Medical Illustration and History
bioephemera | August 25, 2008
The Cure of Folly (The Extraction of the Stone of Madness)
oil on board
attributed to Hieronymous Bosch*, c. 1475-1490
Museo del Prado, Madrid
At one point or another, Hieronymous Bosch must have turned his paintbrush to every bizarre practice known to the fifteenth century Dutch mind, and this early piece is no exception. The composition is relatively simple: a surgeon is performing trepanation (craniotomy) on a restrained subject, while two onlookers watch. But looking closely, one can see that all is not right in Bosch's peculiar countryside: the surgeon is wearing a funnel as a hat, and…
bioephemera | August 24, 2008
A great gift for the medical history junkie, from Manifesto Letterpress: twelve "Dreade of Death" letterpress bookplates ($9.95 on sale). The designs are also available as coasters.
Manifesto also has skeleton and microscope letterpress postcards for the scientist in your life.
bioephemera | August 21, 2008
Bibliodyssey just published an outstanding collection of illustrations depicting the development of the microscope. I recently saw these antique microscopes at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, and I enjoyed trying to match my photos with the engravings.
This ornately decorated microscope was made by Christopher Cock (~1665), designed by Hooke and used by him in preparing Micrographia. (NMHM, "The Billings Microscope Collection," 1974) Note the similarity to the microscope in this plate from Hooke's seminal book Micrographia (via Bibliodyssey):
I love the NMHM's period…
bioephemera | August 6, 2008
Leave the Shame Behind
oil on linen over panel
Chris Peters, 2007
Following up on my previous post, Chris Peters' memento mori-flavored show, "The End and After," opens this Saturday at Copro/Nason Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.
The Lovers
oil on linen over panel
Chris Peters, 2007
Peters follows in the tradition of Renaissance anatomical illustrators, who portrayed the human skeleton in lifelike, even emotional poses, laden with symbolism. For hundreds of years after Vesalius, skeletons and "muscle men" continued to be drawn in attitudes of contemplation, regret, and even prayer, with…
bioephemera | May 2, 2008This entry originally appeared November 24, 2007 on the old bioephemera. I was inspired to repost & update it after seeing this post over at Morbid Anatomy earlier this month.
Wounds (2007)
Nicole Natri
I ran across this collage by the talented Nicole Natri shortly after attending an interesting lecture, "When Sleeping Beauty Walked Out of the Anatomy Museum," by Kathryn Hoffmann, who is a professor of French at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. The connection here is pretty cool, but it's roundabout, so bear with me.
Dr. Hoffmann's talk was my introduction to Pierre Spitzner's…
bioephemera | February 19, 2008The following is my most popular post, by far, from the "old" bioephemera (originally published Jan 5, 2007). I'll do a repost each week for the next few weeks to give new readers a taste of the blog. . .
Anatomical Teaching Model of a Pregnant Woman
Stephan Zick, 1639-1715
Wood and ivory
Kunstkammer Georg Laue is a Munich antique/art gallery informed by the sensibility of the "wonder cabinets" (kunst- or wunder-kammer) of 17th century Germany. One of the interesting objects described on the site is this ivory model of a pregnant woman with removable parts, including internal organs and a…
bioephemera | February 13, 2008
Michelangelo's Creation of Adam
From Paluzzi et al., Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2007
For a few years, Nature Reviews Neuroscience stuck to a humorous theme in its cover art: everyday objects that mimic brains. A dandelion, spilled wine, a rock, a cave painting: if you know what features to look for, a surprising number of things resemble brains. We are a species that sees faces on the Martian surface and the Moon; we're very good at pattern recognition, and it's probably evolutionarily better for our brains to err on the side of "recognizing" something that isn't there, than…