Manual of Human Dissection

MANUAL OF HUMAN DISSECTION. By Edwin M. Shearer. Edited by Charles E. Tobin. Philadelphia, Blakiston and Company, 1949. xv, 286 pp. $4.50. The second edition of Edwin M. Shearer's Manual of Human Dissection has been issued under the editorship of Charles E. Tobin, Ph.D., associate professor of anatomy at the University of Rochester. In a brief preface Doctor Tobin outlines the changes which have been made. To the reviewer these do not appear to have substantially altered the body of Shearer's original work. While the order of illustrations has been changed, their number remains the same. Comparison of the two editions shows that of the 79 drawings appearing in the original work, 75 have been carried over intact to the new edition. Two of the remaining four drawings are somewhat different views of regions illustrated in the original edition. Six sections of the text, selected at random, were compared in the two editions. The section treating of the prevertebral region has been extensively rewritten and enlarged, constituting a new treatment of the topic. In the two sections covering the peritoneum and the orbit a few emendations appear, as well as some changes in the dissection procedure. The remaining three sections-pectoral region, axilla, extensor region of forearm and handshow but minor variations from the original text. Although the present edition does not run to as many pages as its predecessor, doubtless its more compact format has made possible the inclusion of additional dissection procedures, as mentioned by Doctor Tobin in his preface. In its present form this book admirably fulfills Doctor Shearer's aim of furnishing a brief and practical guide to the dissector. The manual rests handily on the reading stand, and its printing is large enough to be seen from across the cadaver; bold face type stresses important names and relationships. In using the manual the student will have the benefit of brief and pertinent counsel from one who has quite evidently been over the ground, nor will he be burdened by the garrulity of an anatomical textbook. The black and white drawings possess the seemly virtue of resembling cadaver material more closely than the ofttimes stylized figures of the atlases. The manual can be recommended as an excellent guide for the beginning dissector. Those already in possession of the first edition may not find investment in the second a necessity. RUSSELL V. FULDNER