Body

A latter-day Gray’s Anatomy for lay readers, this high-tech tour around the body is fronted by Lord Winston, now a household name for his TV series, in addition to his pioneering work in the field of human fertility. In his introduction he writes of the complexity of the body, ‘the delicate way our bones fit together, the miles of tubing that supply blood… we should remember what a gift the body is, and that we should look after it’. How close his involvement in the book is unclear, the title page listing him as the editorial consultant, with the text written by Richard Walker. In any case it is the images that dominate the book, often larger than life, surreal in their clarity, flesh stripped away to reveal bones, muscles and inner organs of the body. The imaging process is explained briefly in an opening spread, and we are told that a donated dead body is encased in a hardening agent, frozen to a low temperature and then sectioned horizontally by a highly accurate cutting device to produce 1mm thick sections of the body. Each one is photographed digitally and stored. The rest is down to computers. Detailed annotation gives information about these extraordinary pictures and there are acetate overlays that show for example how oxygen-rich blood is delivered to the body or how food moves through the digestive system. An accompanying CD allows you to explore the body on screen (though not on my computer unfortunately), extending the use of this visual atlas of the body.