Anatomy and Art

Ah yes, so I’ve been studying legs tonight.  And I did a little sketching to help me get it all straight.




All together, I believe this is the gist of the situation.




































Here is the same thing with just the arteries.




































And here it is again with just the nerves.  Those dots at the end represent the various muscles being innervated.  They include iliacus, sartorius, recuts femoris, and your three vastus muscles off the femoral nerve.  Then pectineus, obturator externus, gracilis, adductor magnus, adductor brevis, and adductor longus off the obturator nerve.  And then the fibularis longus and fibularis brevis off the superficial fibular nerve, and  extensor digitorum longus, tibialis anterior, extensor hallucis longus, fibularis tertius, and extensor digitorum brevis off the deep fibular nerve.






















A few neurovascular relationships worth noting are that the femoral triangle contains the femoral nerve, artery, and vein, in that order going laterally to medially.  The great saphenous vein (not pictured here) accompanies the saphenous nerve.  And in the back (and thus not visible here) the small saphenous vein accompanies the sural nerve.

The above drawings are from an anterior view, with some reference as to what’s going on in back so long as it doesn’t cross behind bone.  Do not use these for reference as to whether the nerve or artery is superficial or deep.  Both systems are fully drawn without regard for empty spots where one crosses in front of the other.  And lastly, I really wish I could give the photographer credit for the first image up there, but alas I cannot make out what the watermark says.  But thank you G.S. for such a beautiful image, and good reference for leg and foot surface anatomy!

Gotta love ’em.

I’ve got a pair on just like the ones on the left today, and this morning I was able to reference them while reading about the pathways of the various tendons in the leg, as well as the arteries and nerves.  The ones on the right look pretty cool too, for learning the muscles.  I believe that’s the superficial fibular nerve that you can see there popping out from between the muscles there toward the dorsum of the foot.  Pretty neat, pretty neat!