Book excerpt: Professor Walter Thiels brilliant photographs are unique. They revolutionise macroscopic surgery because - due to a new preservation technique developed by the author himself - all tissues retain their living colour, consistency and position. This new technique, Thiels exceptional abilities as a photographer and the filigree dissections add up to vivid, almost artistic illustrations of astonishing depth and clarity. Apart from the topographical anatomy of the abdomen and lower extremities, Part I illustrates the most important punctures of joints and many surgical approaches. Thus this atlas is not only of interest to anatomists and pathologists but particularly to surgeons and orthopaedic surgeons - in fact all doctors requiring a 3D presentation of human anatomy.