Review – Atlas of Anatomy by Anne M. Gilroy, Brian R. MacPherson, and Lawrence M. Ross (5/5 stars)

Okay this isn’t usually the type of book I review, but when I saw this was offered through the Amazon Vine program I snapped it up because it just looked so cool.  Right off the bat I will tell you I am not a medical student or a doctor so this review is from the layman’s perspective.

This book is exactly what the title suggests; it is an atlas of the anatomy of the body.  It is filled with wonderful illustrations of every part of your body you can possibly imagine.  There are not many photographs; most of the pictures are illustrations although there is the occasional picture of an MRI or something of that nature.  The book is separated into six sections: back, thorax, abdomen and pelvis, upper limb, lower limb, head and neck, and neuroanatomy.  The nueroanatomy is by far the smallest section of the book.

All of the illustrations have decent descriptions.  The skeletal, muscular, and vascular structures are detailed for each section as well ascartilage, ligaments, joints.

Everything is beautifully presented and very easy to read.

This is definitely a great book for those who want something to help them visualize the location of things in the human body.  My only complaint would be that there is not a ton of text. There are short descriptions and some small grey boxes with asides describing certain conditions.  But, this is definitely a book that details where things are and doesn’t have a ton of emphasis on how things work.

I think it is a beautiful book full of a ton of excellent information on where things are in the human body.  The brief explanations given are good enough for the layman, but not incredibly detailed.  We have used it a number of times in my family to show my three year old son what his bones look like, where his muscles are, and how blood gets moved through his body.  I think it will be a useful book for us as a family.

Overall an excellent map of the human body, very high quality and highly detailed illustrations.  I would definitely recommend this book both for families and for medical students who need to learn the parts of the human body.