Clinical Anatomy of the Head

Book excerpt: This volume on the clinical anatomy of the neurocranium, the orbit and the craniocervical junction is intended to provide a precise and detailed account for the use of neurosurgeons, otorhinolaryngologists, neuroradiologists and roentgenologists. In recent years diagnostic tech niques and the scope of surgical intervention have broadened and have become increasingly refined. Many procedures are nowadays carried out with the aid of magnifying lenses and operat ing microscopes which bring diminutive structures into the range of the surgeon's hand and eye. This means that an atlas of the clinical anatomy of the head must give the surgeon working with the operating microscope and the diagnostician using sophisticated equipment full details of the morphology relevant to the scope of each specialty. It would be a fascinating task to depict all the structures of the orbit and the head from the skull base upwards, but any such plan would have required a photoatlas in several volumes. For this reason I have confined myself to medical problems of current importance. In this volume I have included numerous variations which I have myself encountered, so as to underline the diversity of human anatomy. A more comprehensive presentation of the findings and the structures of the head will be published in the three volumes of LANZ-WACHSMUTH. All the dissections illustrated in this book were prepared and photographed by myself.