Gray's Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Clinical Practice

Rating:
Summary: Great book. Get it.
Review: A book you can still dream on.

This was written and rewritten when Victorian erudition was in the making. Some authors in the long series of its well parsed institutional writing would still like to see it continuing in THAT well established tradition.

Alas, the times have changed. Recent anatomy texts are dwarfs not even climbing on the shoulders of the likes of Gray, Braus and Testut. Those authors professed ideals of "seeing through the skin structures", "synmorphy" and "mentally reconstructing the living". Today we do all this with machines...

I stopped reading the huge text linearly at the complicated review of angiogenesis, but still browse dedicated chapters for standard, if somewhat elaborate descriptions. Comprehensive knowledge parsing seems to have lived a fruitful life and then exit the scene to enrich scientific obituaries. But if Gibbon were still an example of style, the fifth star would be added when that clarity, in my view mandatory for monuments, will be eventually reached.

Rating:
Summary: A cogent description of the human body.
Review: This book is truly a masterpiece. The writing and layout is good. Descriptions and illustrations are clear and well done. I am not a medical professional and yet I find this book fascinating in its breadth and scope. To better comprehend some of the anatomical structures I first read relevant portions of this book and then go to Netter's Atlas Of Human Anatomy. One point of caution though - get the 38th British Edition. This is by far superior to the American Edition which costs half as much. The extra money spent will be well worth it. After all there is a lifetime of adventure embedded in this volume.

Rating:
Summary: The most authoritative reference text there is on anatomy
Review: This text is the most authoritative of all anatomical texts; this is attributed to the editors of this text from past to this edition being prominent members of the medical profession and in saying so also being responsible of globalizing the anatomical nomenclature.

This text is rather advanced for an amateur student. With all due respect one much have some acquired background knowledge before one can grasp the intensity of which this text.

It is the best reference text around, I myself use the CD-ROM version of it and it is most articulate in defining the pathological nature of certain anatomical components as well as giving detailed, precise and important information on each.

This text is exhaustively extensive and comprises of a great deal of research in a myriad of fields. I strongly suggest anyone buying this to buy a complementing book like Last's Anatomy by Chummy. M. Sinnatamby. If you have these two books then know this that you are armed with the most prominent books dealing with anatomy and they are long standing authorities both in the UK medical system as well as that in the US. Last's is more common to the UK as Clinical anatomy of Moore and Dalley is in the US.

It is a NEED for medical students.