Diabetic gangrene in a 57-year old woman: detail of right foot showing perforating skin of ulcer on sole and decomposition of skin around great toe. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1951.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1951.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 21.7 x 14.4 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.

<...> 18.4.51 Lettering inscribed in pencil, typed accompanying note with patient history explains that ulcer healed, gangrenous skin sloughed and response to treatment with penicillin was very good. Radiograph showed gross disorganisation of metatarsal bones as in Charcot's joint Bears number: 228/1951

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 34093i

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.