Gray's Anatomy-The Classic Collector's Edition with a new introduction by John A. Crocco, M.D., Chief of Pulmonary Services, St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center of New York and Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, New York University School of Medicine

This is a landmark edition of one of the greatest texts of our time. Gray's Anatomy has been an international bestseller for 100 years; its appeal is not only to physicians and students, but to artists and the medically curious. As the new Introduction by Dr. Crocco states:

"Every living physician today has been exposed to Gray's Anatomy and nearly every one has used it. It was Gray's Anatomy that occupied most of the embryonic physician's waking hours, whether at home or at the side of his cadaver.

"There have been many imitations, but few real competitors. There have been dissection manuals and pictorial atlases brilliantly illustrated with exquistie potographs. There have been synopses of anatomy and there have been monographs on various regions of the body. However, there is only one gray's Anatomy.

"This stellar book represents the acme of anatomical description over the last century and wil probably still be the premier text in anatomy over the next one hundred years. This commemorative edition is a very fitting tribute to Dr. Henry Gray, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, whose collassal work will be remembered by medical historians past and future and by twentieth-century physicians and surgeons as the anatomy text of our age."

The definitive work on human anatomy nomenclature. ( )

I found the JG Press copy of Grey's Anatomy a few years ago at a used book sale and could not put it down...obviously not in the way you can't put gripping fiction down, but in the sense that the drawings absolutely mesmerized me. I couldn't look away from it. Even the typeset fascinated me, as did the oddly calming (but definitely not boring!) effect the words had on me whenever I picked it up at night. "Phalanges," "sternum," occipital," even "longitudinal fissure" all sounded like poetry to me. It's kind of weird, because I don't do much medical reading, but I find the original Gray's Anatomy great bedtime reading... ( )

The classic edition of this text is a landmark edition, including 780 illustrations, and coving every aspect of human anatomy.

Of all the books on my shelf this one probably gets the most comment when it is noticed, usually implying what kinds of things I might be looking up in it.