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August 2015 Vol. 52 No. 12

Persaud, Loukas, and Tubbs (all, St. George's Univ., West Indies) attempt a panoramic world history of the “body’s architecture.”  They assembled the lavishly illustrated text from secondary sources and added a useful bibliography.  The biography-based history attends to shifting social and cultural contexts.  The structure is roughly chronological with interleaved essays on topics such as education, literature, and unethical Nazi anatomists.  (The previous edition, A History of Anatomy: The Post-Vesalian Era, by Persaud [1997], ends with the early 19th century.)  Of particular interest is the saga of body snatchers and resurrectionists (with the collusion of physicians) and the evolving legal authority for dissection.  Lesser anatomists in the orbit of the “great men,” such as Vesalius, the spark plug of Renaissance anatomy, are well represented.  William Harvey embodies the physician as anatomist and physiologist, and the feuding Hunter brothers epitomize the unity of anatomist and surgeon.  The global scope of the work ultimately defies efforts at organization.  Biographical minutiae often overwhelm clear elucidation of major anatomical discoveries and methods.  The prose is somewhat stilted, and there are pervasive lapses in copy editing.  Target readers are medical professionals with a working knowledge of human anatomy and an interest in history.

--S. W. Moss, independent scholar

Summing Up: Recommended. Researchers/faculty and professionals/practitioners.