Christ at the bedside
Jesus sits by the bedside of the girl he has just raised from the dead. He is holding the girl’s hand and looks tenderly into her eyes. He has just truly affected a cure, unlike the physicians of old confined by necessity to the dictum of “guérir parfois, soulager souvent, consoler toujours”*—usually attributed to the […]
Unnamed surgeon
In this painting an unknown Netherlandish artist features some of the attributes of a surgeon’s profession: a skull, a tool for cauterizing skulls, a saw, and several keys on the surgeon’s belt. The unnamed surgeon seems composed, serious, with a firm jaw and wrinkled eyes. This is fitting of his position and reputation among the […]
Lovis Corinth and the sick father
Franz Heinrich Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) began his career as a realistic painter, showing things on canvas as they are seen in reality. Thus in His Father on his Sickbed (Stadel Museum, Frankfurt) we see the father in bed, sick but perhaps not mortally so. His loving daughter keeps watch by the bedside. She has arranged […]
Did Salvador Dali follow the prolactin discovery in his painting of the fountain of milk?
Michael Yafi Houston, Texas, United States Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Artists Rights Society © 2019 The Fountain of milk spreading itself uselessly on three shoes by Salvador Dali remains one of his most enigmatic works. It shows a nude woman on a pedestal, milk flowing from her breasts, while an emaciated man is […]
Ford Madox Brown: his model and his medical grandfather
Few ladies would look their best when painted in bed with their hair down while recovering from a dangerous infection. But Emma Hill looks beautiful, resting, her coiffure immaculate, sheets unruffled, a flower in her hand. In 1848 while still in her teens, she had become the model and then mistress of Ford Madox Brown, […]
The old women of Francisco Goya
Time is running out for these two decrepit old crones who clearly have seen better days. In this 1820 painting titled El Tiempo, Francisco Goya shows the figure of Cronos hovering over the two women, ready to sweep them away with a broom into the memory of time. The woman in white, her face besmirched […]
The Plague of Ashdod, by Nicholas Poussin
The Plague of Ashdod, Poussin’s famous painting of 1630, is based on the Old Testament account of an epidemic affecting the Philistines after they had captured the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites and moved it to their coastal city of Ashdod. According to Samuel 1:5, the Lord first destroyed the statue of their […]
The Bitter Potion, by Adriaen Brouwer
It has long been the belief of the prescribing professions that medicines work better if they can impress the recipients by their efficacy. A painful injection may thus work better than a painless one, and an intramuscular injection of ascorbic acid will remind the patient of its continuing efficacy for at least one week. […]
Lorenzo Costa: a painting for services rendered?
Giovanni Battista Fiera was born in Mantua in 1465. He studied at the University of Pavia, from where he graduated in 1485 with a degree in medicine, but extended his interests to poetry, philosophy, and theology. Moving to Rome after graduation, he published there in 1490 one of the first books on dietetics, La Coena […]
Adriaen Brouwer: surgery in the tavern
Adriaen Brouwer (1605/6-1638) was a Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in genre scenes, particularly in taverns. He favored humble, unkempt peasants engaged in various activities, from drunken brawls to fireside chats. In these paintings the village barber-surgeons are shown performing operations on the back and the foot of peasants, who wince from a procedure done […]