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  • Astronomy: Apollo as the Sun god with his bow and arrow, an angel above, looking heavenward. Engraving by N. Dorigny, 1695, after Raphael, 1516.
  • The head of a frog, in the fourth stage of a physiognomic metamorphosis into an ideal head of Apollo. Coloured drawing by J.C. Lavater, 179-.
  • The head of a frog, in the early stages of a physiognomic metamorphosis into an ideal head of Apollo. Coloured drawing by J.C. Lavater, 179-.
  • Anatomy and medicine performed outside a temple of Apollo and Aesculapius, representing themes in the works of Thomas Willis. Etching attributed to R. de Hooghe, 1682.
  • Twelve stages in the sequence from the head of a primitive man to the head of the Apollo Belvedere. Coloured etchings by Christian von Mechel after Lavater, 1797.
  • Above, a woman personifying health addresses Death; below, Apollo, attended by an agitated crowd of patients, heals a sick man; representing the medical writings of Frederik Dekkers. Etching.
  • Apollo sits on a mound, his lyre beside him, and points with his right hand to two men who face him; illustration for a fable. Etching by J. English.
  • A baroque monument decorated with Apollo holding a lyre and Aesculapius holding a book and a cockerel; a portrait of Johann Freitag the Younger in a roundel on the pediment. Engraving, 1644.
  • Apollo descending to kill the Python, surrounded by men and women of Delphi; representing the power of music to affect the human mind. Etching by Agostino Carracci after A. Boscoli after B. Buontalenti.
  • The Apollo Belvedere seen from the front and in three quarter view; a boy holding a water vessel; one of the sons of Laocoön battling with a serpent. Engraving by A.J. Defehrt after G. Audran.
  • Johan van Beverwijk: he converses with Apollo about medicinal plants, while surrounded by attributes of botany, anatomy and surgery. Line engraving by C. van Dalen the younger (?) after C. de Passe the younger (?), 1656.
  • Allegorical figures, including Apollo: one supports a portrait roundel of Karl Theodor, Elector Palatine, with attributes of the fine arts and of war; a view of a city beyond. Engraving by B. Hübner, 1776, after N. Guibal.
  • A woman with five breasts on a pedestal, with attributes of nature and the elements, and with Apollo next to her seated on a cloud; men with various experimental instruments below them; representing natural philosophy. Engraving by A. Schoonebeek, 1692.
  • A woman representing pharmacy receives gifts of materia medica from vegetable and mineral sources, and with the aid of a herbal distils them into medicines; above, Apollo gives authority to Hippocrates as other Olympians stand outside the temple of Aesculapius. Etching by R. de Hooghe.
  • Paeonia officinalis L. Paeoniaceae, European Peony, Distribution: Europe. The peony commemorates Paeon, physician to the Gods of ancient Greece (Homer’s Iliad v. 401 and 899, circa 800 BC). Paeon, came to be associated as being Apollo, Greek god of healing, poetry, the sun and much else, and father of Aesculapius/Asclepias. Theophrastus (circa 300 BC), repeated by Pliny, wrote that if a woodpecker saw one collecting peony seed during the day, it would peck out one’s eyes, and (like mandrake) the roots had to be pulled up at night by tying them to the tail of a dog, and one’s ‘fundament might fall out’ [anal prolapse] if one cut the roots with a knife. Theophrastus commented ‘all this, however, I take to be so much fiction, most frivolously invented to puff up their supposed marvellous properties’. Dioscorides (70 AD, tr. Beck, 2003) wrote that 15 of its black seeds, drunk with wine, were good for nightmares, uterine suffocation and uterine pains. Officinalis indicates it was used in the offices, ie the clinics, of the monks in the medieval era. The roots, hung round the neck, were regarded as a cure for epilepsy for nearly two thousand years, and while Galen would have used P. officinalis, Parkinson (1640) recommends the male peony (P. mascula) for this. He also recommends drinking a decoction of the roots. Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737), published by the College of Physicians, explains that it was used to cure febrile fits in children, associated with teething. Although she does not mention it, these stop whatever one does. Parkinson also reports that the seeds are used for snake bite, uterine bleeding, people who have lost the power of speech, nightmares and melancholy. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Paeonia officinalis L. Paeoniaceae, European Peony, Distribution: Europe. The peony commemorates Paeon, physician to the Gods of ancient Greece (Homer’s Iliad v. 401 and 899, circa 800 BC). Paeon, came to be associated as being Apollo, Greek god of healing, poetry, the sun and much else, and father of Aesculapius/Asclepias. Theophrastus (circa 300 BC), repeated by Pliny, wrote that if a woodpecker saw one collecting peony seed during the day, it would peck out one’s eyes, and (like mandrake) the roots had to be pulled up at night by tying them to the tail of a dog, and one’s ‘fundament might fall out’ [anal prolapse] if one cut the roots with a knife. Theophrastus commented ‘all this, however, I take to be so much fiction, most frivolously invented to puff up their supposed marvellous properties’. Dioscorides (70 AD, tr. Beck, 2003) wrote that 15 of its black seeds, drunk with wine, were good for nightmares, uterine suffocation and uterine pains. Officinalis indicates it was used in the offices, ie the clinics, of the monks in the medieval era. The roots, hung round the neck, were regarded as a cure for epilepsy for nearly two thousand years, and while Galen would have used P. officinalis, Parkinson (1640) recommends the male peony (P. mascula) for this. He also recommends drinking a decoction of the roots. Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737), published by the College of Physicians, explains that it was used to cure febrile fits in children, associated with teething. Although she does not mention it, these stop whatever one does. Parkinson also reports that the seeds are used for snake bite, uterine bleeding, people who have lost the power of speech, nightmares and melancholy. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • The Apollino. Etching by R. Dalton, 1746.
  • Surgery: a doctoral candidate defending a thesis in surgery at the Académie Royale de Chirurgie, Paris. Etching by P.F. Tardieu after C. Eisen, 1751.
  • Twelve stages in the sequence from the head of a frog to the head of a primitive man. Coloured etchings by Christian von Mechel after J.C. Lavater, 1797.
  • A man and a woman demonstrating the process of fermentation and distillation in alchemy. Etching, ca. 17th century.
  • Front and reverse of a medal presented to Jenner by naval medical officers in 1801. Engraving, 1801, after a medal made by T. Harper.
  • A bodybuilder poses with his back to the viewer. Photographic postcard, 192-.
  • A bodybuilder poses with his back to the viewer. Photographic postcard, 192-.
  • The discovery of herbal medicines, their transport by ship from the East Indies and their presentation to the pagan deities. Engraving after Adolf van der Laan, 1741.
  • The discovery of herbal medicines, their transport by ship from the East Indies and their presentation to the pagan deities. Engraving after Adolf van der Laan, 1741.
  • King James I of England and VI of Scotland. Engraving by C.G., 161-.
  • Aesculapius and other ancients are presented with exotic materia medica from the far east, which are turned into medicines in a pharmaceutical elaboratory. Oil painting by Johannes Prey, 1791.
  • Two miniature people, known as the Aztec Lilliputians, with their manager. Lithograph by G. Wilkinson.
  • Georges-Léopold-Chrétien-Frédéric-Dagobert, Baron Cuvier. Plaster bust by P.-J. David d'Angers, 1838.
  • Mexico: a sheet of an Aztec document collected by Humboldt. Colour aquatint by D. Klemi-Bonatti, ca. 1820.