Street Anatomy

Henry Gray: the man behind anatomy

Gray’s Anatomy has remained an educational icon for anatomy since it was first published in 1858 by Henry Gray. Almost everyone, including those outside of the medical field, know Gray’s Anatomy as the authoritative textbook of human gross anatomy. Today people tend to associate Gray’s Anatomy with the popular TV show, which I must say I have been sucked into as well.

But who was Henry Gray (1827-1861)?

Gray was an English anatomist and surgeon. Born in 1827, not much is known about his childhood or his inspirations for going into the medical field. Nonetheless, when he was 18 he entered as a professional student at St. George’s Hospital, London. According to an article in the St. George’s Hospital Gazette of May 21st, 1908, he “is described by those who knew him as a most painstaking and methodical worker, and one who learnt his anatomy by the slow but invaluable method of making dissections for himself.”

By the age of 25 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in the following year he obtained the Astley Cooper of 300 guineas for his dissertation “On the Structure of the Spleen.” On a side note, Astley Cooper was another famous English surgeon and anatomist who described several new anatomical structures, many of which were named after him: Cooper’s fascia, Cooper’s ligament, Cooper’s hernia, etc.

Finally, when Gray was only 31, he published the first edition of Gray’s Anatomy, which consisted of 750 pages and 363 illustrations. The latest editions of Gray’s Anatomy are now nearly 1,700 pages! A lot of the initial success of the text is attributed to the detailed illustrations. Fortunately, Gray had a good friend who could draw, Dr. H.V. Vandyke Carter. Gray approached Carter and proposed that they collaborate on a new manual of anatomy for students. Carter, a skilled draughtsman, made the 363 illustrations for Gray’s Anatomy.

Carter actually helped carry out the dissections with Gray to get the most accurate representation possible. Because of its illustrations, Gray’s Anatomy became superior to any other anatomy text around at the time. Unfortunately, Carter never received any royalties for his painstaking work.

Sadly, Gray died of smallpox at the young age of 34, which he contracted while looking after a nephew who was suffering from the disease. In his short lifetime he was demonstrator of anatomy, curator of the museum, and lecturer of anatomy at St. George’s Hospital, London. And of course, his biggest accomplishment of all, Gray’s Anatomy, is still widely accepted as an extraordinary book for medical students.

I always pictured Gray as an old man with white hair and glasses, you know, that professor type. So I was shocked to find out that he was only 31 when he wrote Gray’s Anatomy. He did so much as a young man, imagine what he could have accomplished had he lived a full life. He is truly inspirational.

Gray’s Anatomy is such an invaluable resource for medical students and medical professionals everywhere and especially for medical illustrators. If there is ever a need to find accurate details of a certain anatomical part, you can find it in Gray’s Anatomy. It’s the first text I turn to when starting any medical illustration project.

Scientific Visualization: An Explanation

Felice Frankel, a judge for the Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge, and Graham Johnson, a Certified Medical Illustrator, take time to explain the meaning behind “Scientific Visualization” in this podcast.

This is a great discussion on the field of medical and scientific visualization. Topics include, interpreting scientific data for visualization, simplifying images, the boundary between art and science, and the evolution of scientific visualization.

If you are interested in pursuing medical or scientific visualization, this is a must to listen to!

[Podcast via New York Public Radio]

Graham Johnson’s winning illustration of The Synapse Revealed

Origin of Street Anatomy

Ever wondered why I named my blog Street Anatomy?

I’ve always been a huge fan of street art. And I’m not talking about the graffiti-style-scribble-your-name-on-the-brick-wall type of street art. I enjoy the street art that makes a statement in an aesthetically pleasing way. One of the most famous street artists out there and by far my favorite is Banksy. He was one of the first to use stencil graffiti, which allows him to replicate his pieces and put them up quickly. His graffiti is charged with dark humor and very political. It’s definitely worth taking a look at his online gallery, even if you’re not into this type of art. Hint: scroll to the right on his gallery page.

So, after seeing Banksy’s work and various other street stencil artists, I thought to myself, why not do something like this with anatomy? There are so many people out there who don’ even know where their liver is located, that their heart is on the left side of their chest and not the middle, and when you pat your belly you’re really patting your intestines and not your stomach. So I thought of a sort of “Urban Anatomy Project” whereby street art could be used to educate the public. Unfortunately, I am a graduate student and don’t necessarily have time to go around vandalizing Chicago with street art. Instead, I decided to start a blog where I could educate people about medical illustration/visualization. Thus, I named it Street Anatomy. And I have to say it’s worked out pretty well.

I still have the “Urban Anatomy Project” in my head. It’s definitely not something I could accomplish by myself. I would need the collaborative effort of the wonderfully talented street artists out there. Maybe I’ll give it a go after I graduate.

There isn’t a lot of street art out there that focuses on anatomy. I’m always on the look out though. Here are a few Street Anatomy pieces that I’ve seen so far. Enjoy.

The original by engraver: Van der Gucht, Gerard, 1696-1776

Interview with David Bolinsky of XVIVO Scientific Animation

Remember the Inner Life of the Cell?

I had done a post a while back about John Liebler, the lead animator at XVIVO, who created the Inner Life of the Cell for Harvard University. Well here is an interview with David Bolinsky, the founder of XVIVO, giving us an update on what’s come about since the successful release of Inner Life of the Cell.

[Article via WIRED]

By Kim Zetter|
02:00 AM Mar, 14, 2007Who would have thought the inner workings of a white blood cell could be visually stunning? For those who fell asleep during high school biology classes, David Bolinsky’s presentation at the TED conference was a revelation.

Bolinsky, former lead medical illustrator at Yale, screened a three-minute version of a computer-generated film, The Inner Life of the Cell, that he and colleagues at his company Xvivo created for Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology.

The film animation, also shown at Siggraph last summer, has caused quite a stir, leading museums, universities and even Hollywood’s Wachowski brothers to come calling. Xvivo recently created all the animation in a one-hour pilot for the new PBS science show 22nd Century and parts of the company’s cell film may be used in a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Bolinsky, who was two years into a medical degree when he launched his first illustration company in 1983, has long wanted to use computers to animate science but says the technology only recently caught up with his vision. He spoke with Wired News about the discovery process.

Wired News: Warner Bros. contacted you, right?

David Bolinsky: A couple of days before TED we got a call from Warner Bros. Pictures. Apparently the Wachowski brothers, the guys who did The Matrix, are doing a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and they had come across our animation and they wanted to know if we’d be interested in re-rendering it at film resolution so it could be included in some way as (part) of the special effects they’re planning for the movie. So right now their lawyers are talking with the Harvard lawyers about the possibility of this. (Press reports say the Wachowski brothers, though not directors of the film, have been brought in to re-work the film’s ending.)

WN: So this entire 8.5-minute film depicts what’s going on inside one white blood cell?

Bolinsky: Yes. We needed to have a starting point. Something small enough so we could actually accomplish it and show it around and get feedback from the academic community — so we could see if it was a worthwhile direction and use it as a teaser to get funding so we could really do a proper job on this subject. So we decided on a cellular-motility theme and what happens to a white blood cell patrolling the capillary when there’s an inflammation outside the capillary.

WN: How did Inner Life of the Cell come about?

Bolinsky: (We) wanted to make something that would give people a strong sense of a cell — not as a list of topics to be studied, not as a compendium of tables and graphs and charts, (but) as a bustling, immensely purposeful metropolis populated very, very densely by these micro machines that do a huge amount of work at great speed and great precision and purposefulness.

WN: How did people outside Harvard learn about it?

Bolinsky: We unleashed it on the world for the first time by entering it … in Siggraph’s (contest for) the best animations of the year. Special effects from Pixar and Sony pictures and all the large Hollywood companies that make fancy commercials are entered.

Continue reading the rest of the article here.

Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge

I recently mentioned in an earlier post that the Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge is off and running. I’m highly anticipating this year’s winners. Each year we advance so much in imaging and visualization techniques that I can’t even begin to image what we’ll see this time.

Anyway, here is an interview with Jeff Nesbit, of the National Science Foundation, about the challenge.

[Interview via NSF]

March 9, 2007 – Arlington, VA. – The annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge is now underway. Co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Science, the flagship publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Visualization Challenge is a prestigious competition to find the photographs, illustrations, and digital media that best communicate science, engineering, and technology for education and journalistic purposes.Jeff Nesbit, Director of NSF’s Office of Legislative and Public Affairs, answers questions about the Challenge:

Q: This year marks the fifth Visualization Challenge. What are you expecting?
Nesbit: I’m expecting to be amazed. The intersection of penetrating research, vigorous creativity, and newly imagined perspectives has never failed to produce anything but visual expressions of science that both inform and delight. I expect this year’s entries will top anything we’ve seen before.

Q: But isn’t this just a beauty contest; an art project for scientists?
Nesbit: Far from it. The ability to communicate scientific findings and engineering explorations visually is rapidly becoming a requirement for all researchers. We used to say “publish or perish” in academics to emphasize the importance of sharing our findings. Now we should add to that “Visualize or Vanish!”

Q: Why is sharing of this kind so important?
Nesbit: Because so often the most powerful use or insight from a discovery or creation is made not by the originators but by those who learned of it later. In the 1950s, the worldwide need for computers was expected to be less than half a dozen. Today, my car has more than four dozen computers, all more powerful than those of 50 years ago.

Q: But does that sharing have to be done visually?
Nesbit: No, but it surely helps. Humans have a native ability to organize and make sense of their world visually. What was once literally an aid to survival now helps us quickly grasp aspects of this world that we will never actually see. Imagine trying to describe in words the stunning vistas seen in pictures taken by the Hubble telescope.

Q: Are you describing visualizations or imaginings?
Nesbit: In some sense, both. I’d put it this way: “Show us something real, based on the best evidence and the most rigorous research, from a vantage point that tells us more but might otherwise be impossible to achieve.” That way we can look inside atoms or peer over the event horizon of black holes.

Q: So the imagination comes in just from aspects of perspective or scale?
Nesbit: It’s also there in terms of translating the world into the visual vocabulary of humans. If you were to stand out in space and look at what the Hubble sees, you’d probably see mostly darkness, not those glorious colors in the posters. That’s because most of the emissions from distant galaxies or dust clouds take place outside of the visual spectrum, in the infrared or x-ray bands. So we assign colors to the images so we can see them but we don’t make up what’s being “colored.”

Q: Remind us again about the entry deadline and where to find more information.
Nesbit: This year’s entry deadline is May 31st. For rules, entry forms, and more information, see: http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/scivis or contact Susan S. Mason, OLPA/NSF at 703.292.7748 or smason@nsf.gov.