Leech House

Leech House is an old term for Hospital. This blog will feature medical historical arts and images that can be purchased as posters, art prints in my Redbubble store.

[leechhouse]

A broadsheet illustrating 24 maladies and giving remedies. Coloured line block by F. Laguillermie and Rainaud.

[leechhouse]

Dr Seth Arnold’s Cough Killer, in which the active ingredient was morphine, a highly-addictive opioid. It wasn’t until 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act into law, that drug manufacturers were required to print active ingredients on packaging labels.

[leechhouse]

Anatomy of the head by Gautier Dagoty (1717-1785)

[leechhouse]

Formerly crowning the gates at Bethlem [Bedlam] Hospital.

Bethlem was founded in 1247 and, through its history, reflected contemporary views on treating and caring for people with mental illness. Bethlem Royal Hospital was England’s first asylum for treating mental illness, and for many years a place of inhumane conditions, the nickname of which – Bedlam – became a byword for mayhem or madness.

[leechhouse]

Edward Jenner vaccinating a young child, held by its mother, with a man behind taking cowpox from a cow. Chromolithograph.

[leechhouse]

The body of a standing man with his head shaved and his trunk dissected to reveal the ribs and viscera.

Coloured lithograph by William Fairland, 1869.

[leechhouse]

The anatomy of the bones and muscles by George Simpson

[leechhouse]

Surgical Instruments: seven figures

[leechhouse]

Fifteen French doctors wearing aprons and holding various by Adrien Barrère

Left to right: André Chantemesse; Anne Gabriel Pouchet, holding toadstool; Paul Julien Poirier, in white tie holding a flower; P. Georges Dieulafoy; Maurice-Georges Debove; Paul C.H. Brouardel, smoking cigar; Samuel J. Pozzi, with saw and other surgical instruments; Paul Jules Tillaux, in an overcoat and top hat; Georges Hayem; André Victor Cornil, holding heart and lungs; Paul Berger; Jean-Casimir-Félix Guyon, holding syringe; Pierre-Émile Launois; Adolphe Pinard, holding baby; Pierre Constant Budin, with foetuses and forceps. To the right below, exit Father Time pursued by a proctoscope.

[leechhouse]

The anatomy of the human body

[leechhouse]

A Surgeon Binding up a Woman's Arm after Bloodletting

Jacob Toorenvliet (c.1635–1719)

Bloodletting from a vein was recommended when the hot and the wet were considered excessive, either in the body as a whole or in a particular part of the body. The surgeon would typically pierce a vein with the tip of a lancet blade, and collect the blood in a bowl. Two such bowls are shown on the table in the painting. The surgeon is either undoing a tourniquet that was used to collect the blood in the forearm or bandaging the incision.

[leechhouse]

A Native American medicine man. Oil painting.

Catlin, George, 1796-1872

[leechhouse]

Anatomy of the human gravid uterus exhibited in figures by William Hunter

[leechhouse]

Surgical Instrument

[leechhouse]

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is a 1632 oil painting on canvas by Rembrandt housed in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, the Netherlands. The painting is regarded as one of Rembrandt's early masterpieces.

In the work, Nicolaes Tulp is pictured explaining the musculature of the arm to a group of doctors. Some of the spectators are various doctors who paid commissions to be included in the painting. The painting is signed in the top-left-hand corner Rembrandt. f[ecit] 1632. This may be the first instance of Rembrandt signing a painting with his forename (in its original form) as opposed to the monogram RHL (Rembrandt Harmenszoon of Leiden) and is thus a sign of his growing artistic confidence. (Wikipedia)

[leechhouse]

The anatomy of the human body by William Cheselden.

[leechhouse]

The Dance of Death

A German painting of the Danse Macabre. Nine women of different social rank from empress to fool dance with the dead. The entire economy of salvation is depicted, from the Fall, through the crucifixion, to Heaven and Hell. Twelve more traditional Dance Macabre figures, from pope and emperor down to fool, surround the central image.(Wikepedia)