"The days when the anatomist commanded the respect and confidence of his medical colleagues solely on the basis of his knowledge of static morphology, are rapidly disappearing".

Abstract

In Cheever's Anatomy Eclipsed published in 1933, Harvey Cushing (Fig. 1) is quoted as stating the following: Photograph of Harvey Cushing “More and more the pre-clinical chairs in most of our schools have come to be occupied by men whose scientific interests may be quite unrelated to anything that obviously has to do with Medicine, some of whom, indeed, confess to a feeling that by engaging in problems that have an evident bearing on the healing art they lose caste among their fellows.” It tends to create a sense of frustration in the morphological and clinical anatomist to learn from the pen of the Professor of Anatomy in one of our most conspicuous and richly endowed schools that the subject of the former's study and teaching is nothing but “fixed protoplasm,” that “human anatomy was in great danger of becoming nothing more than a handmaid to Medicine and Surgery” – and that “the days when the anatomist commanded the respect and confidence of his medical colleagues solely on the basis of his knowledge of static morphology, are rapidly disappearing.” Harvey Cushing was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1869 and attended Harvard Medical School where he earned his M.D. in 1895. He did his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital under the guidance of William Halsted. After additional training in Europe, he returned to Johns Hopkins Hospital as faculty. His illustrious career in neurosurgery has resulted in him being known as the father of modern neurosurgery. This issue of Clinical Anatomy adds to the medical world by continuing to establish anatomy as a cornerstone on which all patient care issues.