Lane Medical Library

David Lee Bassett (1913-1966) was awarded his MD by Stanford University School of Medicine in 1939. He began teaching in the Department of Anatomy at Stanford University School of Medicine in 1939 and later also taught anatomy at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1948 Bassett met William B. Gruber, inventor of the Viewmaster system of stereoscopic imagery. Bassett and Gruber collaborated on a seventeen-year project of creating three-dimensional photographic images of human anatomy using innovations in dissection pioneered by Dr. Bassett.

Three artists developed detailed line drawings based on the photographs: Ruth Ogren, Harriet O’Neill, and Lorene Segal. 1,547 photographic images and accompanying drawings were compiled into a 24-volume Stereoscopic Atlas of Human Anatomy, completed in 1962. The images in this collection are derived from the Atlas project.

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