Human anatomy is worth studying for its own intrinsic beauty and interest. But the possessor of anatomical knowledge will also be able to understand some of the ways in which the body works (physiology) and some of the ways in which it can go wrong (pathology).

Without anatomical knowledge, there is much about health and disease which is incomprehensible. But even a basic anatomical understanding helps us makes sense of many strange phenomena. What happens when we choke? Why do we breathe in and out? Why does the heart beat? Why can a bang on the head knock us out? Why can’t you feel your kidneys? Why do you bleed when cut? Where do babies come from? And in disease, anatomy makes sense of questions such as why a tumour in the oesophagus can cause a cough, why a stomach ulcer can be fatal and why hip fractures are so common in elderly people.

Simple answers to these and a myriad other questions began to appear with anatomical understanding. From those simple answers came further questions, and eventually, in just a few hundred years, the astonishingly detailed picture of human life that modern medicine now possesses emerged.