The Art of Surgery / The Surgeon’s Art
An Exhibit, Archives & Special Collections, Health Sciences Library
February 22 – May 26, 2023
Hammer Health Sciences Center, Lower Level 2
Along with anatomy, probably no branch of the biomedical sciences has produced more memorable art in the Western medical tradition than surgery. While surgeons, like all medical professionals, have always learned their craft by doing, textbooks and treatises have long played an important role in their education. The illustrations created for these works over the centuries have a more than pedagogical interest and are often works of art themselves.
The Art of Surgery / The Surgeons’ Art, a new exhibit from Archives & Special Collections at the A.C. Long Health Sciences Library, highlights just a few examples from this rich legacy. Among the works on display are a 1649 English translation of a treatise by the French Renaissance surgeon, Ambroise Paré, showing the methods of treating dislocated limbs; Gaspare Tagliacozzi’s 1597 treatise on rhinoplasty, the first published work on plastic surgery; an amputation scene in vivid colors from Sir Charles Bell’s Illustrations of the great operations of surgery (1821); and what is thought to be the earliest printed depiction of brain surgery in progress from Giovanni Andrea Della Croce’s 1573 Chirurgiae.
More recent works include Sir Harold Gillies’s Plastic Surgery of the Face (1920) based on his work with terribly mutilated soldiers during World War I and a foundational work of modern reconstructive surgery; Spinal disease and spinal curvature (1878) by American pioneer orthopedic surgeon Lewis A. Sayre (VP&S 1842) with its innovative use of photographs to illustrate surgical procedures; and Principles of Total Hip Anthroplasty (1978) a collaboration between Columbia orthopedic surgeon Nas Ser Eftekhar and Robert Demarest, the Medical Center’s long-time medical illustrator – both Demarest’s original drawing is shown along with the published version.
All works on display are from the holdings of Archives & Special Collections in the Health Sciences Library. The exhibit was curated by Stephen Novak, Head, Archives & Special Collections, and will run from February 22 through May 26. The Hammer Building is a 24/7 facility open to anyone with a valid CUIMC ID. For more information please contact hslarchives@columbia.edu
Above: Plate IX, Sir Charles Bell. Illustrations of the great operations of surgery: trepan, hernia, amputation, aneurism, and lithotomy. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821.