1870. Large 8vo, pp. xxxii, [33] - 876; with 462 wood engravings; some occasional light foxing and spotting to early and later leaves but otherwise clean and bright, final endpaper somewhat creased; in contemporary sheep, spine in compartments with raised bands, with black morocco label lettered in gilt, label with slight loss of a couple of letters, spine darkened, covers a little stained and soiled with some scuffing, extremities bumped and lightly worn; a good copy. An appealing copy of an important classic in medical anatomy, first published in 1858, with the first American edition published in the following year. The present copy is the ‘New American from the fifth and enlarged English edition.’ The work remains as a standard work for the English-speaking world, and remains in print to this day.
‘The author's opening statement in the Preface reads: "This work is intended to furnish the Student and Practitioner with an accurate view of the Anatomy of the Human Body, and more especially the application of this science to Practical Surgery." The success of that intention for more than a century could be proclaimed by generations of medical students and doctors of medicine in the English-speaking world. Gray (1825-1861) was lecturer on anatomy at St. George's Hospital, London, and this lasting and monumental work, produced by a young man who died young, must be compared to the Fabrica of Vesalius, who produced his great work before the age of thirty years’ (Heirs 1914).
‘Such was the success of this enterprise that the first edition, seven hundred and fifty copies was sold out within two years, and the book has continued to appear in revised editions up to the present...The first American edition was published in June 1859 by Blanchard and Lea in Philadelphia, utilizing a complete set of wood blocks imported for the illustrations’ (Grolier, Medicine, 68).
‘The work was superior to other treatises on anatomy in three areas—the lucid and logical arrangement of a mass of detailed description; clear new drawings based on dissections by the surgeon-author and the artist, a physician; and sections on the surgical anatomy of defined areas, such as the axilla, the elbow, the popliteal space, the perineum, and the laryngotracheal region’ (Lilly Library, Notable Medical Books, 211).
‘The success of the book was not due to an absence of rivals. There were already several texts on anatomy...Gray's Anatomy, however, eclipsed all others, partly for its meticulous detail, partly for its emphasis on surgical anatomy, but most of all perhaps for the excellence of the illustrations, based on drawings by H. V. Carter [1831-1897], who assisted Gray with the dissections, and engraved by Messrs Butterworth and Heath with remarkable skill. The design of the book, and the skill with which the illustrations were interpolated in the text, could hardly have been improved. For a man in his early thirties it was a remarkable achievement’ (ODNB).