Gray's Anatomy: Is it needed?

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Excelsius

Excelsius

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I was given this book some time ago: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Grays-Anatomy/Henry-Gray/e/9780760722732. It is the fifteenth edition: a facsimile of the 1901 book.

While the cover is great, I am not sure about the book. All structures are in black and white drawings and I know that the newer Gray's anatomy editions have color, which would make it easier to recognize or memorize structures. There are also 3D books and software. Do you think that there is any use for this book? Any of you use it in school? I am trying to figure out whether I should sell this book for now since I don't have enough shelf space for all my books and the only reason this book is there is to be used in medical school.
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Just get a netter's. Keep this one as a collectible.
 
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Excelsius said:
I was given this book some time ago: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Grays-Anatomy/Henry-Gray/e/9780760722732. It is the fifteenth edition: a facsimile of the 1901 book.

While the cover is great, I am not sure about the book. All structures are in black and white drawings and I know that the newer Gray's anatomy editions have color, which would make it easier to recognize or memorize structures. There are also 3D books and software. Do you think that there is any use for this book? Any of you use it in school? I am trying to figure out whether I should sell this book for now since I don't have enough shelf space for all my books and the only reason this book is there is to be used in medical school.
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looks elegant on the coffee table or bookshelf, no other use really.

agree that netter's is the way to go. grant's is good too. i didnt get to use this, but friends say rohan's is amazing, photographs of perfect dissections, if you don't get a chance to go to the lab. (note: as a general rule in medical school, stick to one or two books per subject, b/c there is no time to get through them all.)
 
Gray's is a fantastic book if you want super-detailed reference. It's not going to be a very good textbook though. Netter's is a great atlas for seeing the 'ideal' structures, and Rohen's is a good photo atlas to see what things look like in the actual cadaver. I recommend those two and whatever 'text/informational' text is recommended.
 
Gray's Anatomy is an awesome book for detailed references. Every edition of it is great, so no worries about the most recent ones. Indeed, the couloured more recent ones have several mistakes in the Neuroanatomy section. Also, they offer little more. Coloured images are okay, but for that, Netter or Yokochi are far more useful. The 39th edition (last year's) comes with a new kind of organization, but I think that affects little.

However, it depends on your school. At my school (Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto, in Portugal), Gray's Anatomy is pretty much THE textbook. No other book will manage to give us the ammount of information they require in our exam. No one ever gets more than 12/20 on Anatomy, even the genious ones. Just cause Gray is so massive! In school, though, the level of difficulty can be lower. So check what your colleagues from your school did. They already passed Anatomy there, they probably know better ;)
 
So it seems that you guys are saying that this book is very useful even though it is in black and white and is the 1901 edition. Then I guess I'll store it somewhere. It seems that the modern version of Gray's anatomy is not very student friendly (organized by parts of the body rather than by systems) and it costs almost $200.

Maybe I'll read this book little-by-little so that it has at least some use for now.
 
I use a new Grays atlas instead of Netters. Yeah the structures look more "real" in Netters, but there is way too many structures pointed out on a single drawing IMO on Netters. Grays is good at pointing a few things out / structure yet still covering every structure needed for the organ system one is currently studying. Its good to get the basics down in Grays, for me the "real" comes from spending time in the Lab.

* Netter's flash cards are great though.
 
I personally use Netter for schemes, and Yokochi for real high-quality printed pictures of anatomy pieces. But it seems like Yokochi's atlas isn't mentioned at all here.

Keep that Gray. Honest. Imagine how could it would fit on your medical library a few years from here.
 
Alright, I will be holding on to this book. I have heard a lot of good things about Gray's, but I was suspicious about this book because of its cheap price and the fact that it is published exclusively by Barnes and Noble. The cover is so good (hard, leather, with gold color plated on the sides of the pages) that I thought the whole price could be just the cost of the cover. Even copying this book would be more expensive.

If any of you have ever seen or used this particular book, let me know. Maybe we are so used to super expensive books that when we see something cheap we think something has to be wrong.
 
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Blues003 said:
I personally use Netter for schemes, and Yokochi for real high-quality printed pictures of anatomy pieces. But it seems like Yokochi's atlas isn't mentioned at all here.

Keep that Gray. Honest. Imagine how could it would fit on your medical library a few years from here.
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Yokochi = Rohen

i.e. Color Atlas of Anatomy by Rohen, Yokochi, and Lutjen-Drecoll

...or is there another?
 
DiverDoc said:
I use a new Grays atlas instead of Netters. Yeah the structures look more "real" in Netters, but there is way too many structures pointed out on a single drawing IMO on Netters. Grays is good at pointing a few things out / structure yet still covering every structure needed for the organ system one is currently studying. Its good to get the basics down in Grays, for me the "real" comes from spending time in the Lab.

* Netter's flash cards are great though.
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to each his own. netter's never looked realistic to me. a lot of the structures are highly exaggerated. it stressed relationships more than any other atlas IMO.
 
I liked Netter's b/c it gave you a mental image of what you should be hunting for.

Rohen was too idealized so it just wound up being a less detailed version of Netter's as it had fewer angles and images. You'll never see something that clean in lab so it wasn't useful to me. If you want to study for lab, there's no substitute for actually being there.
 
Well, Rohen is still "dirtier" than Netter, if you go that way...

I might be biased, cause I REALLY like Rohen, but hey, it did help me. It has the fundamental schemes, and then it makes you more familirazed with what you find in real practice.

But back onto that Gray. Don't use it for Neuroanatomy though. It's ancient, so it has lots of info which is now outdated... You can use it for clarifying Anatomy doubts. It's not like Anatomy has evolved a lot through the times anyway..
 
Excelsius said:
Alright, I will be holding on to this book. I have heard a lot of good things about Gray's, but I was suspicious about this book because of its cheap price and the fact that it is published exclusively by Barnes and Noble. The cover is so good (hard, leather, with gold color plated on the sides of the pages) that I thought the whole price could be just the cost of the cover. Even copying this book would be more expensive.

If any of you have ever seen or used this particular book, let me know. Maybe we are so used to super expensive books that when we see something cheap we think something has to be wrong.
Click to expand...

I actually bought the same exact book a few years back. I didn't find it very useful for anatomy class (I used Rohen's and Netter's flash cards) but it is very pretty and I'm going to hang on to it. I was also surprised by the price.
 
Depakote said:
If you want to study for lab, there's no substitute for actually being there.
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Agree - actually, better than any book is the getting elbow deep in the lab.
 
I got the recent one (150th Anniversary ed i think) of Gray's Anatomy for xmas. It's nice but i'm not gonna really read it till july.
 
If you value your sanity you won't read it at all. Gray's is a good referene but a terrible textbook. Netter's or Grant's or Rohen's is the way to go. Not to mention that you should be enjoying your summer and not preparing for school before it starts. Don't be an idiot.

Anyway that book will look sweet on your bookshelf. I'll probably buy a copy of Gray's during my career just as a reference but mostly as a kick-ass looking book to adorn my bookshelf.
 
I would recommend Netters Atlas (for labs), Rohen's photographic atlas (for dissections, practicals etc) and baby Moore's for anatomy
 
Blues003 said:
Well, Rohen is still "dirtier" than Netter, if you go that way...

I might be biased, cause I REALLY like Rohen, but hey, it did help me. It has the fundamental schemes, and then it makes you more familirazed with what you find in real practice.

But back onto that Gray. Don't use it for Neuroanatomy though. It's ancient, so it has lots of info which is now outdated... You can use it for clarifying Anatomy doubts. It's not like Anatomy has evolved a lot through the times anyway..
Click to expand...

Woah! Anything else that's outdated in it? One is better off not having any book than having a book that has some wrong information in it, especially concerning something you're interested in.
 
Excelsius said:
Woah! Anything else that's outdated in it? One is better off not having any book than having a book that has some wrong information in it, especially concerning something you're interested in.
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a 1901 text is probably going to be rich in eponyms.

The structures you learn in med school might be there but current anatomists are trending towards structure/function naming as opposed to eponymous. A newer atlas would save you a lot of time trying to figure out which structure = which.
 
Everyone seems a bit confused here. The facsimile Gray's you have is nice but frankly is really only useful for budding artists to study the body. The content has been totally rewritten over the last century so PLEASE do not study from it. The current Gray's Anatomy (40th ed) is an awesome book but no longer intended for students. it is organised by regions because it is a reference book for clinicians and something you may want to buy later when you are a surgeon perhaps.

There is a Gray's Anatomy for Students and a Gray's Atlas. The student book is intended for your core gross anatomy book and has as much clinical content as Moore's but with much better artwork and easier to read. The Atlas competes with Netter, but it has a more stylized look that some students prefer. Honestly you should have a textbook alongside your Atlas and should not be relying on your Netter or Rohen alone.

Keep the old Gray's for historical interest but honestly don't use it to study!
 
I use Rohen's in combination with Grant's dissector along with some canned notes from classes past for some additional clinical correlations. That works quite well.
 
Elsevier Editor said:
Everyone seems a bit confused here. The facsimile Gray's you have is nice but frankly is really only useful for budding artists to study the body. The content has been totally rewritten over the last century so PLEASE do not study from it. The current Gray's Anatomy (40th ed) is an awesome book but no longer intended for students. it is organised by regions because it is a reference book for clinicians and something you may want to buy later when you are a surgeon perhaps.

There is a Gray's Anatomy for Students and a Gray's Atlas. The student book is intended for your core gross anatomy book and has as much clinical content as Moore's but with much better artwork and easier to read. The Atlas competes with Netter, but it has a more stylized look that some students prefer. Honestly you should have a textbook alongside your Atlas and should not be relying on your Netter or Rohen alone.

Keep the old Gray's for historical interest but honestly don't use it to study!
Click to expand...

Gray's Anatomy for Students is ROCK SOLID. I highly recommend it and I've seen both Moore and Snell and it was much better than both.
 
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