Foreign bodies in the small intestine of a 65-year old woman with attacks of abdominal pain for the previous twelve years: detail of four oval fruit stones, reverse side, covered in a layer of cholesterol, calcium, oxalate and bilirubin. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1952.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1952.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 7.1 x 5.8 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.

Reverse side Lettering inscribed in black ink, typed accompanying note with patient history states opacities first appeared in radiographs, present in widely separate areas of the abdomen, but always remaining close to each other. Due to chronic dialation of the ileum, the bowel was opened twice when end-to-side anastomosis was performed Bears number: 300/1952

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 34535i

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.