Atlas of Surgical Anatomy PDF

Preface

Léon Dorn is one of the most famous medical illustrators in the world. Even today, at 80 years of age, he continues to pursue his work with the same enthusiasm. His work coincides with his great passion: the representation of the human body. Anatomy holds no secrets for him. He has spent countless hours in operating theatres, dissecting rooms and with himself; when Léon Dorn is drawing hands, he is drawing his own hands ...

Until recently, medical illustration was an undervalued job. The illustrators were basically artists, attracted to the human body. Many of them were self-trained people. Most of the time they were not well considered and some publishers even refused to mention their names in books.

Today, medical illustration has gained its ‘letters patent of nobility'. Léon Dorn has witnessed the emergence, the development and the now well recognised state of the medical illustration.

Dorn is specially involved in the illustration of surgical techniques, which is probably the most difficult part of the art of medical illustration since the illustrator must attend surgical operations to understand what exactly is being done and then distil a long procedure into a few drawings. Usually, no more than five to seven drawings are needed to illustrate a surgical technique.The skill and possibly the genius of the artist lies in their ability to condense multiple operating stages into a limited number of drawings.

From a didactic point of view, it reveals the superiority of drawings over film. A film (movie or video sequence) delivers a linear succession of snap shots whereas a single drawing illustrates an entire sequence of a technical procedure.

For learning a technique, human understanding proceeds more by intuitive discerning of whole stages rather than separate elementary actions. This is the reason why the medical illustration based on drawings is superior to one based on videos. In spite of the recent advances in techniques of communication, the illustrated book will always be valid for the learning process.

I would like just to comment upon Léon Dorn's manner of working. Some illustrators work at home, trying to restore a surgical technique from a draft prepared by the surgeon. Dorn's method is quite different. For him, the illustrator is like a reporter, an eye witness and a field worker; he has to perceive the intensity of an acute stage to express it through the drawing. This book is an attempt to communicate this particular state of mind.With Léon Dorn we have selected over 300 drawings from among a collection of several thousands.

These selected drawings do not constitute a treatise of surgical techniques. Their function is to highlight one of the main stages of the illustrator's work, which is the ‘almost finished rough sketch'. For that reason the drawings are still outlines in lead pencil, in black and white.We have included a few definitive drawings in colour to show the contrast between what is actually published and what is the most important stage of the artist's work. Thus we present isolated drawings or several associated drawings, taken from different surgical fields, which do not constitute the complete description of a surgical technique.

The drawings are succinctly explained, just for understanding what they show. Where they are present, we have kept the legends written by the artist as an aid for the definitive drawing. On the other hand, we have not added new legends that could impede the serene contemplation of the drawings.What is important for the readers is to open their eyes for pleasure; the secret is not in the text but in the illustrations. Léon Dorn has rejuvenated the tradition of the medical illustrators who were initially artists admiring the human body, such as Calcar, the pupil of Le Titian, who immortalised the dissections of Vesalius, or Jacob, the pupil of David, who drew the anatomical preparations of Bourgery.