In recent years, the importance of fascia has been greatly rediscovered. Therapists, with standard anatomical education, that work with patients have observed and demonstrated the benefit of comprehending and retaining knowledge of the connective fascial network. They accentuate that a greater emphasis be placed on fascia and its functions during teaching and training. Several medical professionals, including medical doctors, assorted therapists and other medical and paramedical personnel have validated that fasciae greatly influence the human body in various ways. Research has underlined the aforementioned fact. This book is intended as an aid for practitioners and aimed at anatomically skilled readers. It presents detailed dissections of fascial systems using soft, life-like fixed tissue. Through the dissections presented here, the editor, Hanno Steinke wants to evoke an impression of the properties of fasciae to the readers. Steinke’s biomechanical research on ligaments and aponeuroses combined with his experience in dissection and teaching, resulted in presentations of the fascial systems, illustrating the anatomical relations at first glance. This book also contains reproductions of thin plastinated body slices, produced by Steinke, in which the basic component of fascia, the collagens, has been vividly stained. The photographer Anna Katharina Rowedder is experienced in depicting the three-dimensional anatomy, and has been enlisted by the Institute of Anatomy Leipzig for capturing the images in this book. The impeccable layout adequately compliments the rationale of the presented “Atlas of Human Fascial Topography”. This atlas will intersect the anatomy of fasciae with the known academic topographic anatomy.
