Perforated ulcer of Meckel's diverticulum in a seventeen year old boy with peritonitis: specimen from laparotomy and section, showing perforation. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1954.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1954.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 16.5 x 9.8 cm

Barbara Evelyn Nicholson (1906 – 1978) trained at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1923. She began her artistic career as a medical illustrator and was a founder member of the Medical Artists Association, where she is recorded as serving on an exhibition committee in October 1949. By 1951, she had illustrated G.F. Gibberd, A short textbook of midwifery (2nd ed., London: J. & A. Churchill, 1941) and Philip Wiles, Essentials of orthopaedics (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1949). The Medical Artists Association records last list her, in 1951. In the 1950s her focus moved to botanical subjects and from the late 1950s – 1970s she was a prolific botanical illustrator.

Typed accompanying note gives patient history and histological report of specimen. Sections are described as being surrounded by exudate, thick and oedematous, with gastric type mucosa, although the superficial cellular layers are intestinal. The perforation is intestinal in its whole depth and the adipose tissue suggested islet-like Langerhans structures. The patient made an uncomplicated recovery following laparotomy Bears number: 396/1954

Closed until 01/01/2038

Wellcome Collection 35124i

The watercolours and pen and ink drawings held by Wellcome Collection were painted by Barbara Nicholson at Ashford Hospital, Ashford, Middlesex, between 1946 and 1951, at the request of the surgeon Norman Matheson.

Presented to the Wellcome Institute Library in 1987 by Ashford Postgraduate Medical Centre, as part of a collection of medical illustrations by Barbara E. Nicholson.