title: Approach to the study of human anatomy.
abstract: The first thing to do to describe the human body is to define the anatomical position and the bilateral symmetry which characterise every Metazoi (man included) and permit us to study the body in its two symmetric halves; the left and right sides are the result of a virtual cut on a vertical and median plan. This is followed by a resume of the general structures and the vocabulary of the outer shapes of the human body; its direction (it will be helpful to use the virtual geometric parallelepiped made by three couples of planes one orthogonal to the other); levels of structural organization (chemical, cellular, tissue, organ and the system level; the highest is the organism level). After that, rules and principles are enunciated in the four fundamental laws of anatomy regarding the organ structures and their systems studied by the surface, gross (macroscopic), systemic, regional and constitutional type anatomy. There is also some information concerning education and research, the competence of the Human Anatomy as recommended by art. 1 of D.M. 23. XI. 1999 of the Italian law. Later what Richard Snell written in the preface to "Clinical Anatomy for Medical Students" about the importance of the knowledge of human anatomy for medical and surgical applications will be reported.
authors.affiliation: Università degli Studi di Palermo, Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale, Sezione di Anatomia Umana E Luna.
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ridola
mesh_terms: D000715:Anatomy / Q000193:education / Q000266:history; D002102:Cadaver; D004210:Dissection / Q000266:history / Q000295:instrumentation; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000266:history; D049669:History, 16th Century; D006801:Humans