Bowel cancer in a 34-year old man, after colostomy, with amoeboma of caecum: detail of sloughing of abdominal wall. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1950.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1950.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 17.7 x 23.7 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.

1, 17.1.50, 183 A/50 Lettering inscribed in black ink, accompanying typed note gives very detailed patient history. Originally considered to be an appendix abscess, after laparotomy, a malignant mass was discovered in the caecum. Therefore the intestine loop was exteriorised wilth a view to a Paul-Mikulicz colostomy, however, the tumour had become gangrenous and the colostomy wound deteriorated despite treatment with penicillin, sulphonamides and streptomycin. A specimen taken from the area showed the presence of an amoeba parasite. The patient had served in the army in India where he suffered from diahorrea. After extensive tests, treatment consisted of emetine, aureomycin, metrasil, saborquin and to stop the wound continually breaking down, grafts and gauze supplemented the abdominal wall. The wound healed completely apart from a small discharging sinus Bears number: 183/1950

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 33542i

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.