Anatomy: Past, Present and Future

The term anatomy derives from the Greek “anatomē” meaning dissection and concerns the study of the structural organization of organisms and their parts. The generation of accurate anatomical images has always allured the scientific minds seeking to better portray and understand human anatomy, physiology and disease. The history of anatomy began over 1000 years ago with the examination of sacrificial human bodies. The systematic anatomical study started with the work of Greek scientists like Alcmaeon (ca. 500 B.C.), and Hippocrates (ca. 460- 377 B.C.). In the next centuries, Aristotle (ca. 384-322 B.C.) and his contemporaries produced a more descriptive anatomical system based on animal dissection. Herophilus (335–280 B.C.) performed the first systematic dissection of the human body and is widely acknowledged as the father of anatomy. Galen (ca. 130-200 B.C.) dissected animals and wrote treatises on human anatomy. During the next few centuries, the knowledge of Greek anatomical treatises was lost, though some were translated into other languages like old English, Latin, and Arabic and some retained in Byzantium and the Islamic world