Medical images - antiquities and curiosities

August 3, 2007 9:44 AM

Historical medicine and health images - there's some fun browsing for aficionados of antique medical technologies, such as orthapedic devices, anatomical illustrations and models, public health materials, and much more. Each image can be enlarged and has explanatory text. (Just a small part of the 30,000+ image database of the wonderful site ingenious, previously brought to our attention by Fat Buddha.)
posted by madamjujujive (5 comments total)

omg, What an awesome site mjjj! It's packed full of rich visuals and information. All kinds of huh moments, like whoda thunk there needed to be leech transport boxes, just never thought about it. Love all the vintage science images.

Nice transport page. Can't quite see how it fits with the science and medicine, except, of course, that without transport, nothing in science, or medicine, would have come together, no metal to make the instruments or tools for example.

Many of the medical images can be bought as a print too (although I get a 404 when I looked to see the price).

Interesting a bunch of museums collaborated to become a "family of museums". Strange bedfellows: The Science Museum, National Railway Museum, National Media Museum. Nice stories section. It's in the stories part of the website that the science and media museums meld. Quite cool!
posted by nickyskye at 10:20 AM on August 3, 2007

Another OMG!11! here too. I bow before you, mjjj. There goes the rest of my working day....
posted by jokeefe at 10:22 AM on August 3, 2007

Just for fun and delightful web meandering, I put mermaid into the Ingenious search engine. Weird and cool results. Putting in the word fairy, charming. Under the word brain search, 'Jedi' helmet for magnetic resonance imaging. Great dilly dallying and learning together, my favorite combo.
posted by nickyskye at 10:32 AM on August 3, 2007

I loved the gadget hands. Great example of forging ahead.

This post is marvellous topped with sprinkles and a cherry.
posted by phoque at 1:07 PM on August 3, 2007

nickyskye, thanks for your contributions to the thread! As for the transportation, I think that is actually a distinct section - the "leech transport" (and yes, that is strange!) must be cross posted. The site has several fascinating topical image galleries in addition to the medical/health one.

phoque, I was also fascinated by the prosthetics. These 1920s-era artificial arm and this 1964 gas-powered pair of arms for a child, for example. And this rather surreal looking artifical foot puts me in mind of Margo Quan Knight. (scroll down to Meat Feet. Some images NSFW).

*waves to jokeefe* - thanks for your nice words, g.f.!
posted by madamjujujive at 10:54 AM on August 4, 2007