Teaching watercolor of indirect and direct inguinal hernias
Description:
After Jean Baptiste Marc Bourgery's Traite complet de l'anatomie de l'homme, plate 38 bis. Large watercolor showing two views of inguinal hernias. Both hernias are shown on one body, with the viewer's left being a direct hernia, and the viewer's right being the indirect hernia. The top picture shows the two hernias with the cremaster and spermatic cord intact, and the lower shows them dissected to show the interior. Watercolor is framed in green sewn textile, with metal grommets in each of the four corners.
The Harvard Medical Library does not hold copyright on all the materials in the collection. For use information, contact the Warren Anatomical Museum Curator at chm@hms.harvard.edu
Contact host institution for more information.
Notes:
Henry Jacob Bigelow employed artist Oscar Wallis exclusively from 1848 - 1854 to paint a series of large teaching watercolors to illustrate Bigelow's lectures at Harvard Medical School. Wallis painted the teaching diagrams from local subjects and from the atlases of established medical authorities. The effort cost Bigelow $6,000. In 1890 Bigelow presented the watercolors to Reginald H. Fitz to be used in the Harvard Medical School's Department of Anatomy. The watercolors were transferred into the Warren Anatomical Museum between 1890 and 1930.