Digitizing Medical Illustrations from the Heart Bulletin + The Role of Art in the Medical Field

By Johana Canales, Archives Intern.

As archivists discussed recently, the Houston-based Medical Arts Publishing Foundation produced illustrated medical publications like the Cancer Bulletin, Heart Bulletin, and Psychiatric Bulletin.

The Foundation’s records began arriving at the McGovern Historical Center in 1992. Since then some of the collection’s medical illustrations had already been digitized, including several complete issues of the Psychiatric Bulletin from 1950-1960. The great folks here at the MHC allowed me to digitize Box 11 of the collection, belonging to the Heart Bulletin’s medical illustrations series. This was such a fun box to digitize because of the creative and sometimes wacky original illustrations it contained, but also because I got to read original publication notes used in the creation of the Heart Bulletin between 1951 and 1964. During this project, I was able to think deeply about the archival practice of appraisal, as well as the important role that art plays in the medical field. Here are some of my main takeaways:

Informational characteristics

These original medical illustrations are informative to the medical field in their own separate and unique ways. First of all, they are informative in the most obvious way, which is that they offer visual representations corresponding to the information discussed in the articles. A lot of the images depict diagrams and drawings of medical tools, technology, treatment, and rehabilitation. An article discussing chronic pericarditis has a radiographic image displaying just that. However, what is unique about this archival image is the fact that publication notes are present. These notes highlight the communication between the creators and editors, which gives more insight about the publication process in the 1950s and 1960s.

 

The original illustrations also depict coloring techniques that provide more insight into how colors were planned and implemented in medical journals at the time such as overlaying tinted plastic sheets on top of drawings to achieve a different color hue on the published image. It was also nice to see the imperfections that these seemingly perfect illustrations had and the white-out techniques used to edit and clean them on the spot.

 

Medical illustrations are such a niche field within both the arts and medical fields. Thankfully, the signatures on multiple pieces from Jo Spier and Joseph F. Schwarting, allow us to track and credit the appropriate artists with their art as well as follow their work and how it has changed and developed throughout their careers. Tracking these changes could also reveal greater changes that happened in the medical illustrations field as a whole.

 

Medical illustrations as abstract representations of health, medicine, and medical tools

I was pleasantly surprised to digitize many illustrations that were not one-to-one representations of reality such as a drawing of a sphygmomanometer wrapped around a kidney ureter, or a drawing of a kidney combined with a beaker with a straw and electrical plugs sticking out of it to represent an artificial kidney. These drawings were not meant to be accurate representations of reality. Rather, they serve as visual metaphors that help the viewer quickly grasp the essence of the article by relating it to something they are familiar with. This is a clear indication of how medical illustrations can significantly enhance the information derived from medical publications and the helpful role that art and artists play in the medical field.

 

 

All of the original Heart Bulletin illustrations found in Box 11 of the Medical Arts Publishing Foundation records are now available to view online!