Department of Anatomy was named Anatomy School at first at a time when German Medical School for Chinese in Shanghai was founded by a German doctor Erich Paulun in 1907. When Anti-Japanese War broke out, Prof. Zhao FANG and Prof. Fujing LI took over the department in place of Kurz and VonHayeke, two Germans who served as the first two department chairs. At that time, Histology and Embryology was included in Anatomy. All faculty gave lessons in German and adopted German-style teaching methods. As constant wars incurred a lack of funds and frequent faculty changes, Department of Anatomy remained stagnant. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Anatomy School was renamed Anatomy Teaching and Research Office in 1956. Its courses and administrative offices were separated from or combined with those of Histology and Embryology on and off seven times under the influence of Soviet teaching model. In 1958 and 1965, its staff members, including Zhenbang CAI, Pingben ZHANG, Weixin HE, and Shenggeng HE, were transferred to support other universities in succession. From 1968 to 1970, several teachers with Qiren HU, Zhiyao JIANG, Changgeng ZHU, Daren ZHENG, Baoquan YOU, and Shihao YANG included actively participated in the teaching reform team. They came to rural regions to train medical workers, which marks a meaningful exploration for educational reform. Since 1978, remarkable accomplishments were achieved in teaching, scientific research and discipline construction. Currently, Department of Anatomy has 11 teaching laboratories and two floors of laboratories for scientific research, which can accommodate more than 200 people. Laboratories for scientific research are run under the leadership of two doctoral supervisors with more than 20 graduate students.
