Talk:Gray's Anatomy/Archive 1

Bartleby.com

THOROUGHLY REVISED AND RE-EDITED BY WARREN H. LEWIS ILLUSTRATED WITH 1247 ENGRAVINGS

PHILADELPHIA: LEA & FEBIGER, 1918 NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2000

Does this mean that the text on their site is NOT public domain? Is there any electronic source containing the unabridged contents of this book?

What about the images? Surely I can't just colour-in a public domain source, then claim copyright?? Coz that's all they've done.

thanks for your help :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tristanb (talk • contribs) 2003-04-14T10:24:49

IANAL, but I would think that Bartleby might possibly be able to claim copyright on the specific HTML pages they've put up — not however on the text or any unmodified pictures. So you can't just copy a HTML page from their site and stick it on yours, but you should be ok to copy passages of any length, because they don't own copyright on the text (or, again, unmodified images).

Ropers 00:12, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Refused permission

I was looking for some illustrations to add to my site www.everyday-taichi.com - specifically I wanted to show the link between various tai chi exercises and the muscles they use.

I asked Bartelby for permission to use some of their Gray's Anatomy illustrations - and they refused. I understand that if they add significant original content that the work becomes "new" but I thought that the old stuff was availble to copy.

Does this mean that any action to convert the book into a web page makes it original and hence creates a new copyright?

Does this mean I need to find an actual physical book and scan it myself?

Or is there another on line source of this edition? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.64.228.82 (talk • contribs)

• They refused? Hah! They can refuse all they want, but it's public domain! Anything they have added value to by modifying may be their property, but the actual original text and images are public domain, through and through. So you can use it. -- Phyzome is Tim McCormack 17:41, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)

• They probably own the rights to the newer versions (since they have modified them & reworked the illustrations). But the older ones must still be public domain. I am not that familiar with the copyright status of books and illustrations that are constantly reedited, but based on what I know from the Gutenberg Project (take "Moby Dick" for instance), you MUST make a fresh copy/scan (by yourself) from an old edition. You can't use a scanned (digital) picture without the owner's acknowledgement (the jpg image by itself is protected by copyright laws). I would suggest that you make your own scans from the 1918 edition, if it is available in "paper" media and if you can secure the right to make such copies in a public library. 207.134.187.165 (talk) 08:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Unaltered copies that do not add modifications that would be deemed original work worthy of protection are not copyrightable. You don't have to go back to an original. You can make a copy of a copy of content that is in the public domain. Yes, that applies to images too. There was a lawsuit about this some time back, and the right to make copies of scans/copies of PD works was confirmed. [1]
    The parent poster's claim that "they probably own the rights to the newer versions" is likely false. (What "newer versions"?) The parent poster boldly claims that "they have modified [the newer versions] & reworked the illustrations", but the parent poster shows no evidence whatsoever of any copyrightable modifications or reworkings (and you can check this by comparing with the originals). The claim, "You can't use a scanned (digital) picture without the owner's acknowledgement (the jpg image by itself is protected by copyright laws)" is absolutely false in light of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel. One might almost be inclined to don one's conspiracy theory hat, suspect FUD, and check who 207.134.187.165 really is. It's a shame Virgil's WikiScanner is currently offline.
    That said, it's probably a good idea to make or obtain scans of the images from better quality facsimile prints/sources than use the puny Bartleby copies, because their sloppy low-rez reproductions are terrible. The original publishers printed much better-quality copies of their images over 150 years ago. 31.16.123.164 (talk) 06:56, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
• See also: http://www.freeworldu.org/publicdomain.htm 207.134.187.165 (talk) 08:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  [3rd party edit: page seems to have moved here: http://www.freeworldu.org/static/publicdomain.aspx]

• I'm not sure I quite got it. If the illustrations in a new edition of Gray's Anatomy would have been identical to the old ones, could I have scanned them from a book of the new edition? —Bromskloss (talk) 23:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Regular Expressions

Here's a handy-dandy regular expression I use when gathering text from the Bartelby site. It converts headings into wiki-headings:

\n\([a-zA-Z0-9./-]+\).\x97

to

\n=== \1 ===\n

This is for the Textpad search-and-replace function, which I believe uses POSIX. -- Phyzome is Tim McCormack 17:45, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)

Criticism

Gray's Anatomy (39th Edition) should be criticised properly. As a medical student I expected it to be an exhaustive work on anatomy. However, I was shocked by omissions in the start of the course itself. Case in point: Erb's paralysis. It is one of the first things a medical student is taught about. Its coverage in Gray's is cavalier. There is *no mention* of Erb's Point, nor a systematic appraisal of the causes, signs, and anatomical peculiarities of Erb's paralysis. All there is is a paragraph ib blurb form. I am sure this stupidity is perpetrated in other sections as well. Some fellow doctors should please review the 39th edition and post their views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.134.161.76 (talk • contribs)

The anonymous writer from 221.134.161.76 complains that Gray's Anatomy does not give a comprehensive account of Erb's palsy. Even though a lecture on the anatomy of the brachial plexus might mention common injuries, most people would not expect to find full clinical details in a basic science textbook. Even a work on clinical or applied anatomy would cover only a few aspects of a specific injury like this. The obvious places to look would be textbooks of neurology, orthopaedics, or paediatrics. NRPanikker 02:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with NRPanikker. The 'criticism' above is wholly unjustified. Hovea 12:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Please allow me to clarify myself. First, textbooks of neurology, orthopaedics, or paediatrics (leaving aside the questionable value of the last two mentioned sources) are *not* at all accessible to a freshman medical student, while clinical aspects of anatomy (what NRPanikker calls ``applied anatomy) are quite important in view of the new anatomy teaching methodology being followed in medical colleges, at least in India. Just for comparison purposes, I refer NRPanikker to B. D. Chaurasia's _Human Anatomy_, 4th edition. It contains a concise, lucid, and reasonably complete (for this level) description of clinical features of brachial plexus injuries, including Erb's paralysis and Klumpke's paralysis, among others. When such a ``low-quality' (and chock full of mistakes) book such as BDC is able to provide such information, is it too much to expect better, or at least the same, from the so-called ``Bible of Anatomy? No wonder medical students are forced to learn anatomy by trial-and-error using books such as BDC. Gray's is a complete let-down. P.S.: Forget about Erb's paralysis for a moment; but at least Erb's Point (an anatomical feature with obvious future clinical importance) could have been described? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.134.186.136 (talk) 13:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I can confirm that the latest, 40th edition of Gray's Anatomy does mention Erb's point and the Erb-Duchenne paralysis. The 38th edition does not contain those terms, though "Lesions of the brachial plexus" are described and Rucksack palsy –symptomatically similar to Erb's palsy– is mentioned. I do not know whether the 39th edition mentions Erb's point or palsy. 31.16.123.164 (talk) 06:26, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Gray's is a textbook of ANATOMY. Erb's Palsy is not Anatomy, it is a pathology. A clinically orientated anatomy text may choose to include such content but it is beyond the scope of a text on pure anatomy. To permit this criticism one could furthermore criticize the omission of physiology, immunology, histology (etc) from its content also... I know of no text that is so comprehensive on the subject of medicine as to include all fields of the biomedical sciences in great detail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.159.101 (talk) 02:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I dunno, most editions of this book are >100 years old, and even the latest edition isn't too thoroughly rewritten. (The publisher has a choice -- maintain the familiar classic, and leave it obsolete, or update it and make it unrecognizable.)

One of the first things that I noticed after I got Netter's Anatomy and compared it to Gray's was the cursory treatment in Gray's of the coronary arteries. They didn't care about the coronary arteries. They couldn't do anything about them anyway. 50 years later, when Netter started illustrating, the coronary arteries were the major cause of death.

One of the things I enjoy and learn most from Gray's is to see how much we've learned in the last 110 years -- what he leaves out. That's no disparagement of Gray (and Carter). All those great 19th century anatomists did a great job with what they had. But if you learn anatomy from the old Gray's, you're missing the last century. --Nbauman (talk) 04:40, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Ummm... Nbauman... they're talking about the quite advanced Gray's Anatomy 39th edition from 2005..., not recent facsimile editions of the earlier editions.

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 06:19, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Copyright law

I read a long time ago that the reason for the divergence of the UK and US editions of Gray's Anatomy was that the US did not recognise copyright in books published abroad until well into the 20th century: so the US publisher was able to make his own new editions without reference (or payment) to the British authors. American publishers were free, according to this account, to translate or reprint foreign books. This obviously suited the developping industrial economy, until the tables were turned in the post-war age, and the US now takes the lead in enforcing intellectual property rights across the world. I don't know whether this story is consistent with American publishing or legal history. NRPanikker 01:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The U.S. had copyright laws, but according to the constitution they were supposed to be for "fixed terms", actually quite a short period by modern comparisons. It was only after the motion picture industry started its lobby that the current system of donating 20 years of public domain rights to the great-grandchildren of publishers every 20 years was established. See copyright extension (hmm, actually that article is in sorry shape). 70.15.116.59 15:48, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia usage

Because of the importance of public domain images from Gray's in so many Wikipedia articles, I think that this article should explain what the latest public domain version is, where it can be found (is it only digitized on a site that claims copyright that Wikipedia believes to be invalid?), what the legal situation regarding use of the images is (as people here are discussing; especially, is digitization = faithful reproduction), etc. Obviously the people talking here know all this - so put it clearly in the article for the rest of us. Wikipedia has become notable enough to be worth mentioning. 70.15.116.59 15:41, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Who was this Gray?

Any idea as to the person? Where was he born? Who were his parents? Thanks. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 07:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

The 38th (British) edition contains a biography of Henry Gray and a brief history of Gray's Anatomy. 188.192.109.47 (talk) 13:02, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you'll find most if not all editions contain a biographical and historical overview. I personally owned the 1984 30th American Edition (Lea & Febiger), and the 1973 35th English (Longman) both contained biographical and historical overviews. In the mid-1980s to early 1990s, I fairly regularly perused later English editions, which also had overviews. When I edited this article in October 2009, I used both my hardcopy editions and a more recent online version which I had access to at the time. So I've done a bit of research on this publication over the years - and I have to say I encountered a fair bit of confusion amongst people regarding the transatlantic discrepancies in publication year and volume: Indeed Gray's Anatomy remains a singularly good example of the need a to pay attention to publication detail, and how to spot who has done their homework and who hasn't. Wotnow (talk) 02:39, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Addendum: On reading the introductory notes for the 39e edition, I see that the 1973 35th (Longman) was a watershed edition which departed from previous editions and set the tone for subsequent ones. So I owned two interesting editions of this book: The last American edition by Lea & Febiger, and a watershed British edition. Almost a pity that I sold them (for a pittance) when clearing out my library. Still, that library culling exercise led me into Wikipedia. Life is nothing if not ironic. Wotnow (talk) 12:20, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Television

Having never seen the U.S. TV program Grey's Anatomy, I thought it was spelled like the book. Hence, I am adding a notice about the show at the top of the page with the disambiguation. --Leodmacleod (talk) 21:12, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

The Making of Mr. Gray's Anatomy

I'm surprised this entry has nothing from Ruth Richardson's book, The Making of Mr. Gray's Anatomy, which I saw reviewed in the NEJM, and no mention of Carter, who actually drew the illustrations:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/12/1263 Volume 360:1263-1264 March 19, 2009

The Making of Mr. Gray's Anatomy: Bodies, Books, Fortune, Fame

By Ruth Richardson. 322 pp., illustrated. New York, Oxford University Press, 2008. $29.95. ISBN 978-0-19-955299-3.

In fact, the book was a joint project of two young men — Henry Gray, an anatomist, a pathologist, and a surgeon, and Henry Vandyke Carter, a surgeon apothecary who later became a physician. The entrepreneurial Gray took the lead and wrote the words, while Carter — who was less inclined to self-promotion — drew the illustrations....

If we are to understand how Gray's Anatomy was made, Carter must be repositioned at center stage. We see how he was deliberately pushed to the wings by his ambitious, credit-grubbing collaborator. In the original page proofs, for example, the publishers — who had commissioned the work — set Carter's name below Gray's on the title page, but in the same type. Gray (making notations on proofs that are now preserved at the archives of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh) not only reduced the size of Carter's name by half but also deleted his new job title, leaving only "Late Demonstrator of Anatomy at St. George's Hospital." This was an assertion of Gray's position as Carter's superior. As Richardson puts it, "Professor Carter could not upstage Lecturer Gray."

--Nbauman (talk) 04:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Dubious

Dubious statement -- the 1st edition was published in 1858, so either this isn't the first edition, or it wasn't published in 1918. I have no access to iTunes and can't verify further. Not sure if this kind of a walled garden link should be included at all. 188.192.109.47 (talk) 12:56, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Correct. It is a dubious link which cannot be verified without subscription. One thing is absolutely certain. IF it was the first edition, it was published in 1858. That is uncontroversial. If the edition available was published in any other year, it is not the first edition. That too is uncontroversial. As I have indicated above and in the article text itself, there has been confusion about editions given the transatlantic publications, but that has been largely clarified. At first, the English edition was made available in the U.S. Then an American edition proper was commenced. As I note above, I have seen a lot of confusion arising from this, because few people follow-up on discrepancies. My own follow-up was not prompted until I was culling my library and using my American and English editions for this article in October 2009. So clearly the only reason I myself followed up was (a) I had a reason to and (b) I just happened to have some key resources on hand which facilitated this task. Wotnow (talk) 10:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Newish "International" (British) editions

The copyright notice for the 38th British edition mentions a separate ISBN number for an "International Edition", apart from the "Standard Edition" (of the 38th edition). The copyright notice of the 40th edition also mentions an "International Edition". I would assume this means that now that the publication of the American edition branch has ceased (see article), the publishers of the British edition probably publish each of their new editions in two versions, "Standard" and "International" -- and the "International" ones are probably just very slightly changed to American English spelling in order to cater for that market as well. However, that's only my theory. I don't know for sure. If someone can establish with certainty precisely what the story is about the Standard vs. International editions (or maybe even get word from the publisher, straight from the horse's mouth), then that information might be worth adding to the article. 31.16.124.131 (talk) 09:41, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Category:Gray's Anatomy images

There is an ongoing discussion regarding Category:Gray's Anatomy images. Additional clarification and constructive suggestions would be highly appreciated at the discussion. Thank you, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 23:54, 26 May 2012 (UTC)