Mitral stenosis in a 53-year old woman with tabes and fatal congestive heart failure: section showing diseased mitral valve, cardiac lesion and large scale thrombus in left atrium. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1955.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1955.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 16.9 x 10.7 cm

Barbara Evelyn Nicholson (1906 – 1978) trained at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1923. She began her artistic career as a medical illustrator and was a founder member of the Medical Artists Association, where she is recorded as serving on an exhibition committee in October 1949. By 1951, she had illustrated G.F. Gibberd, A short textbook of midwifery (2nd ed., London: J. & A. Churchill, 1941) and Philip Wiles, Essentials of orthopaedics (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1949). The Medical Artists Association records last list her, in 1951. In the 1950s her focus moved to botanical subjects and from the late 1950s – 1970s she was a prolific botanical illustrator.

Heart Lettering inscribed in red pencil crayon, typed accompanying note with patient history includes auricular fibrillation and thrombus extending along pulmonary veins with aortic regurgitation. Following tests and family history, it was thought that the tabes was of congenital syphitic origin Bears number: 454/1955

The watercolours and pen and ink drawings held by Wellcome Collection were painted by Barbara Nicholson at Ashford Hospital, Ashford, Middlesex, between 1946 and 1951, at the request of the surgeon Norman Matheson.

Wellcome Collection 35544i

Presented to the Wellcome Institute Library in 1987 by Ashford Postgraduate Medical Centre, as part of a collection of medical illustrations by Barbara E. Nicholson.