Anatomic drawing for medical education

Abstract

Leonardo da Vinci said “when describing anatomy, don’t trouble yourself with words unless you are talking to blind men”. In communicating structural detail, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. Humans have a long history of depicting anatomic ideas in graphic form. Rudimentary examples exist in prehistoric cave paintings. From the beginning of recorded history classical centers of civilization in Egypt, Greece, Rome, India and China recorded their concepts of anatomy on media such as stone, silk and papyrus. During the long night of the dark ages barber surgeons of Europe left scattered primitive examples of illustrations, limited by the constraints on learning imposed by the Christian church and Islam.