The most critically acclaimed of all of Dr. Frank H. Netter’s works, this fully illustrated single book from the 8-volume/13-book reference collection includes: hundreds of world-renowned illustrations by Frank H. Netter, MD; informative text by recognized medical experts; anatomy, physiology, and pathology; and diagnostic and surgical procedures.
Scott L. Pomeroy is an internationally known expert on the biological origins, treatment and long-term outcomes of childhood brain tumors. He has served as the Chair of the Department of Neurology and Neurologist-in-Chief of Boston Children’s Hospital since 2005. Dr. Pomeroy graduated
summa cum laude and
Phi Beta Kappa from Miami University in 1975 and in 1982 was the first graduate of the M.D., Ph.D. program of the University of Cincinnati. He trained in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School and in child neurology at St. Louis Children’s Hospital/Washington University of St. Louis. In 1989, he won the Child Neurology Society Young Investigator Award for work done as a postdoctoral fellow of Dale Purves. The Pomeroy lab focuses on understanding the molecular and cellular basis of medulloblastomas and other embryonal brain tumors. Dr. Pomeroy has served as an ad hoc and chartered member of many NIH study sections, as co-Editor of
Neurology in Clinical Practice and Associate Editor of
Annals of Neurology, as President of the Child Neurology Foundation and as a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. He has received numerous awards including the Sidney Carter Award of the American Academy of Neurology, the Daniel Drake Medal of the University of Cincinnati, the inaugural Compassionate Caregiver Award of the Kenneth Schwartz Center, and the Bernard Sachs Award of the Child Neurology Society. In 2017, he was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Michael J. Aminoff, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in neurology at the University of California San Francisco, is an internationally recognized neurologist, clinical investigator, and author. His published contributions led to the award of a Doctor of Science degree by the University of London in 2000. He is one of the two editors-in-chief of the four-volume
Encyclopedia of the Neurological Sciences (2003; 2014) as well as one of the series editors of the multivolume
Handbook of Clinical Neurology. He was editor-in-chief of the journal
Muscle & Nerve from 1998 to 2007 and has served on numerous other editorial boards. He was a director of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology for eight years and served as board chair in 2011. In 2006, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine and, in 2007, the A.B. Baker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Neurological Education from the American Academy of Neurology. In 2019 he received the Robert S. Schwab Award for outstanding contributions to research in peripheral clinical neurophysiology from the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society.
Frank H. Netter was born in New York City in 1906. He studied art at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design before entering medical school at New York University, where he received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1931. During his student years, Dr. Netter’s notebook sketches attracted the attention of the medical faculty and other physicians, allowing him to augment his income by illustrating articles and textbooks. He continued illustrating as a sideline after establishing a surgical practice in 1933, but he ultimately opted to give up his practice in favor of a full-time commitment to art. After service in the United States Army during World War II, Dr. Netter began his long collaboration with the CIBA Pharmaceutical Company (now Novartis Pharmaceuticals). This 45-year partnership resulted in the production of the extraordinary collection of medical art so familiar to physicians and other medical professionals worldwide. Icon Learning Systems acquired the Netter Collection in July 2000 and continued to update Dr. Netter’s original paintings and to add newly commissioned paintings by artists trained in the style of Dr. Netter. In 2005, Elsevier Inc. purchased the Netter Collection and all publications from Icon Learning Systems. There are now over 50 publications featuring the art of Dr. Netter available through Elsevier Inc.
Dr. Netter’s works are among the finest examples of the use of illustration in the teaching of medical concepts. The 13-book Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations, which includes the greater part of the more than 20,000 paintings created by Dr. Netter, became and remains one of the most famous medical works ever published. The Netter Atlas of Human Anatomy, first published in 1989, presents the anatomic paintings from the Netter Collection. Now translated into 16 languages, it is the anatomy atlas of choice among medical and health professions students the world over.
The Netter illustrations are appreciated not only for their aesthetic qualities, but, more importantly, for their intellectual content. As Dr. Netter wrote in 1949 “clarification of a subject is the aim and goal of illustration. No matter how beautifully painted, how delicately and subtly rendered a subject may be, it is of little value as a medical illustration if it does not serve to make clear some medical point.” Dr. Netter’s planning, conception, point of view, and approach are what inform his paintings and what make them so intellectually valuable.
Frank H. Netter, MD, physician and artist, died in 1991.
