Picturing the body : five centuries of medical images an exhibition at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine / Ken Arnold.

Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine

Date:: 1993

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Picturing the body : five centuries of medical images an exhibition at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine / Ken Arnold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

15/24 page 13

$Plate from Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring, Abbildungen der menschlichen Organe des Geruches. Frankfurt, 1809. Soemmerring's particular concern was with the organs of sense, which he depicted especially clearly in this cross-section of the skull. He was generally interested in the anatomy of the brain and strove to represent the structure of the nervous system in scientifically exact but artistically beautiful drawings. Coloured mezzotint made by J. F. Gautier d'Agoty, published as a plate in Anatomic de la tete en tableaux imprimes. Paris, 1748. The image is of a dissection of the brain with a detailed record of the blood vessels. Drawn, engraved, printed and published by Gautier d'Agoty, the anatomical work was done by J.F. Duverney and Pierre Tarin. One interesting feature of his highly distinctive technique of colour mezzotinting is the use of a neutral green background. Engravings made by L.J.M. Daubenton for Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (ed.), Histoire naturelle. Paris, 1749-1804, vol. 3, 'Description du cabinet du roy\ (1749). The figures, taken from wax models made by Abbe Zumbo of Syracuse, show a female foetus and a series of impressions of the head, neck and brain. Engravings illustrating 'Anatomie' entry in D. Diderot, J. le R. d'Alembert, Encyclopedic (unidentified edition). The figures show the brain and its coronal and sagittal sections done from earlier published figures. The Encyclopedic helped make such images more widely known in general scientific circles. Plate from John Burton, An essay towards a complete new system of midwifry theoretical and practical. London, 1751. Though unsigned, the plates were drawn, etched and engraved by the artist-anatomist George Stubbs. Burton himself was educated in Cambridge and Leyden, and prac- tised as a physician and man-midwife in York. He was satirically portrayed as lDr Slop' in Tristram Shandy. Plate from William Smellie, A set of anatomical tables, with explanations, and an abridgment, of the practice of midwifery. London, 1754. This plate from Smellie's obstetrical atlas shows twins in utcro in the beginning of labour. The book's plates were, as Smellie himself pointed out, carefully produced at great expense.$