Gastroscopic view of a large peptic ulcer, with the pancreas. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1947.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1947.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 14 x 14.4 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.

Lettering in black ink, with typed note refering to Rudolf Schindler's book, Gastroscopy, the endoscopic study of gastric pathology, (Chicago University Press, 1937), where the semi-flexible gastroscope he had invented in 1932 was shown to transmit an image through an optical lense system whilst the flexible tube was curved Bears number: 44/1947

Wellcome Collection 32017i

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.

See Rudolf Schinder, Gastroscopy: the endoscopic study of gastric pathology, University of Chicago Press, 1937, plate II, figure 22: Depth II-III. "Gigantic benign ulcer-posterior wall. The edges of the ulcer are sharp, partly undermined. The floor contains nodules interpreted as lobules of the pancreas. No inflammation, no covering folds. Roentgen films suggested a niche of the lesser curvature with converging folds (pp.158 and 161)." It would appear that Nicholson derived her image directly from this source

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.