Has anatomy stood still while all else has been on the march?

Abstract

The medical historian, Poyntor (1958), in his analysis of the impact of Gray's Anatomy over its first 100 years since publication in 1858, posed the following question: “Has anatomy stood still while all else has been on the march? Or is it so little regarded that the same manual which instructed our great grandfathers will serve for our sons?” What a marvelous question to raise. Although Poyntor asked this question in regard to a single textbook of anatomy, it can be extrapolated to anatomy as a whole. In this regard, application of the clinical aspects of anatomy will certainly progress our discipline forwards and keep it from “standing still.” This issue of Clinical Anatomy provides our readers with articles that use endoscopy to better visualize the basal cisterns, preoperative imaging for discerning subscapular artery anatomy for use in pedicled free flaps, and MRI analysis for knee joint cartilage change in patients with osteoarthritis. Certainly, such clinical applications of anatomy will keep it on the move.

Frederick Noël Lawrence Poynter (1908–1979) (Figure 1) was a British medical historian, librarian, and director of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. His influence in the field of medical history is exemplified by the Poynter lecture, named in his honor. He was president of the Bristol Medico-Historical Society and the International Academy of the History of Medicine. Bynum (1980) said, “He possessed a remarkable mixture of scholarly, editorial, and administrative skills which are rarely combined in a single individual.”