Myositis ossificans in hemiplegia, in a 74-year old woman: detail sketch of swelling below right groin. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1953.

This sketch is to show the development of localised hip paralysis in relation to disease in the central nervous system. Connections were made between hemiplegia (due to the patient's brain haemorrhage) and changes in soft tissues around the hip joint, (see J. F. Brailsford, Radiology of bones and joints, London, 1948, J. and A. Churchill, page 629). The case was discussed by J. Irving and H. Le Brun, both at Ashford Hospital, and published in the Journal of bone and joint surgery, August 1954, Vol. 36, No. 3, pages 440-441. It is known from a letter to E. and S. Livingstone Limited dated 29 June 1960, that Mr Matheson arranged for Barbara Nicholson to provide and send required illustrations (although this image did not appear). By concentrating on general medicine, rather than specific sites such as the heart, advances were made in treating the patient as a whole. Thus the invasion of the body by disease was observed by examining how tumours and inflammatory cell tissue was formed, and corresponded with external symptoms and complications (see F. Costello and A. Brown, Myostisis ossificans complicating anterior poliomyelitis, Journal of bone and joint surgery, Vol. 33, page 594). In this case it was suggested that a lesion, even if a transparent vascular disturbance, was present in the central nervous system, in cases of myostitis ossificans. The adductor muscles of the paralysed hip developed rapidly causing the growth in the groin