McMinn’s and Abrahams’ Clinical Atlas of Human Anatomy, Seventh Edition

Book Preface

As with most academic literature, there is a large element of truth to the often misquoted “If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants” as written by Sir Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke in 1676. In our case it is not only the giants of our own discipline of anatomy and especially its clinical branch; this atlas has also benefited from a real contribution from our students, colleagues, teachers and mentors.

This new seventh edition of McMinn and Abrahams’ Clinical Atlas of Human Anatomy is the culmination of 40 years’ work by a huge team. The first three editions of this seminal colour atlas were authored by Professor Bob McMinn, Ralph Hutchings and Bari Logan, and the last four editions have been the results of a combined academic endeavour of the now departed “giants” Professors John Pegington (University College London), Sandy Marks (University of Massachusetts, USA) and Hanno Boon (Pretoria, South Africa) working with myself (PHA). For previous dedications see the sixth edition dedication online (www.studentconsult.com).

In the autumn of 2012 we heard the sad news of Bob McMinn’s passing at the age of 88. Following in his father’s footsteps Bob, graduated from Glasgow University in medicine in 1947. His main academic career was in London, first as Professor at Kings College, London and then as the William Collins Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Along the way Bob not only gained an MD but a PhD as well in the field of wound healing and tissue repair. However, it is for this revolutionary McMinn’s Colour Atlas of Human Anatomy, first produced in 1977, that Bob’s name is known worldwide. Not only will this seventh edition bring sales to over 2 million in some 30 languages, including Latin, Korean, Chinese, Japanese and most European languages, but this book is also very popular with the art world – something of which he was most proud.

As a founding member of the British Association of Clinical Anatomists and past secretary of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain, Bob was one of my mentors (PHA) and a truly kind, warm-hearted and generous gentleman, whose invitation to work with him on the third edition in 1989 changed my own academic direction and pointed me to the “light” of clinical anatomy. I shall always remember the BACA/AACA Cambridge meeting in 2000 when Bob, the true Scot, arrived for his presentation as only a Scot can!

This new edition is authored by PHA and Jonathan Spratt, a Director of Radiology at Durham who worked on the sixth edition, and to replace the lost multi-talented giants of clinical anatomy we have transfused some new young anatomical blood.

First we have Professor Marios Loukas MD, PhD, Chair of Department of Anatomical Sciences and Dean of Research, at St. George’s University, Grenada, West Indies, who for the last decade has made anatomical waves with his amazing energy and prolific academic output. PHA has known Marios since he was a first-year medical student in Poland and noted his potential even 15 years ago. He is now an internationally recognised and published author and brings to this new edition his wide European education in Greece, Poland and Germany, as well as his postgraduate experience in Harvard and the Caribbean.

To add to this truly global academic input we also welcome Dr. Albert Van Schoor, anatomist from Pretoria and Honorary Secretary of the Anatomical Society of Southern Africa (ASSA), who is truly following in the footsteps of his own mentor, Professor Hanno Boon. Albert’s passion for both teaching and clinically applied research – his PhD was on clinical anatomy of practical procedures in children – was instilled in him by Professor Boon. His African experience and connections with physicians have brought us illustrations from the developing world that often are unavailable in Western culture. Gross pathologies seen in the tropics are vividly illustrated on our web pages.

We, all the authors both old and new, have essentially followed the pattern of Bob McMinn’s original work to produce an atlas of the human body aimed at health professionals but have moved the emphasis to correlating the “real” human body dissections directly with clinical practice such as radiology, endoscopy or clinical problems, both in the atlas itself and especially in the clinical vignettes on the website. To this end we have included and done the following:
• Added 100+ new dissections including lymphatics
• Added 100+ radiological images (MR and CT) correlated with dissections
• Added 300+ radiological images for the clinical vignettes on the web
• Increased the clinical anatomy case vignettes to nearly 500 – all now on the web with full download ability as jpeg files onto any student’s notes.
• Increased the images on the web to 2000+ which include clinical cases operative images, radiological techniques, endoscopy, etc.
• Added a new video section of 200+ 3D rotations and video loops (mainly 64-slice CT scan reconstructions and angiography) to help students appreciate the anatomical three-dimensional relationships (thanks especially to Dr. Richard Wellings, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire, for most of this collection). We hope that teachers, especially those in less developed parts of the world, will now be stimulated to give presentations with the latest technology to help their students learn anatomy in all its 3D glory. These video loops are marked by the video icon shown in the key below on the relevant page in the atlas and are all to be found in the 3D files on the web filed under anatomical structures (e.g., arteries, veins, brain, thorax). We hope this latest technology will excite all students in their study of the human body.