Beautiful diseased brains

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These beautiful watercolour drawings of diseased brain sections come from a book called Reports on Medical Cases, Selected with a View to Illustrate the Symptoms and Cure of Diseases by a Reference to Morbid Anatomy, by Richard Bright.

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Bright's book was published in 1827, but these illustrations appeared in a  separate volume accompanying the second part of the work, which was published in 1831, and devoted to the pathology of the nervous system. 

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The complete work included approximately 300 plates. These illustrations are by Frederick Richard Say (1805-1860), a successful portrait painter whose subjects included George IV, Prince Albert, Earl Grey, but the book also included others by C. L. Canton and Bright himself.

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From Wellcome Images.

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These images are absolutely stunning.

I've found that my own method of studying anatomy has been one of constant reference to pathology; I've never really taken that approach with neauroanatomy, however. I wish I would have known of these then :)