2,092 pages in large format.

Newer editions of Gray's Anatomy (and even several older ones) are still considered to be about the most comprehensive and detailed books of such type on the subject[citation needed]. .

The senior editor of the latest, 39th edition of Gray's Anatomy is Professor Susan Standring, who is Head of the Department of Anatomy and Human Sciences at King's College London.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links and references

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