\"The cbalienge， tberefore， was to absorb and assimilate the new learning and to exhibit it in a form easily understandable， attractive and so instructive that the essential points could be readily visuakzed and the more rmportant details grasped without need for search in specific or original publications. \"
　　——Frank H. Netter MD， Introduction， The Netter Collection of Illustrations， Reproductive System， 1954
　　No student of medicine， past or present， is unaware of the extraordinary series of medical illustrations created by Dr. Frank Netter， the master artist-surgeon. This incredible body of work has since been carried forward after Dr. Netter's passing by the talented Carlos Machado， MD， and others， all remarkably gifted medical illustrators， Physicians old and young have looked at these imagesume and again for the last five decades， returning to them as comfortable sources of clear and clinically succinct information. For many of us， it was this volume that was bought for us by our parents as our first textbook in medical school， and is still cherished to this day.
　　The Netter series of illustrations underwent 19printings over 56 years but has never undergone a substantive revision until now. The privilege of edidngthis monumental tome has been both daunting an drevealing. Dr. Netter's art is utterly timeless， highly exact and informed to the point of being prescient. How do you improve on a masterpiece? On the other hand， medicine has change dramatically over the past five decades since this volume first appeared and demands that entirely new and previously unimagined medical knowledge be brought to thereadership. Similar to restoring a da Vinci painting or translating a Nabokov novel， editing this volume hashighlighted for us both the magnitude of change inmedicine and the timelessness of Dr. Netter's art. Consistent with Dr. Netter's philosophy， we have chosen to let the art do most of the speaking and have limited the text to providing context， clarification， and clinical application.
　　It is our hope that this work will be as treasured and as valued as the original， even if it remains clinically relevant for only a fraction of the time. Join us as we celebrate the beauty， logic， mystery， complexity， and artistic richness of clinical medicine illustrated in this the second edition of the Netter Collection.