Tag: Jacques-Louis David
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Jacques-Louis David’s portrayal of Lavoisier
JMS PearceHull, England In the 1780s, a period of rumbling social unrest in France, the lives of two famous men, a scientist and an artist, would interact. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) is often associated with the discovery of oxygen; Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) was the preeminent neoclassical artist. Lavoisier was a French nobleman, justly celebrated for…
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Jean-Paul Marat, physician and revolutionary
JMS PearceHull, England The murder of the notorious Jean-Paul Marat in his bath in July 1793 by Charlotte Corday is a tale where revolution, art, and medicine each played a part. When the commoners stormed the Bastille royal prison in Paris on July 14, 1789, to defy the Ancien Régime, they struck a blow for…
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Another look at the medical problems of Jean-Paul Marat: Searching for a unitary diagnosis
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793) was a practicing physician, scientist, and a leader of the French Revolution. He also suffered from a chronic, intractable skin condition, which troubled the last five years of his life. A tormenting itch caused him to spend whole days1 in his custom-made bathtub, from which he wrote revolutionary articles…
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The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David
This famous painting shows the death of the radical politician of the French Revolution, Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793). Suffering from a chronic skin disease, perhaps dermatitis herpetiformis, he was soaking himself in a medicinal bath when stabbed to death by Charlotte Corday. He may have contracted the disease while hiding in the sewers for safety. It…