Fatal fistula in ileum in a 60-year old woman with spreading venous mesenteric thrombosis: detail sketch of abdomen, anterior view showing incision and faecal discharge. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1951.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1951.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 14 x 19.1 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.

Fistula in ileum, mesenteric thrombosis, <...> 14.2.51 Lettering inscribed in black ink, typed accompanying note with patient history states incision was made to drain peritoneum and a corrugated drain was added. From this, one and a half feet of gangrenous small gut was extruded through the opening. Post-mortem findings include a grossly engorged, herniated small bowel and congestion of mucosa with haemorrages and oedema Bears number: 219/1951

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 33999i

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.