Three stages of acute appendicitis in a male patient showing (1) ruptured appendix with forming abscess, (2) abscess, having burst through mesentery (causing diffuse peritonitis) and (3) perforated abscess, now attached to the pelvis side wall. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1954.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1954.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 9.4 x 19.8 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.

1, 2, 3 Numbers inscribed in pencil, typed accompanying note with patient history describes how pain subsided after the rupture, but returned when abscess broke through the mesentery Bears number: 434/1954

Closed until 01/01/2039

Wellcome Collection 35314i

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.