Sarcoid with malignant changes in a 51-year old woman with colicky abdominal pain: (a) appearance of stomach at laparotomy showing infiltration and upper pole of spleen, with (b) spleen in section, adherent to the diaphragm. Watercolour with pen and ink drawing by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1952.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1952.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache and black ink ; sheet 28.7 x 37.2 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.

<...>, 3.9.52, stomach, spleen, liver, growth in undersurface of liver, cut edge of diaphragm, line of cut for specimen <above> tumour in spleen Lettering inscribed in black ink, typed accompanying note includes gross splenomegaly, slight heptatic enlargement and luekopenia. Sarcoid changes were also noted in the skin of the left elbow, right cheek and lymphatic glands Bears number: 308/1952

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 34538i

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.