Rare cancer of pancreas (leiomyosarcoma) in an 80-year old man, with emphysema, arteriosclerosis and diabetes: cut surface section. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1949.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1949.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 26.7 x 27.7 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.

Published case notes situate areas of cystic degeneration, old haemorrhages, brown staining and recent bleeding. State that tumour was much softer at periphery, with all organs full of nodules if not replaced. Left liver lobe was one such large nodule. All nodules were found to have a common appearance of a "whorly architecture", and had spread in secondary deposits to prostate and testes where they were either mobile or umbilicated Bears number: 158/1949

Wellcome Collection 33338i

See C. F. Ross "Leiomysarcoma of the pancreas", British journal of surgery, 1951, volume 29, pages 53-56. The case notes were used by permission of Dr Kenneth David Keele, 1909- , who co-authored "Intra abdominal crises", London, Butterworths, 1961 with Norman Matheson. This case study was discussed by C F Ross whilst surgeon at Ashford hospital, Middlesex

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.

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.