Introduction

Anatomy is a science which, to many of its students, is couched in words which are difficult to understand, being drawn from other languages, cultures and eras. Many have found a breakthrough in comprehension of the subject through a fuller understanding of its terminology since, very often, the words used are merely simple descriptions of anatomical structures but in an unfamiliar language. If, as it is said, 'every picture tells a 'story' then happily in Anatomy 'every word is a picture'.

It is the aim of this site, therefore, to provide all who study Anatomy with a simple reference guide to such words in order that their comprehension of the subject may be enhanced.

The boundaries of Anatomy are not clearly defined and there is often overlap, especially within the spheres of cell and molecular biology. For the purposes of this site, however, words pertaining to intra- and sub-cellular features have, by and large, been avoided. This is appropriate given that the vast majority of those words in need of explanation significantly pre-date the use of microscopy, relating instead to gross anatomy.

This site started out as a book - An Anatomical Wordbook - (published by Butterworth Heinneman in 1990 but now out of print - although electronic copies may be downloaded for free) which itself started out as a collection of explanations to anatomical words kept for personal interest. When it was seen how helpful knowledge of these explanations could be to others, the collection was developed with a view to wider use. This project would not have reached as satisfactory a conclusion, however, had it not been for the assistance of my wife, Annette, whose influence is implicit throughout and to whom this work is dedicated.

The site then changed focus when the changes to the way GoogleSites operated caused some layout problems that were too numerous to correct.

You may, therefore, like to download a copy of the original 'Classic Googlesite'. (See below.)