Muscles - histology, micro/macroanatomy and US anatomy, a brand new perspective.

Abstract

With a great joy did I receive the publication of anatomical-ultrasonographic interpretation of muscle structure developed by Dr. Zbigniew Czyrny(1). I encouraged him into writing such a publication many years ago when this concept appeared and was being improved as Dr. Czyrny gained more and more experience in looking at muscles from his new perspective. The most significant in Dr. Czyrny's work on muscle structure understanding for me as an anatomist are two phenomena: methodological and cognitive. Dr. Czyrny did not discover new structures because all of them have been perfectly known for many years – both the structure of endomysium and perimysium as well as the presence of intramuscular tendon segments. A truly new contribution of Dr. Czyrny is the fact that basing on the meticulous observation of many clinical cases, he combined the known, but so far not related structures in a one logical whole. In this way he gave them new functional meaning of important diagnostic and pathophysiological implications. This mechanism is possible particularly in anatomy, or perhaps wider – morphology where the sum of combined facts allows for the creation of innovative coherent concepts. This can be successfully done not only by anatomists but also the doctors capable of sufficiently holistic and unusual thinking in order to combine the known facts and their own observations and to give them a new meaning. For myself Dr. Czyrny's investigation was so significant and inspiring that I created a research team in the Department of Descriptive and Clinical Anatomy in the Center of Biostructure Research of Medical University of Warsaw carrying on an extensive study on the inner muscle structure on the macroscopic level. I am convinced that Dr. Czyrny's concepts force the revision of many myological stereotypes and in some sense create a field for writing myology from scratch. The reading of Dr. Czyrny's work should be recommended to radiologists and also anatomists, histologists, physiologists, biomechanics, neurologists, orthopedic surgeons and physiotherapists, to the ones for whom the musculoskeletal system is an important element of everyday research work and medical practice.