The Art of Bleeding

From a WWII health pamphlet designed by Theodore Geisel (AKA “Dr. Seuss”).

London’s Science Museum hosts a lovely virtual collection of objects related to medical history.  The object above is described as a “pair of artificial arms for a child, Roehampton, England, 1964, noting that the arts were somehow “gas powered” (?).  The chid for whom these arms were designed is understood to be a victim of [...]

I shot these a while back while visiting the Musée Dupuytren at the University of Paris medical school and thought I’d share them here. The museum itself is somewhat hard to find (some medical students queried nearby had no idea it existed) and is entered through a series of cluttered academic offices.  I was happy [...]

(photos from Empire de la Mort.) Usually we try to reign in our morbid interests right at the point where life ends and death begins, but in this case, we make an exception for  our friend artist, photographer, writer Paul Koudounaris. After years of travel and photography, Koudounaris has produced the exquisitely illustrated and painstakingly researched The Empire of Death: [...]

Won’t someone please start selling reproductions of these swell WWII poison gas posters? Don’t know if they are available at the gift shop at the Texas Military Forces Museum in Austin where they currently hang, but thank God, they are least available  online via the Otis Historical Archives National Museum of Health & Medicine. Called “Hun [...]

While poking around Sutured Infection’s Tumblr, we found these lovely medical themed paintings by Richard Tennant Cooper commissioned in 1912 by the Henry Wellcome for his museum of medical history. Richard Tennant Cooper - “A giant claw pierces the breast of a sleeping naked woman, another naked woman swoops down and stabs the claw with a knife ; [...]

We created a Tumblr account recently and have been really digging the vintage medical scenes shared by Sutured Infection. Here’s a sample of what we’re crushing out on. We think you’ll understand. Some days your nerve feel numbered.   A hand exerciser. Equipment for studying the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Herbert List: “Instructive View into [...]

The exhibition “Health for Sale” currently at the Philadelphia Museum illustrates the story of commercial medicine through an intriguing collection of posters hawking nostrums, panaceas and health advice in a time before the FDA meddled in such things.There’s more than 50 pieces featuring alabaster skinned beauties seeking anemia cures, virile men donning electro-galvanic belts, families [...]

And speaking of von Hagens yesterday, we came upon this….. “Why, yes, that is a plastinated bull testicle hanging from my neck!” It’s not often enough you are able to utter that sentence, is it? But if you and your credit card can take a moment to swing by world-famous Gunther von “The Plastinator” Hagens’ [...]

(DISEASES OF THE NAILS Images: Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, University of Iowa)