Perhaps Hippocrates created some very simple skeleton books. He certainly laid the basis for future medical studies. His guidelines have motivated the studies of many physicians. Those studies then led to the creation of more detailed skeleton books.
Muslims studied the science of medicine, and they carried their knowledge to Europe. They might have been the creators of the first skeleton books. If that is the case, however, the Muslims who studied skeletons certainly did not take an interest in any sort of Halloween book. Halloween is a holiday that developed from observance of “All Hallows Eve,” a Christian acknowledgement to those in the next world.
Although the great artists, Leonardo de Vinci and Michelangelo, did not use their talents to create skeleton books, they did illustrate the importance of the skeleton. Both artists made a point of studying the shape of the human muscles, the God-given “tools” with which the human is able to move the bones of the skeleton. Perhaps their illustrations served as a guide for the author of one of the world’s best-known skeleton books.
Gray’s Anatomy might well be seen as a skeleton book. It provides the medical student with many pictures of the whole skeleton, in addition to revealing details about the bones in each section of the human body. The attempts made to supplement what is in Gray’s Anatomy have given story writers the basis for a collection of bone-rattling tales. A collection of such tales would fill a good-sized Halloween book.
Some writers have seized on the mystery that arises from the viewing of a cadaver. A number of TV serials now focus on that same mystery. In fact, many TV shows give the viewer a glimpse of a skeleton. A lot of the shows about medicinal workers include an airing of more than one X-ray.
Screen and TV writers have found one way to make money by revealing facts about the skeleton. Roentgen, the man who discovered X-rays certainly made only a modest amount of money from his discovery. He refused to call his new discovery “Roentgen rays.” He did, though, agree to take the prize money offered to those who win a Noble prize.
Maybe he used some of that money to finance the creation of new skeleton books. He certainly initiated the creation of many beautiful X-rays. Each of those X-rays had the ability to provide physicians with valuable information about the bones of a patient. In fact, until the creation of the CT scan in the 1970s, a battery of tests that used an X-ray machine remained the only way to detect certain medical problems.
Now physicians have access to the CT scanner, the MRI machine and the PET machine. All of those machines offer the physician new information. All of those machines produce new “pictures” of the human body, pictures that add to what was in the old skeleton books.