The Anatomist: A True Story of Gray's Anatomy
“A wonderful writer, Bill Hayes tells the multi-layered story of the two extraordinary young men who produced the most famous medical text of all time - a turning point in medical history, and a continuing influence and inspiration for artists, doctors and anatomists a century and a half later. Part memoir, part biography, part guided tour into the marvels of the human body, The Anatomist deserves a place on every bookshelf. And if you do not already have a copy of Gray's Anatomy, Bill...
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"Hayes pays eloquent tribute to two masterpieces: the human body and the book detailing it."—Publishers Weekly The New York Times - D. T. Max It's [his] gentle, inquiring approach that finally binds Hayes's somewhat disjointed Anatomy together. I wanted to hear a bit about, say, the "resurrection men" whose job it was to supply doctors up until Gray's era with fresh corpses often stolen from graveyards. But that is not Hayes's style. When we turn green, he is there to remind us to calm down. Traditionally, anatomy professors have left their mortal remains to the lab. One suspects that when his time comes, Hayes will join their ranks and this engaging book will not be his only tribute to the profession.
\ Louis BayardTo enter into the proper spirit, Hayes spent a year taking gross anatomy classes at the University of California-San Francisco, and his descriptions of the experience evoke the legacy of Gray and Carter more forcefully than any dusty diary could.\ —The Washington Post\ \ \ \ \ D. T. MaxIt's [his] gentle, inquiring approach that finally binds Hayes's somewhat disjointed Anatomy together. I wanted to hear a bit about, say, the "resurrection men" whose job it was to supply doctors up until Gray's era with fresh corpses often stolen from graveyards. But that is not Hayes's style. When we turn green, he is there to remind us to calm down. Traditionally, anatomy professors have left their mortal remains to the lab. One suspects that when his time comes, Hayes will join their ranks and this engaging book will not be his only tribute to the profession.\ —The New York Times\ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsScience writer Hayes (Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood, 2005, etc.) combines a you-are-there account with interesting biographical details about the men who put the human body on the map. The map is Gray's Anatomy, the reference work, originally titled Anatomy, Descriptive and Surgical, used by generations of medical students since its first edition was published in 1858. Curious to know more about the brilliant teacher who had the revolutionary idea of writing an anatomy text to assist surgeons, the author learned that there wasn't much to tell: Henry Gray died young and horribly of smallpox. The meticulous illustrator of Gray's text, however, had a long, extraordinary life, and Hayes found a trove of diaries and letters to flesh it out. Henry Vandyke Carter, a few years younger than Gray, was a diffident figure, confident in his drawing skills but given to dark moods, self-blame and anxieties about religious faith. Nevertheless, the two Henrys worked well together and produced to glowing acclaim a revolutionary volume. Gray did well financially, but many of Carter's duties were unpaid. He finally moved to Bombay, where he conducted research, taught anatomy and practiced medicine. His exemplary career was blighted by a scandalous love affair with a woman who bore him a child. Hayes unfolds a Hollywood-like plot, complete with a (sort-of) happy ending. Interspersed with this story, the author relates his personal experiences in gross-anatomy classes, conveying a sense of wonder at the beauty and complexity of the human body and the evolutionary compromises that have shaped it. No dull required course here-a vivid tale populated with flesh-and-blood characters, from thetwo Henrys to the cadavers themselves. Agent: Wendy Weil/Wendy Weil Agency\ \
