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GRAY, Henry.
Anatomy descriptive and surgical.
The drawings by H. V. Carter, M.D. lecturer on anatomy at Saint George's Hospital. The dissections jointly by the author and Dr. Carter.
First edition of the medical text which has been more widely used by successive generations of medical students and doctors than any other. Publisher's presentation copy to Frederick Le Gros Clark, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, inscribed on the half-title: "F. Le Gros Clark, With the Publishers' Compts"; and below that, a later family presentation to his grandson, the distinguished anatomist and paleoanthropologist Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark (1895–1971) from his uncle, dated 25 May 1913 (when the younger man was attending the medical school of St Thomas's Hospital). Not only an important book of reference, Gray's Anatomy has become a household phrase. "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, 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" (ODNB). "This lasting and monumental work, produced by a young man who dies young, must be compared to the Fabrica of Vesalius, who produced his great work before the age of thirty years" (Heirs to Hippocrates).
Royal octavo. Original bead-grain brown cloth, neatly rebacked with original spine laid down, brick-red endpapers. Oatmeal cloth folding case. Paper book label "GOM" at corner of front pastedown. Cloth a little faded as usual, inner hinges reinforced, a very good copy.
