Charles Bell's surgery and anatomy illustrations

Charles Bell's Illustrations of the Great Operations of Surgery (1821). Visit Iowa Digital Library for the complete illustrations of this work.

Sir Charles Bell (1774 - 1842), was a Scottish anatomist, neurologist, surgeon and natural theologian. He and his brother had remarkable artistic gifts, and together they taught anatomy and illustrated and published two volumes of A System of Dissection Explaining the Anatomy of the Human Body.

Trephination


various procedures of limbs amputations

Charles Bell's illustrations of war injured

Sir Charles Bell (1774 - 1842), was a Scottish anatomist, neurologist, surgeon and natural theologian. He and his brother had remarkable artistic gifts, and together they taught anatomy and illustrated and published two volumes of A System of Dissection Explaining the Anatomy of the Human Body.

He also served as a military surgeon, making elaborate recordings of neurological injuries at the Royal Hospital Haslar and famously documenting his experiences at Waterloo in 1815, where the anatomist Robert Knox commented very negatively on Bell's surgical abilities; (the mortality rate of amputations carried out by Bell ran at about 90%). All these illustrations are from injured soldiers during Waterloo battle.

Bell's career was characterized by the accumulation of quite extraordinary honors and achievements, and by acrimonious disputes unusual even by the standards of medicine during the regency.

You can find more illustrations from Waterloo injured soldiers in Welcome Images by typing "Charles Bell" in search.

Madness in art

William Dickinson (Print made by),

Robert Edge Pine (After) (1775)

A female figure representing madness, with straw and a scarf in tangled hair, a rope holding a pelt around her leaving the breast bare, clutching at the chains which hold her with her right arm, twisting to the left and staring wildly towards the upper left.

Charles Bell "Madness"
The anatomy and philosophy of
expression as connected
with the fine arts (1806)

Ambroise Tardieu
Des Maladies Mentales (1838)

"Attaque Demoniaque" (1881)
by Paul Marie Louis Pierre Richer

Dr. Desiré Magloire Bourneville (1875)
The first stage of demoniacal possession:
contortion followed by insensibility.

Francisco Goya
Yard with Lunatics (1794)

This painting is his record of conditions in an institution at Zaragoza.Goya wrote that the painting shows "a yard with lunatics, and two of them fighting completely naked while their warder beats them, and others in sacks. It has been described as a "somber vision of human bodies without human reason" and as one of Goya's "deeply disturbing visions of sadism and suffering." The painting had been absent from public view since a private sale in 1922. The work was painted at a time when such institutions were, according to art critic Robert Hughes, no more than "holes in the social surface, small dumps into which the psychotic could be thrown without the smallest attempt to discover, classify, or treat the nature of their illness."To art historian Arthur Danto, Yard with Lunatics marks a point in Goya's career where he moves from "a world in which there are no shadows to one in which there is no light"

William Hogarth
The Interior of Bedlam (1763)

The Bethlem Royal Hospital of London although no longer in its original location and buildings, it is recognised as the world's first and oldest institution to specialise in the mentally ill. It has been variously known as St. Mary Bethlehem, Bethlem Hospital, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam. It admitted mentally deranged people from 1357, but it became a dedicated psychiatric hospital quite later. The word bedlam, meaning uproar and confusion, is derived from its name. For much of its history it was notorious for cruelty and inhumane treatment – the epitome of what the term "madhouse" connotes to the modern reader.

Delacrois "A Mad Woman" (1822)

Picasso "Mad woman with cat" (1901)

Chaim Soutine "mad woman" (1920)

Chaim Soutine "mad woman" (1919)

Mental aberration and irrational states of mind could not fail to interest artists against Enlightenment rationality. Théodore Géricault, like many of his contemporaries, examined the influence of mental states on the human face and believed, as others did that a face more accurately revealed character, especially in madness and at the moment of death. He made many studies of the inmates in hospitals and institutions for the criminally insane, and he studied the heads of guillotine victims. He was among the first to depict an abnormal mental state as an illness, rather than as a subject for laughter. Some of his painting on madness we can see below:

Cleptomaniac or Mad Assasin (1822)

Woman alienated by envy monomania
(1820-1824)

Monomaniac of Military Commander
(1819-1822)

Compulsive Gambler (1820)

Τρυπανισμός-Trepanning-Trephination

Μία από τις αρχαιότερες επεμβατικές θεραπευτικές πρακτικές είναι ο τρυπανισμός των οστών του κρανίου, δηλαδή το άνοιγμα τρύπας σε αυτό κι έκθεση μέρους του εγκεφάλου στον αέρα, ενώ ο άνθρωπος ήταν ζωντανός. Οι λόγοι που το κάναν πιθανολογούνται από ανακούφιση από παθήσεις του κεφαλιού ή ακόμα και για πνευματιστικούς σκοπούς.

Κατά τον τρυπανισμό, που πρωτοεμφανίζεται στη Λίθινη εποχή (περί το 20 000 π.χ.) ανοίγονται οπές στα οστά του κρανίου πιθανότατα με σκοπό την απομάκρυνση των κακών πνευμάτων και την αντιμετώπιση ψυχικών διαταραχών, ημικρανιών ή της επιληψίας. Αρκετοί ασθενείς επιβίωναν του τρυπανισμού, όπως φαίνεται από τις οστικές ουλές που παρατηρούνται σε απολιθωμένα κρανία.

Τα τρυπάνια που χρησιμοποίησε ο Νεολιθικός άνθρωπος στον τρυπανισμό του κρανίου είχαν ξύλινη λαβή και αιχμηρό άκρο από σκληρό υλικό, συνήθως το δόντι κάποιου ζώου ( π.χ. καρχαρία) ή κατάλληλα κατεργασμένη πέτρινη αιχμή.

Συνηθισμένο ήταν επίσης το τόξο τρυπανισμού, που σχηματιζόταν από μία σκληρή ξύλινη λαβή γύρω από την οποία τυλιγόταν δερμάτινη χορδή. Ο θεραπευτής τοποθετούσε το αιχμηρό άκρο της λαβής στο κρανίο και κρατώντας το άλλο άκρο σταθερό περιέστρεφε το τρυπάνι με τη βοήθεια της χορδής. Με πιο εξελιγμένα εργαλεία και περισσότερη επιτυχία γίνονταν επεμβάσεις τέτοιου τύπου στην αρχαιότητα, στον Μεσαίωνα και την Αναγέννηση. Περισσότερα στο wikipedia

Trepanning, also known as trephination, trephining or making a burr hole, is a medical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, exposing the dura mater in order to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases.

Trepanned skull from ancient Greece. Στη Βέροια βρέθηκε σκελετός του 3ου μΧ αιώνος που φέρει οπή στο κρανίο από χειρουργική επέμβαση. Ο τρυπανισμός κρανίου αναφέρεται από τον Ιπποκράτη, τον Κέλσο και τον Γαληνό, αλλά τέτοια ευρήματα στον Ελλαδικό χώρο είνα σπάνια.

Trepanation is perhaps the oldest surgical procedure for which there is forensic evidence, and in some areas may have been quite widespread. Out of 120 prehistoric skulls found at one burial site in France dated to 6500 BC, 40 had trepanation holes. Many prehistoric and premodern patients had signs of their skull structure healing; suggesting that many of those subjected to the surgery survived.

Trephination illustration by physician Guido da Vigevano (1280-1349)

Trepanation was also practiced in the classical and Renaissance periods. Hippocrates gave specific directions on the procedure from its evolution through the Greek age, and Galen also elaborates on the procedure.

Depiction of Trephination in 1525

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, trepanation was practiced as a cure for various ailments, including seizures and skull fractures. Out of eight skulls with trepanations from the 6th-8th centuries found in southwestern Germany, seven skulls show clear evidence of healing and survival after trepanation suggesting that the survival rate of the operations was high and the infection rate was low. (wikipedia)

Trephination in 16th century

Charles Bell's Trephination in
"The Great Operations of Surgery" (1821)