Claude Maillot: Encéphale et moelle épinière. Anatomie macroscopique et fonctionelle, 2nd edition

Published online: 18 December 2002© Springer-Verlag 2002

This aim of this book is to give med-ical students and residents a knowl-edge of the morphology and physiol-ogy of the central nervous system. Itis set at an intermediate level be-tween that of a specialty monographand that of a popular science publi-cation. Accordingly, the format ofthe book features full-page drawingsof the anatomy of brain nuclei andpathways obtained from anatomicalslices of nine adult brains and onespinal cord. In parallel with these,concise text descriptions of the mor-phological and functional anatomyare provided, with few remarks de-voted to correlating the informationconveyed with the correspondingclinical aspects.

The book, which is in Frenchthroughout, focuses on four mainthemes – the external morphology ofthe central nervous system, the arte-rial and venous vascularization, theaxial and coronal encephalic cuts,and the overall description of theprincipal nervous pathways – and issubdivided into two main parts. Thefirst, on macroscopic anatomy, in-cludes 92 illustrations of the brain,the brain stem and spinal cord and anintroduction to the central nervoussystem and its embryology, withcommentaries on the morphology ofthe cerebral lobes, the principal areasof the brain, the cerebellar lobes, thespinal cord, the midline and deep nu-clei regions of the brain, the vascu-

Childs Nerv Syst (2003) 19:264DOI 10.1007/s00381-002-0698-5 B O O K R E V I E W

Concezio Di Rocco Claude Maillot: Encéphale et moelle épinière.Anatomie macroscopique et fonctionelle, 2nd editionSpringer, Paris, 2002. IX, 297 pp, 118 figures (ISBN 2-287-59743-3) EUR 93.79

C. Di Rocco (✉)Istituto di Neurochirurgia,Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore,Largo A. Gemelli, 8, 00168 Rome, Italye-mail: cdirocco@rm.unicatt.it

larization of the central nervoussystem, and the meninges.

The second part is devoted to func-tional anatomy, describing the func-tional systems and the neural path-ways of the brain, cerebellum, brainstem, thalamus, and spinal cord in 26 figures and specific commentaries.

The book has excellent features:its classic and synthesizing approachto the neuroanatomy and an evidentintention to simplify the anatomo-functional anatomy of the centralnervous system in order to make itaccessible to medical students; thedetailed drawings of the coronal andaxial views of the neural structures,which are made even more informa-tive by the presence of correspond-ing neuroradiological images, bearwitness to this purpose. The less pos-itive features identified are the oftenextremely concise text in comparisonwith the drawings and in the difficul-ty of perceiving and understandingthe 3D appearance of the encephalicstructures from some of the drawingsprovided.

In conclusion, though it wouldnot be sufficient as the sole source ofknowledge in neuroanatomy, thisbook should be regarded as a practi-cal atlas of the central nervoussystem comparable in quality as a di-dactic tool to the earlier morphologi-cal atlas, “Encéphale et moelleépinière,” published in 1987, whichwas obviously the inspiration for it.