e-Anatomy

Images from the National Library of Medicine's Visible Human Project®

This module presents the anatomy of the whole human body based on cross-sectional photographs of a male cadaver. 1300 anatomical structures have been labeled on 463 photographs of axial cross-sections. This atlas is based on the Visible Human Project ran by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) under the direction of Michael J. Ackerman.

Photographs of the male cadaver

The male cadaver is from Joseph Paul Jernigan, a 38-year-old Texas murderer who was executed by lethal injection on August 5, 1993.
The male cadaver was encased and frozen in a mixture of gelatin and water in order to stabilize the specimen for cutting. The specimen was then “cut” in the axial plane at 1 millimeter intervals. Each of the resulting 1,871 “slices” was photographed in both analogue and digital, yielding 15 gigabytes of data.
 

Anatomy of the whole human body (male cadaver) : Brain

To provide a web-based application, we reduced the number of slices (463) and the images resolution (640X368 pixels). We also removed the frozen water around the body.
Furthermore, we chose to redirect the slices by rotation and horizontal symmetry, in order to give an axis similar to a CT-scan (and not the standard anatomical axis, which reverses the right and left sides). Original pictures show the body in procubitus with a cranial view. The images presented in this module are therefore "false” because we now have to imagine the patient on decubitus, with a caudal view, which does not match the original cut of the body.

Position and abnormalities of this male human body 

Freezing caused the man’s brain to become slightly swollen, and his inner ear ossicles were lost during preparation of the slices.

Visible Human Project: Head , Face

Small blood vessels were collapsed by the freezing process.
Tendons are difficult to cut cleanly, and they occasionally smear across the slice surfaces.
The male has only one testicle, is missing his appendix, and has tissue deterioration at the lethal injection site. Also visible are tissue damage to the dorsum of each forearm from the formalin injection and damage to the right sartorius and femoral vessels from opening the right femoral vein for drainage. The male was also not "cut" while in anatomical position, so the cuts through his arms are oblique.

Visible Human Project (male cadaver): Neck

Visible Human Project: Thorax, Lungs, Heart

Visible Human Project; Abdomen, Liver, Spleen, Pancreas, Alimentary system

Abdominopelvic cavity : Urinary system (Urinary bladder, Ureter), Male genital system

Anatomy of the whole human body: display anatomical labels

The "anatomical" menu displays 20 types of labels which correspond to the 16 chapters of Terminologia Anatomica (we divided the cardiovascular system into heart, arteries and veins, and the nervous system into central nervous system, peripheral and autonomic):

• General Anatomy
• Bones; Skeletal system
• Joints; Articular system
• Muscles; Muscular system
• Alimentary system
• Respiratory system
• Thoracic cavity; Thorax
• Urinary system
• Male genital system
• Abdominopelvic cavity
• Endocrine glands
• Heart
• Arteries
• Veins
• Lymphoid system
• Central nervous system
• Peripheral nervous system
• Autonomic nervous system
• Sense organs
• Integumentary system

Cross-sectional anatomy-thigh: Muscles, Nerves

The Visible Human Project is a fantastic tool that allows you to view almost all anatomical structures of the body. For didactic purposes and practice, we labeled one tenth of the possible structures to not overload the module. We deliberately set main names of bones, and summarily labeled the brain, almost all muscles of the body are listed.
The anatomical labels of the Visible Human Project are available in Latin (Terminologia Anatomica), French, English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Italian, Korean and Japanese.
The feature "Quick access" takes the user to the head, neck, thorax, abdomen, pelvis, thighs, legs or feet in one click.
 

Atlas of human anatomy : Visible Human Project (Leg)

Bibliography:

• NLM's Visible Human Project^®: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/getting_data.html
• Terminologia Anatomica: International Anatomical Terminology - FCAT Federative Committee On Anatomical Terminology, Federative Committee on Anatomical Terminology - Thieme, 1998 - ISBN 3131152516, 9783131152510
• Wikipedia – The Visible Human Project : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_human_project