Gray’s Anatomy An Effort to Simplify Shows How Complex Life Really Is. How Does It Get That Way?

On July 1, 1858, papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace were read before the Linnean Society. This was the first public presentation of their ideas about how natural variation arose and proliferated into new, diverse species. The meeting had been scheduled for June, but had to be rescheduled because of the death of the Society’s vice-president (see Wikipedia, ‘‘Linnean Society’’). The evolution paper was shifted into the ad hoc summer meeting. Famously, few people were there and perhaps fewer paid any attention to the message (this may depend on how many sherries had been consumed). But the new ideas certainly were noticed in the following year, 1859, when Darwin’s book on the subject, On the Origin of Species, appeared. Darwin revised his book through a sixth edition. Countless copies have been published. After 150 years, it is still the book on evolution, still the original in Darwin’s word as well as name. That story has been told many times. But other things were going on in London in that remarkable year, 1858. Almost to the day of the Linnaean Society meeting, the edited proofs of another book, which became ‘‘the’’ book on its subject, were delivered to the London publisher Parker & Son. That was Gray’s Anatomy, Descriptive and Surgical (Fig. 1). Its story is also worth following from 1858 to the present. (The following history of Gray’s is largely from a recent book by Ruth Richardson). Like Darwin vis à vis Wallace, the young anatomical star Dr. Henry Gray (1827–1861, Fig. 2a), Lecturer of Anatomy at St. George’s Hospital, also had a relatively unsung partner, Henry Vandyke Carter (1831–1897, Fig. 2b). While Gray wrote the crisp descriptive text, it was Carter who drew the famously clear and esthetically beautiful illustrations that made their book a success. Carter’s wood engravings are still used by artists and many of us treasure our copies of some edition of Gray’s just for its esthetics. Unlike Darwin, however, Henry Gray was not forthcoming in giving due credit to his co-conspirator. The young Dr. Gray undertook this project because he was dissatisfied with the existing anatomy books. One was by John Bell (1763–1820). Bell’s book was noted for its realistic but gruesome figures, which accurately depicted the socially degraded people who were used in dissecting theaters at the time (Fig. 3). Those whose parts were separated for medical students had first been separated from their resting places by graverobbing. Bell’s illustrations often of villains or paupers from the dregs of society further degraded them, and rather needlessly. However, the standard text in Gray’s day was Quain’s. It was authoritative, but too detailed for students, who needed training as physicians and surgeons, not anatomists. Anatomy books sold very well, so with Carter’s artistic help and the publisher’s encouragement, Gray aimed at something that could be used effectively in class, a book with simple descriptions and clear, utilitarian drawings to train future surgeons. After about two years of intense and patient work, with Carter often carving in less than the best of light to make its 363 woodcuts, Gray’s was published in 1858. The initial edition of 2,000 copies sold out. Gray’s quickly went into subsequent issues and became the new standard. The result is history. The 1901 edition of Gray’s is still available, though you’ll have to spot for yourself which figures bear Carter’s unique style, with its handengraved labeling embedded in the picture, because many new figures have been added. Also, Carter’s drawings were altered when better publishing methods were developed. It’s easy to refer to traits like the ‘‘limb’’ or ‘‘head.’’ But these single words belie a boggling wealth of intricacy and detail. To ask the Darwinian question, ‘‘How did the head evolve?’’ is but a metaphoric question, and hardly a scientific one, as is easy to see. Its anatomy alone, as seen in just a few of Gray’s figures depicting the head (Fig. 4) is daunting. If it is even biologically meaningful to speak of a head as one structure, this one comprises a weaving of arteries, veins, capillaries, lymphatic vessels, blood, nerves, the many parts of the eyes, outer and inner ears, olfactory and taste systems, teeth, muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, joints, marrow, passages into and out of bones, and muscles. Then there are the many covering layers, the dura, pia, arachCrotchets & Quiddities