Medicine saw great advances over the course of the nineteenth century with many discoveries such as anaesthetic and germ theory saving the lives of many who took to the operating table, but it also played host to the rise of the surgeon from the work of a barber to that of the aristocracy.
Richard Barnett follows this golden age of surgery in the follow up to his 2014 award winning book,The Sick Rose, with this collection of beautiful but truly gruesome medical illustrations taken from rare surgical textbooks inThe Wellcome Collectionarchive.
So if you’re of strong stomach and inquisitive mind (and willing to see eyeballs pierced, toes hacked off and intestines inspected) come right this way.
Crucial Interventions: An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles and Practice of Surgery by Richard Barnett and The Wellcome Collection
Incision and two procedures for caesarean section.
Vertical cross section of the human brain.
Resection of the lower jaw.
Surgery to correct strabismus, involving the division of the internal rectus of the right eye.
Surgery for cancer of the tongue.
Sites for ligature of arteries in the lower arm and resection of the arm at the elbow joint.
Compression of arteries in the arm and leg to reduce blood loss during surgery.
Surgical anotomy of the large intestine.
Surgical saws, knives and shears for operations on bone.
Amputation of various toes, and amputation of the toes at the metatarsals.
See incredible images from The Sick Rose
All images © Wellcome Collection
Crucial Interventions: An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles andPractice of Surgery by Richard Barnett and The Wellcome Collection isavailable now for £19.95 hardback
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