Tag: photography
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The surgeon’s photograph of the Loch Ness monster
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Whatever is the truth, there is no denying that Nessie will continue to intrigue the world for years to come.”– Johnathan Bright, Oxford Internet Institute Loch Ness, at thirty-seven kilometers long and 230 meters deep at its deepest point, is the second largest lake in Scotland.1 Stories about a creature of great…
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Thomas Keith: Pioneer photographer and pioneer surgeon
Iain MacintyreEdinburgh, Scotland “His success so far outstripped that of all other operators, that it became a wonder and admiration of surgeons all over the world.”1 So wrote J Marion Sims (1813–1883), arguably the most famous American surgeon of the 19th century and often described as the father of surgical gynecology.2 Sims was describing the…
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John Francis Hall-Edwards—a radiology pioneer
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK John Francis Hall-Edwards was born on 19 December 1858 in the Kings Norton area of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edwards School in Birmingham followed by Queen’s College, Birmingham where he studied medicine and was an apprentice to Professor Richard Norris.1,2 He qualified in medicine in 1885. Norris…
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Scoliosis
Augusta Zetterling was one of the first women in Sweden to make a living as a photographer. This photo is from a series she took of women and girls with a curvature of the spine called scoliosis. Whereas mild cases of scoliosis may have little effect on a patient’s life, more severe cases can cause…
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Photography in medicine
Doctors adopted the idea of using photography in medicine within one year of its invention. In 1840 at the Charité Hospital in Paris, Alfred François Donné photographed sections of bones and teeth by making daguerreotypes through a microscope. Between from 1848 to 1858 the British psychiatrist Hugh Welch Diamond photographed patients in an asylum and…
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Atlas of head sections
Sir William Macewen, pioneer of modern brain surgery, was born in western Scotland in 1848. In 1872 he graduated in medicine from the University of Glasgow, greatly influenced by Lord Lister. In 1875 he was appointed to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, first as assistant surgeon, and in 1877 as full surgeon. Continuing his career as…
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The illness of Tom Wedgwood: A tragic episode in a family saga
John Hayman Melbourne, Australia Tom Wedgwood (1771-1805) was born into the famous pottery dynasty as the third surviving son of Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) and his wife Sarah (1734-1815). Sarah was also a Wedgwood, a distant cousin of her husband.1 Tom was ill for all of his short life, a life recorded by his biographer, Richard…
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TB-AIDS diary
Linda TroellerNew York, New York, United States The TB-AIDS Diary was created in 1987 to address issues of stigma, comparing the response to patients with tuberculosis in the 1930s with the reaction to patients with AIDS in the 1980s. Tuberculosis was used as a metaphor for the stigma surrounding contagious diseases and treated primarily as…
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Fighting the long defeat
John EberlyColumbia, South Carolina, United States “Together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.”1 — J. R. R. Tolkien In May 1965, a fire started on the ground floor of the Sound Lumber Company in Arcata, California. Sparks spread quickly through the sawmill, engulfing the “cold deck,” a four million board-foot pile…
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Medical photography in the nineteenth century: From portraits to clinical photography
Silvia MainaEditamed, Torino, Italia Since its introduction, photography has found an application in medicine. Many physicians embraced the potential of this technology as a valued adjunct to patient care, research, and education. Medical photography dates back to the mid-nineteenth century, a few years after the birth of modern photography. The first application of photography to…