The heart and auricle of a 29-year old man, where the pericardium membrane sac is congenitally missing: two views in section with three ink diagrams. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1947.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1947.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache and black ink ; sheet 34 x 37.3 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.

Pericardium, l<eft> auricle, inf<erior> vena cava, r<ight> auricle, lung, diaphragm, heart, inf<erior> vena cava, heart pulled up, edge of pericardium, r<ight> auricle Lettering in black ink as key, typed accpanying note states patient history of teminal bulbar polio-myelitis and that the absence of pericardium was an incidental finding at post-mortem Bears number: 78/1947

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 32200i

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.