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 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.
Gray's Anatomy celebrates 150th anniversary
By
Wendy Moore 30/03/2008
As a newly qualified doctor in September 1939, Nowell Peach was looking forward to a career in surgery. He was waiting to begin his anatomical studies and the course was set to start on September 4, 1939. When war was declared the day before, the anatomy course was postponed. Young Dr Peach, then 26, enlisted as a medical officer with the RAF Volunteer Reserve. Yet although he would spend the next six years in uniform, and three-and-a-half of those years in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, he still managed to complete his anatomy studies - thanks to a remarkable book.
Celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, Gray's Anatomy is probably the world's best-known medical book. A vital work on every doctor's bookshelf, an essential prop in any respectable medical drama (it has even given its name to one), the text has spawned countless imitations, while its title has become a household word. Its success is celebrated in an exhibition that opens next week, and its intriguing history unravelled in a book to be published this September.
Gray's Anatomy has taught doctors the basic understanding of the human body since the early days of anaesthesia - although not usually in such gruelling circumstances as Dr Peach. Having been posted to south-east Asia in 1940, Dr Peach had been treating battle casualties and tropical diseases in allied military hospitals before being taken prisoner.
It was while working in Java, at the main allied general hospital, which was captured by the Japanese in March 1942, that he met Lt Col Edward Dunlop, the Australian surgeon, known as "Weary". Knowing his assistant's surgical ambitions, Dunlop unearthed a 23rd edition of Gray's Anatomy in a secondhand bookshop and presented this to his protégé. During the next three-and-a-half years, Dr Peach lugged the 5 lb volume through six POW camps. He even persuaded the Japanese authorities to endorse the title page, granting him permission to keep the book. "It was one way of getting my mind off the situation," he says. After three months, he had memorised the book's 1,381 pages of intricate illustrations and text.
When he returned home in November 1945, Dr Peach duly enrolled on the reconvened anatomy course - now half-way through - and passed his examination the following year with flying colours. His success, he is certain, was due to his volume of Gray's Anatomy, which he treasures to this day. "In the exam I could picture the images in my mind. I really did know my anatomy backwards," says Dr Peach, 94, who retired from medical practice 30 years ago.
Although he never attained the consultant surgeon's post he had envisaged, in 1954 he settled as a GP in Horsham, West Sussex - where he and his wife, Pauline, a former nurse, still live - and put his anatomical expertise to use at the cottage hospital.
Generations of doctors worldwide have pored over blood-stained copies of Gray's Anatomy. The current 39th edition runs to 1,600 pages, offers 2,260 illustrations, weighs about 11 lb, is available online and remains the definitive anatomical reference work. Yet, just as medicine has always been chequered by professional rivalry, so the story of the world's most famous medical book is shot through with jealousy and betrayal. For, while its original author, Henry Gray, has been immortalised by his creation's success, the name of its illustrator, Henry Vandyke Carter, has been all but forgotten.
Gray and Carter, both surgeons at St George's Hospital in London, began collaborating to produce a practical anatomy textbook for their students in 1855. They performed the required dissections jointly over 18 months, with Gray writing the text and Carter preparing the exquisite illustrations. The ambitious and ebullient Gray saw the book to publication, but the self-effacing Carter sailed for India and a career in tropical medicine. When the book was finally published in 1858, as Anatomy, Descriptive and Surgical, it was acclaimed for its simple layout and clear illustrations, which crucially incorporated labels within the images rather than in confusing separate keys, and it became a runaway success.
But while Carter's name appeared on the title page, the short title Gray's Anatomy was printed on the spine, and while Gray earned a handsome £150 for every 1,000 copies, Carter received no royalties.
Dr Ruth Richardson, a medical historian, hopes that her book, The Making of Mr Gray's Anatomy (published by Oxford University Press in September), will win Carter the recognition so long denied him. Meanwhile, an exhibition of Carter's work, featuring rare first editions and original wood-block engravings, opens at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, on Thursday. "I believe anybody who says the words "Gray's Anatomy" should also know the name of Carter," says Dr Richardson. "It was the illustrations that sold the book." Compared with other anatomy books of the time, which were pocket-sized, Carter's images were unusually bold, clear and large, some life-sized.
Prof Harold Ellis, a clinical anatomy teacher at Guy's Hospital in London and contributing editor to contemporary editions of the book, agrees. "I think the real hero was Vandyke Carter, who never got the credit he deserved," says Prof Ellis, who bought his first Gray's Anatomy when embarking on his medical training in 1943. "What sold the book originally was the quality of the pictures."
After several facelifts under a stream of subsequent editors, Gray's Anatomy no longer retains any of Gray's text or Carter's drawings, yet it has endured as the doctor's bible. Prof Susan Standring, editor-in-chief of the anniversary 40th edition, to be published by Churchill Livingstone this September, puts that durability down to its fundamental reliability. "Although there are more detailed books in individual areas, this provides the biggest source of anatomical knowledge in one place," says Prof Standring, who is head of anatomy at Guy's, King's and St Thomas' medical school, and the book's first woman editor.
The exhibition "150 years of Gray's Anatomy" runs from April 3 to May 2 at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 35-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2 (www.rcseng.ac.uk).
Wendy Moore is the author of The Knife Man: Blood, Body-snatching and the Birth of Modern Surgery (Bantam Books, £7.99).
| An anatomy of Gray's | |
| 1858 |
First edition published |
| 1861 |
Henry Gray dies of smallpox and Timothy Holmes becomes second editor to steer next seven editions |
| 1887 |
Colour introduced in 11th edition
by third
editor, T. Pickering Pick |
| 1897 |
Henry Vandyke Carter dies |
| 1905 |
New wood engravings commissioned for lighter, 16th edition. |
| 1938 |
Book officially retitled as Gray's Anatomy |
| 1939-45 |
War brings paper shortages and printing problems |
| 1973 |
Text and illustrations overhauled for 35th edition |
| 2004 |
First woman editor, Prof Susan
Standring,
revises 39th edition according to body regions, not systems. Now available online |
| 2008 |
40th edition marks 150th anniversary |
See also
Francis Galton
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