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Carolus Linnaeus in Laponian costume
Carolus (also translated as "Carl") Linnaeus' favorite plant was the Twinflower (Linnaea borealis). It was not named after him by himself, but by his teacher, Grovonius.
When Linnaeus was elevated to nobility, he adopted the twinflower as his personal symbol.
Death by "Marsh Fever" (Malaria)
More people die of malaria every single day than have died of Ebola in the past decade.
During an average year, more people die of influenza every month than have ever even been infected with Ebola.
This is because mosquito and airborne transmission are far more effective than direct bodily-fluid contact. It's fairly simple to eliminate bodily fluid transmission in countries with ready access to chlorine and water. Mosquito bites and airborne droplets are almost impossible to eliminate - all we can hope to do is control them.
There are much scarier things out there than Ebola.
Hasselet's Dendrobium - Dendrobium hasseletii
This orchid lives high in the hills and mossy, montane forests of the Malaysian peninsula, as well as in Sumatra and Java. It has sparse, thin leaves, on a sturdy bamboo-like stalk. The flowers bloom from leafless parts of the stalk, in late summer and early fall. Despite its elegance, this orchid is one of the more difficult keepers, and as such is not widespread in the gardening and botanical circles.
Collection d'orchidées: aquarelles originales. Unknown German author/artist, late 1800s.
Extraction of the Stone of Folly, or: Cutting of the Stone
This circa 1490 painting by Hieronymus Bosch depicts a trepanation to extract "The Stone of Folly" from a man who proclaims "My name is Lubbert Das" - "Lubbert Das" was synonymous with a foolish, insane, or comical person, and was used in contemporary Dutch comedies.
Trepanation was used in a multitude of ways, many of which involved mental illness treatment, and none of which presumably involved wearing a funnel on your head.
Portrayals of Dentistry in the 17th Century
I had the privilege to get a chipped filling extracted from my gingiva and to have the filling re-done earlier today, in a process that was about as fun as, well, getting an enamel chip dug out of your gums and then getting a large filling right over the seriously-inflamed gumline.
Of course, as much as I piss and moan about how much it hurt, my pain is nothing compared to people in the 17th century. Well, at least according to the artists of the era. There seems to have been a particular interest in the pain inflicted by the dentists and barber-surgeons of the time, and the fascination of the people around the "patient" in the apparent misery they're going through.
Dentists were largely seen as below barber-surgeons until the very late 1600s-early 1700s, when one Pierre Fauchard took massive steps towards legitimization of the profession.
Top: "The Dentist" Gerard van Honthorst, 1622. Center Left: "The Quackdoctor" Jan Steen, 1651. Center Right: "The Extraction of Tooth" Gerard Dou, ca. 1630-1635. Bottom: "The Toothpuller" Caravaggio (probable), ca. 1608-1610.
"Feldhase" - Field Hare
More widely known as "Young Hare" or "Wild Hare", Albrecht Durer's 1502 painting of Lepus europaeus is widely recognized as one of the masterpieces of observational art. The gouache and watercolor methods used by Durer went against many taught in his day, and afforded his paintings a much more realistic nature than most early still life pieces by other artists.
Feldhase. Albrecht Dürer, 1502. Gouache and watercolor on paper: 251 × 226 mm.
Top: Edward Jenner performing his initial inoculation experiments in 1796 Bottom: Typical presentation of vaccination site when successfully inoculated.
You know those shots and nasal sprays you get for vaccinations these days? Well, it wasn't always like that. Though the practice of intentionally infecting people with Variola minor (much less fatal) to avoid Variola major goes back all the way to ancient China, Edward Jenner performed the most well-documented trials of using inoculation with Vaccinia virus (cowpox), in order to avoid later infection from smallpox.
Jenner, and many other physicians of the period, noticed that milkmaids and other farm-hands who had close contact with cows almost never became infected with smallpox during outbreaks, and hypothesized that the reason was due to the fact that they'd previously been infected by cowpox. To prove this fact, Jenner actually used his own children as guinea pigs, and inoculated them with the fluid from a cowpox sore on a milkmaid. To do this, he had to puncture the dermis with the infectious agent, and the child would contract a generally mild cowpox infection several days later.
As you can see on the lower image, the effects on the skin were not pretty, and the virus often caused substantial scarring, which can still be seen on most people who received the vaccines - just ask any relative growing up before the 1950s, and they probably still have that scar!
The method of Vaccinia virus inoculation to prevent serious smallpox infection was also much more dangerous than vaccination methods we have today. Approximately 1 in 1000 people would die from the initial methods , and approximately 1 in 75,000 people would die from the last methods used before we discontinued routine vaccination. This is because the virus was not attenuated (weakened) at first, and even when it was, you still had to have the body react as if it were infected in order to receive any immunity. It was a lot worse than the acute soreness some of today's vaccinations give us, but it still saved thousands of lives - Variola major had a 35% mortality rate in unvaccinated people.
Top: "The Vaccination (1796)" by Gaston-Theodore Melingue, 1879. Bottom: Pediatrics: The Hygienic and Medical Treatment of Children. Thomas Morgan Retch, 1906.
Etchings of Skulls, for Reference in Art
Including the adult seen in profile, from the front, and bisected; and the new-born child.
Notable differences in the frontal bone (forehead), maxilla, mandible, and orbits are enumerated within the text, as well as proportional size changes with growth.
Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting. Charles Bell, 1806.
If you’re in Chicago, don’t miss this! And…it’s free!
This groundbreaking exhibition showcases over one thousand artworks and other artifacts from the personal collection of Chicago-based collector Richard Harris. Amassed over several decades, Harris’s collection explores the iconography of death across cultures and traditions spanning nearly six thousand years, and includes works by some of the greatest artists of our time.
Featuring paintings from the Thirty Years War (Jaques Callot -17th century) through the present day. Also a significant exhibit featuring non-war-related death iconography from thousands of years ago, through the 20th century.
Check it out if you're in the area!
After John White, Date 1585-1593 (via British Museum)
JUST FOR YOU ANON
"The Quaka" - 1804 aquatint, by Samuel Daniell
Quagga Stallion
Water colour painting on vellum parchment, by Nicolas Marechal, painted in Paris in 1793. This stallion was a member of the menagerie "herd" at Versailles, during the reign of Louis XVI. Unfortunately, the only female quagga in the herd lived there years before the stallion, and he never produced foals.
Tendons of the topside of the foot.
From Kaibo Zonshinzu anatomy scrolls by Yasukazu Minagaki, 1819. In Keio University Archives.
followingcaligula answered: do illustrations of gaping head wounds count?
Yes. Yes they do.
1621 painting of Hungarian hussar Gregor Baci.
He had a lance pierce through his eye/skull/brain during a tournament, but after it was removed, he made a "full recovery"...whatever that meant in the 17th century. I do know he didn't die for a few decades after, and continued to perform his duties as a nobleman, but didn't go to war with the other Hussars when there was some uprising, presumably because he, er, was short one eye? I don't know.
All I know is that he's the original Phineas Gage.
1863. Private Milton E. Wallen, Co. C, 1st Kentucky Cavalry.
Private Wallen was wounded by a Minie ball while in prison. His arm was amputated and was beginning to heal well, but after a week he began to develop hospital gangrene in the amputated stump.
Hospital gangrene was very common back in the days before antiseptic practices. As opposed to the conditions considered to be forms of gangrene today (gas, dry, wet), "hospital gangrene" was largely caused by Clostridium spp., and was quickly fatal. As Clostridium are bacteria that thrive in the lower GI tract, hospitals with poor sanitation (and consequently widespread fecal contamination) have far higher rates of hospital gangrene death.
1861. Union soldier bayoneted in the knee at the first battle of Bull Run. He was stabbed at least 14 times after being crippled by the initial bayoneting.
