A Peek Inside the Surgery Museum
November 9th, 2009 § 2 Comments
A Peruvian skull with evidence of early trepanation. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com.
Wired has posted a great article about the International Museum of Surgical Sciences in Chicago. Packed with beautiful photos, the article takes you inside the museum and showcases some of the most interesting items on display.
Anyone been to the museum? I sure want to visit after reading this!
Why You Should Take Your Own Clinical Photos
September 17th, 2009 § 3 Comments
I have written a guest post for the dermatology blog DermMatters, published by the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology (JDD). Titled “Why You Should Take Your Own Clinical Photos”, the post contains five tips for doctors who want to start taking their own pictures. Check it out here!
More Than Nothing
September 7th, 2009 § 1 Comment
Retinitis pigmentosa, as interpreted by photographer Bård Ek.
I visited a beautiful photo exhibition yesterday, titled “More Than Nothing” (Mer enn ingenting). The Norwegian Association of the Blind and Partially Sighted has gotten 18 of Norway’s best photographers to interpret the most common eye conditions. The purpose is to show both what it’s like to be visually impaired, and to inform about the different conditions.
The photographers have interviewed persons with these conditions and then tried to what the world looks like through their eyes. All the photos can be seen on the exhibition website (only Norwegian text). Browse by clicking on the photographer’s names on the left.
Exquisite Bodies
September 1st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
The Wellcome Collection in London is hosting an exhibition of 19th-century anatomical wax models, entitled “Exquisite Bodies” from July 30th to October 18th (photo credit). In Victorian Britain, the demand for cadavers for dissection was very high, but the supply was low. One solution was to make anatomical wax models to teach anatomy. A lot of these models also found their way into museums, teaching the public about reproduction and contagious diseases.
There’s a lot to explore on the exhibition’s website: image galleries with some of the most prominent items, an interactive anatomical Venus and videos on these Victorian wax wenches.
Also check out the Guardian’s image gallery and an audio slideshow from BBC News.
Top 50 Surgical Blogs
June 9th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Check out iScrub’s comprehensive list of the top 50 surgical blogs. I feel honored to be included in this company!
Turning the Pages
May 28th, 2009 § 1 Comment
The National Library of Medicine hosts a great web project called Turning the Pages. Using a flash-based interface, they let you read old medical tomes like Andreas Vesalius’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica and Ambroise Paré’s Oeuvres by literally turning the pages. The books are also filled with curator’s notes on the text and illustrations. This is as close as most of us will get to a hands-on experience. Excellent!
The illustration above is from page 559 of De Humani Corporis Fabrica.
1800s Surgical Kit Explained
May 21st, 2009 § 1 Comment
Head over to Nice article on surgical video
April 4th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Mike Cohen, a video producer based in Connecticut, USA, has written a comprehensive article on surgical videography with lots of production tips on both open and laparoscopic surgery (photo credit). The article features some great pictures. Nice to see someone else writing about the same stuff as myself. Be sure to check it out!
US Army medical photos on Flickr
March 19th, 2009 § 4 Comments
Operation for hernia, Walter Reed Hospital, showing motion picture camera in action, 1918. (Creative Commons).
The National Museum of Health and Medicine (run by the US Army) are making a selection of their vast archive of military medical photos available on Flickr. Almost 800 photos are currenly uploaded, all with a Creative Commons License.
Head archivist Mike Rhode revealed the museum’s excellent policy in this statement to Wire:
“You pay taxes. These are your pictures,” Rhode said. “You should be able to see them”.
Also check out the museum’s unofficial blog A Repository for Bottled Monsters.
SurgeXperiences 219
March 15th, 2009 § 6 Comments
The hypophysis cerebri in position. Shown in sagittal section. Click to enlarge.
Welcome to edition 219 of SurgeXperiences, the one and only blog carnival dedicated to surgery! I suggested “anatomy” as the theme for this edition, and anatomy you’ll get. Gray’s Anatomy.
Now there’s a lot of really impressing and advanced medical illustrations available to students of anatomy and medicine today. But nothing appeals to me like the simple and effective lithographs that accompanied the early editions of the tome of anatomical knowledge that is Gray’s Anatomy. The 1918 edition is in the public domain, and is available in its entirety online. All illustrations here, relating to the submitted posts, are taken from this edition. So once again I present you with a very visual edition. Hope you enjoy it! « Read the rest of this entry »
