Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Alexandru Gh. Sonoc

  • The village uroscopist

    Alexandru SonocSibiu, Romania A physician sits in his studio at a table on which stand several covered vases. He has a book in his left hand and holds in his right hand a glass flask against the light coming in through the window. Nearby there is a furnace where his curing concoctions are prepared in…

  • Portrait of a peasant

    Alexandru Gh. SonocSibiu, Romania This peasant is shown wearing a green shirt, decorated on the shoulders with a red line and at the neck with a white lace collar, as well as a wide brown hat. He is disfigured by a tumor on the right side of his face. A second tumor is located on…

  • Medical art from the Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania

    Alexandru SonocSibiu, Romania Several works in the European collection of the Brukenthal National Museum are of interest to the history of medicine. Most of them are works by Dutch and Flemish painters, mainly from the 17th-century: The Summer by Jakob Jordaens, The Trapped Peasant by Adriaen van der Venne, The Bloodletting and The Diagnosis by…

  • The Summer

    Alexandru Gh. SonocSibiu, Romania On the right side, darkened perhaps to suggest an approaching storm, a woman with bare breast is looking up to the left. On the left side a younger woman is holding a child on her left arm, pointing down with the right hand. Between both women another one in a wide straw…

  • Evidence of a skull trepanning

    Alexandru Gh. SonocSibiu, Romania The man shown here wears a blue velvet hat with a white feather and a brown-reddish cloak. Around his neck he has a brocade scarf in red, ocher, and blue. He has long hair, a short moustache, and a short square-shaped facial hair spot (Fliege) on the lower lip. The right…

  • The village’s physician

    Alexandru SonocSibiu, Romania In a peasant house a sick woman lies in bed. An old physician is writing a prescription on a table on which there are already three small bottles of medicine. He is surrounded by the patient’s relatives, concerned but full of hope, all wearing traditional peasant costumes. An old man and a…

  • The trapped peasant

    Alexandru Gh. SonocSibiu, Romania A strange looking dentist (tall hat, long hair, goatee, sword, tall boots) is pulling a peasant’s tooth. Behind the peasant, a woman (traditionally considered as his wife, but more likely a prostitute) opens a purse hanging together with a dagger on his belt, and picks some coins from it. Behind the…

  • Paracelsus: physician and alchemist

    Alexandru Gh. SonocSibiu, Romania This painting shows the famous alchemist and physician Paracelsus holding a retort in his hands and standing in front of a furnace on which is placed a glass balloon. In front of the furnace a pair of bellows lie on the floor, which are covered with plates displayed in a chessboard…