ART MEETS ANATOMY
Medicine has always needed pictures.
Anatomists worked with artists, engravers and later photographers to show what words could not. This independent guide traces the craft from printed anatomy books to the medical illustrators who work alongside healthcare teams today.
1543 the year the Fabrica was printed
THE SHORT ANSWER
Three moments show how the craft grew.
Each comes from library or professional sources.
1543
Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica was printed in 1543. The US National Library of Medicine says its woodcut illustrations influenced anatomy pictures for centuries and were often copied outright.
Compare techniques1858
Henry Vandyke Carter drew 363 illustrations for Henry Gray's anatomy textbook of 1858, working from dissections the two men made together at St George's Hospital.
See the numbersTODAY
The Institute of Medical Illustrators, founded in 1968, covers clinical photography, medical art, graphic design and video within healthcare.
Who does it nowCOMPARE THE TECHNIQUES
Pick a technique to see how it was used to show the body. The bar shows how recent the technique is, from Renaissance print to today's screens.
Based on the US National Library of Medicine's Historical Anatomies pages, Hektoen International and the Institute of Medical Illustrators. History and craft only, not medical advice.
TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING
Two numbers from the making
of the best-known anatomy textbook.
363 drawings
Illustrations drawn by Henry Vandyke Carter
Gray wrote in the first edition's preface that all the drawings from which the engravings were made were executed by Carter, mostly copied from or corrected by their own dissections.
GRAY'S ANATOMY · 1858
£150 once
Carter's single payment for the work
Gray received a royalty of 150 pounds for every 1,000 copies sold; Carter received a single fee of 150 pounds and left for India in 1858.
THE FEE · HEKTOEN
The book was finished in November 1857 and published in London in 1858 as Anatomy, descriptive and surgical. An American edition followed in 1859.
FOUR THINGS TO LOOK FOR
Old anatomy books are in many library collections and online. These details show how each picture was made and who made it.
Title pages and prefaces often name the artist or engraver, though some, like Carter, got less credit than they deserved.
Some books show how they were made: Cheselden's title page vignette depicts the camera obscura used for his plates.
Plates were not only diagrams: Cheselden's Osteographia includes playful skeletons, vignettes and decorated initials.
Some atlases, such as Cheselden's Osteographia, drew bones at their actual life size.
WHO DOES IT NOW
The Institute of Medical Illustrators describes medical illustrators as healthcare scientists specialising in photography, graphic design, medical art or video, working with doctors, nurses and scientists.
Medical artists usually study a science or arts degree and then a specialist postgraduate course; the IMI lists accredited courses at the University of Dundee and the University of Glasgow. Clinical photographers working closely with patients need entry onto the AHCS Register of Medical Illustrators.
Questions
The Institute of Medical Illustrators describes it as a specialist profession producing photographs, artwork, graphics and video for patient care, education and teaching, working as part of the healthcare team.
Henry Vandyke Carter, a demonstrator of anatomy at St George's Hospital, drew the 363 illustrations for the first edition of 1858, from dissections he and Henry Gray made together.
Partly. The National Library of Medicine says Vesalius made many sketches himself, but scholarship shows the woodcuts are the work of several artists, known collectively as 'the workshop of Titian'.
For his 1733 Osteographia, William Cheselden and his engravers used a camera obscura to execute many of the images, a practice shown on the book's title page.
Some do. The IMI says media range from watercolour and oil paints to 2D and 3D digital software, though most work is now created digitally.
Sources
ABOUT THIS NAME
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