ESSENTIAL ANATOMY 2

A thoroughly well–thought-through app takes experts and neophytes alike through the tangles—literally—of the human body.

Anatomy is the bane of medical students, art students, dance students—anyone whose work requires knowing the difference between a metatarsal and a mentalis, to say nothing of an acromioclavicular ligament and an annular one. As with real-world lab courses, the app opens with a skeleton in what an art historian might call a relaxed orant pose. Through a process of addition by means of menus on the right-hand side of the screen (which can be moved to the left for those who wish), various layers of muscles, arteries, veins, organs, nerves and other elements can be placed on the skeleton. Each can also be removed, and parts of each can also be taken away to focus on discrete subsections. Each element has an information panel glossing it: For instance, of the gastric arterial branches, users learn, “The left and right gastric arteries and the left and right gastroepiploic arteries supply the lesser and greater curvatures of the stomach respectively. These arteries send branches over the stomach to supply the body, pylorus and fundus of the stomach.” Which is just so, but this can be fed back, so to speak, in numerous ways, including timed or untimed quizzes and rotated views that can be bookmarked for future study. Views can also be annotated with a stylus or finger (the latter of which might help train future doctors to scribble illegibly). 

Impeccably designed and one of the best of a wide field of competitors. An invaluable addition to the iPad toolbox of students of the human body. (Requires iOS 6 & up.)