The Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations

Frank H. Netter was born in New York City in 1906. He studied art at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design before entering medical school at New York University, where he received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1931. During his student years, Dr. Netter's notebook sketches attracted the attention of the medical faculty and other physicians, allowing him to augment his income by illustrating articles and textbooks. He continued illustrating as a sideline after establishing a surgical practice in 1933, but he ultimately opted to give up his practice in favor of a full-time commitment to art. After service in the United States Army during World War II, Dr. Netter began his long collaboration with the CIBA Pharmaceutical Company (now Novartis Pharmaceuticals). This 45-year partnership resulted in the production of the extraordinary collection of medical art so familiar to physicians and other medical professionals worldwide. Icon Learning Systems acquired the Netter Collection in July 2000 and continued to update Dr. Netter's original paintings and to add newly commissioned paintings by artists trained in the style of Dr. Netter. In 2005, Elsevier Inc. purchased the Netter Collection and all publications from Icon Learning Systems. There are now over 50 publications featuring the art of Dr. Netter available through Elsevier Inc. Dr. Netter's works are among the finest examples of the use of illustration in the teaching of medical concepts. The 13-book Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations, which includes the greater part of the more than 20,000 paintings created by Dr. Netter, became and remains one of the most famous medical works ever published. The Netter Atlas of Human Anatomy, first published in 1989, presents the anatomic paintings from the Netter Collection. Now translated into 16 languages, it is the anatomy atlas of choice among medical and health professions students the world over. The Netter illustrations are appreciated not only for their aesthetic qualities, but, more importantly, for their intellectual content. As Dr. Netter wrote in 1949 clarification of a subject is the aim and goal of illustration. No matter how beautifully painted, how delicately and subtly rendered a subject may be, it is of little value as a medical illustration if it does not serve to make clear some medical point." Dr. Netter's planning, conception, point of view, and approach are what inform his paintings and what make them so intellectually valuable. Frank H. Netter, MD, physician and artist, died in 1991. Dr. Michael Aminoff was born and educated in England, graduating from University College London in 1962 and as a physician from University College Hospital Medical School in 1965. He subsequently trained in neurology and neurophysiology at The National Hospital (Queen Square) in London, and in 1974 moved to UCSF where he has been Professor of Neurology since 1982. He was Director of the Clinical Neurophysiology Laboratories at UCSF until 2004, when he became Executive Vice Chair of the department of neurology, and also directs the Parkinson's Disease Clinic and Research Center, a National Parkinson Foundation Center of Excellence. He is the author of more than 230 published medical or scientific articles, as well as the author or editor of some 29 books. His published scientific contributions led to the award of a Doctorate in Science, an advanced doctorate in the Faculty of Science, by the University of London in 2000. He is the one of the two editors-in-chief of the four-volume Encyclopedia of the Neurological Sciences (2nd Edition, Academic Press, 2014), and one of the series editors of the multi-volume Handbook of Clinical Neurology (Elsevier). He was Editor-in Chief of the journal Muscle & Nerve from 1998 to 2007 and serves on numerous other editorial boards. He was a director of the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology for 8 years, and chair of the board in 2011. Dr. Aminoff has received numerous prizes including the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine in 2006 and the A.B. Baker Award of the American Academy of Neurology for life-time achievements and contributions to medical education in 2007. In 2010, he was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor" at the University of California, San Francisco. He is married and has three children, one a pediatric rheumatologist, another a federal defense attorney, and the third an assistant district attorney.