Scientific Illustration

heaveninawildflower:

Blue tits  (Cyanistes caeruleus) from the Canary islands (circa 1920).

Scanned from Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery

Henrik Grönvold (1858–1940)

Wikimedia

heaveninawildflower:

Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) between 1917 and 1926 by Carl Axel Magnus Lindman (1856–1928).

http://runeberg.org/nordflor/7.html Wikimedia.

biomedicalephemera:

Anatomical Teaching Models

It’s believed that anatomical models have been used for teaching purposes (as opposed to ritualistic or religious purposes) since some point between 100 BCE - 300 CE, since dissection of the dead was a taboo and crime in the Late Greek and  Roman empire, and paper or vellum for illustration was much more fragile than, say, carved wooden figures.

However, most of our evidence for anatomical models comes from the late Medieval era and later, when materials such as ivory and sealed papier-mâché were used for many anatomical carvings. Later, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, wax sculptures were common in medical schools, as much finer detail was attainable with such a pliable substance.

Today, most models used for teaching both lay persons and students are made from thermoplastics and texturing agents, and can range from highly detailed micro-premature babies, to fully-removable models of life-sized animals with every layer of tissue and organs, to huge versions of virions not normally visible except under an electron microscope. Given that the majority of students show greatly increased memory of a subject when able to physically manipulate a representation of it, the use of anatomical teaching models is here to stay.

For more on anatomical models and tons more on the history of medicine, visit the Science Museum: Brought to Life!

Images:

Top: Anatomical structure of reclining woman in early pregnancy. Florence, Italy, ca. 1770.
Center left: Wax model of the human brain, with skin, skull, and meninges removed. Intended for medical students. Western Europe, ca. 1700-1900. Date uncertain.
Center right: Papier-mache model of acupuncture meridians. Japan, ca. 1601-1700.
Bottom left: Sculpture of male black infant, 22-23 weeks development. Created for exhibit on how micro-preemies are kept alive in the modern era. England, 1998.
Bottom right: Model of an adenovirus, magnified 3,000,000x, from electron microscope images. London, England, 1985.

stilllifequickheart:

J. Voerman Jr.

Butterfly on a Buttercup

20th century

rhamphotheca:

Calcareous Sponges

- Plate 5 from Ernst Haeckel’s Kunstformen der Natur

“Calcispongiae”, now called Calcarea, is a class of about 400 marine sponges that are found mostly in shallow tropical waters worldwide. Calcareous sponges vary from radially symmetrical vase-shaped body types to colonies made up of a meshwork of thin tubes, or irregular massive forms. The skeleton has either a mesh or honeycomb structure.

stilllifequickheart:

John Cyril Harrison

Hoopoes

20th century

stilllifequickheart:

Anna Airy

Leopard Moth and Plums

20th century

hyperboria:

Nature print, by Miyazaki Kyoko, 1951

stilllifequickheart:

Urushibara

Crayfish

Early 20th century

stilllifequickheart:

Karl Axel Pehrson

Catharina Nymphaeoidea

20th century