AFTER ten years' preparation the first edition of our Atlas of Human Anatomy was published between 1946 and 1951. Our experience enabled us to improve each of the subsequent editions and the present one has also been thoroughly revised and enlarged to allow the inclusion of more instructive illus trations. Throughout we have adhered to our original intention that this work should be a well propor tioned Atlas of life-like illustrations primarily for medical students but also useful to the practising physician and surgeon. The introduction of topographical illustrations in the third volume has been welcomed by readers and, while not embarking on histology, semi-microscopic figures have been introduced into some chapters for a better understanding of function. We did not deviate without reason from the currently accepted methods of illustrating the elements of the different systems such as bones, joints, muscles, vessels and nerves and we were at pains to base our illustrations on original dissections and to include in them only essential details. The use of colour in the illustrations, introduced by the Italian anatomist Aselli (1627), was with didactic intent. The legends to the illustrations of this edition use the nomenclature of the "Nomina Anatomica", Paris 1955 (PNA) , as revised in New York in 1960.
