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  • Article

When wounds replace words

For the many thousands of refugees waiting in Greece, the process to establish the truth of their tragic personal histories is often extremely upsetting. But a group of medics and legal workers is working together to make the system more humane.

  • Article

Duelling doctors

An enduring enthusiasm for 18th-century gentlemen to defend their ‘honour’ by duelling placed doctors in a delicate position. Specially when they faced being shot themselves.

  • Article

The blight of the ballooning blood vessels

In 1817 an emergency operation on a London porter was hailed a ‘success’ despite the patient’s swift demise. Find out how this case became a landmark in vascular surgery.

  • Article

The problem of the punctured heart

During World War II a young American surgeon working in England perfected shrapnel-removal techniques that saved dozens of lives. Discover how one case sealed his reputation as the founder of cardiac surgery.

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Images

  • The wound-man.
  • A woman treating a man's head-wound. Oil painting after J. Nixon.
  • Man with gunshot wound to the nose
  • Wound man, Pseudo-Galen, Anathomia; WMS 290
  • M0006920: A man with an injured leg, possibly pouring salt into the wound
  • Wound man showing all the weapons and points of injury. Woodcut.
  • A surgeon applying medicine to a wound in the shoulder of a man in pain. Oil painting by Gerrit Lundens, 1649.
  • A surgeon applying medicine to a wound in the shoulder of a man in pain. Oil painting by Gerrit Lundens, 1649.
  • The diseased penis and legs of a man, with an open wound in the groin area. Watercolour by C. D'Alton, 1869.
  • An infected open wound on the outer thigh of a man suffering from creeping or serpiginous phagedena. Watercolour by C. D'Alton, 1858.
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