History, Medicine, and Science: Nonfiction and Fiction discussion

I have read some really interesting feminist literature about illustrations in historic medical texts. If you are interested, I'll scout out some references. *warning - these are academic literature, so not sure whether they would be if interest...

The first one that comes to mind in Jonathan Sawday's The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture--also academic in writing.

I was just at the Dittrick Museum for the History of Medicine last month. The curator there gave me a copy of his Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine 1880-1930. It's absolutely fascinating. Lots of older pictures of medical school dissections--with a nice introduction that situates the who, what, when, where.

Hello- I am not sure if this is your taste, but
The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States (Architecture, Landscape and American Culture) by Carla Yanni explores the architectural heritage of where all too often medical advances were and arguably are made at the expense of some of our most vulnerable populations.
Madness in America: Cultural and Medical Perceptions of Mental Illness Before 1914 (Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry) by Lynn Gamwell is a book loaded with imagery of the mental health apparatus prior to 1914. Though I find the text be somewhat more of an overview than truly engaging, it is an aside compared to the densely illustrated effort that was made in this gorgeously macabre study of the history of psychiatry.
The Illustrated History of Surgery by Knut M. Haeger
Not of Woman Born: Representations of Caesarean Birth in Medieval and Renaissance Culture, by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski

I hope this helps, do you have any favorite titles you would consider sharing yourself?

My favourite is The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles by Emily Martin in the journal Signs Vol. 16, No. 3, Spring, 1991. Will dig out more references soon. Sorry I have taken so long to reply...

Dominique--Please my photography list and medical history listing. I have many books that deal with medicine via pictures. Many deal with diseases. My newest one is of pics from Japan 100 years sgo. There are several books about the Mutter Museum via Amazon.com. I have not decided which of those I will get. I also have crime photo books listed as well.
There are very coffee tale books about medicine and nursing through the ages via art.

Aileen--I love the Martin article. I use it in my history of medicine classes all the time. It's brilliant!

Body Victorious: The Illustrated Story of Our Immune System and Other Defences of the Human Body
I don't know if this is still in print -- I expect that an even more current version might be available. While the subject is the microscopic pictures of blood cells, T cells, cilia, etc. -- If you believe in visualizing as a therapy for disease, my wife had used these pictures of T cells killing cancer cells -(very dramatic photo) to focus. Our bodies are SO VERY interesting and these are remarkable pictures from within and the barely visible.

Sometimes. Our bodies are very interesting.
As a paramedic, and former OR technician, I'd say there were also times when the word interesting wouldn't have done what I saw any justice.
But if you ever watch open heart surgery, that's the most interesting part of our body. When I first saw a human heart beating, I thought it was the neatest thing I ever saw.
I can't usually say that in ordinary conversation, not without causing people to nearly faint dead away.
One of the interns fainted at one of the open heart operations, and he did it the minute the surgeon used the chest-cracking apparatus.
The surgeon got miffed that one of the interns fainted over "a few red blood cells."
They either forget what it was like when THEY were interns, or I can't explain why he was so annoyed about it.

vicki, have a little compassion--when i was very young i worked for a dentist as a beginning assistant-when the regular girl left she laid out an ammonia capsule--i wonder what that was for--_soon the patient was in the chair ready for his new dentures--when the doctor started to use a rasp to file off the sharp edges of the bone --all of a sudden i was on the floor --i was looking up at the ceiling and wondering about the flowers painted there. the doc just told me to stay there for awhile-i will always remember Mr Deweys teeth-the final few that were pulled that day --i carried them around in a tin box and showed them to my class. so when i went into nursing it didn't bother me as much i had already been traumatized.

I was talking about the doctor, not me. And, when they were teaching us how to apply a trocar, I thought the doctor showing us the procedure was treating the patient like more of an object than a person.
But I couldn't say anything-you can't SAY anything to most of them-so I kept my mouth shut. Unfortunately, my mind refused to accept how he was doing the procedure.
I also hated the way some of them were so quick to want to amputate a patient's limb. Again, they were acting as if the limb was attached to an object not a person.
I believe that a person like that has no business being a doctor.

vicki-i did misread what you said. you're right --the doc should have more compassion--he probably has a few mistakes under his belt that no one will ever find out about.i think rather than the blood cells it was the noise of the chest cracking that did it--i don't like the sound of bone being sawed. it seems gorey to me so maybe this intern had the same feeling.everyone has to undergo the rite of passage.

vicki--there are doctors and there are doctors--some are very caring and compassionate and some are hardened by what they have experienced.we can ony hope we get he compassionate ones for our own. compassionate and well educated.

Dominique wrote: "Does anyone have any recommendations for books or anything that deals with how medicine has been visually recorded over the years? I am *slightly* obsessed with this subject. Is anyone else interes..."

I have been meaning to reply to your thread and finally found some time. I am actually a medical illustrator, so I do the artwork that goes into many textbooks, atlases and journals. I'm not sure if you're more interested in reading about the actual history of visualizing medicine, or a more pictorial work-but here are a few you might want to look into (I haven't seen all of these, but I have them on a list of my own to check out). These are from a list I received at a talk given by the curator of the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia:

The Ingenious Machine of Nature: Four Centuries of Art and Anatomy. By: Cazort, Mimi, Kornell, Monique, and K.B. Roberts.

The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy. By: Petherbridge, Deanna and Ludmilla Jordanova.

Human Anatomy: From the Renaissance to the Digital Age. By: Benjamin A. Rifkin

Dream Anatomy. By: Michael Sappol

Body Criticism: Imaging the Unseen in Enlightenment Art and Medicine. By: Barbara Maria Stafford.

The Transparent Body: A Cultural Analysis of Medical Imaging . By: Jose Van Dijck.

And one of my favorites:
The Sacred Heart: An Atlas of the Body Seen Through Invasive Surgery. By: Max Aguilera-Hellweg.

Also, FYI, if you are near Baltimore, this is the centennial year for the medical illustration program at Johns Hopkins and they are having some interesting talks/exhibits July 20th.

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/medart...

Enjoy!