One of the biggest challenges medicine faced in the past was documenting the physical characteristics of certain conditions with accuracy. Many doors opened thanks to the intervention of microscopes, but beyond the skill and knowledge of experts, it required someone with a solid artistic background. That someone was Dr. Frank Netter, who took the market by storm with his revolutionary illustrations. Dubbed "the Michelangelo of Medicine", Netter's drawings were welcomed with open arms by his colleagues... but we feel a bit uncomfortable...
Born on April 25, 1906 in New York City, Dr. Frank Netter began his artistic career studying at prestigious institutions such as the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League of New York. By the mid-1920s, Netter's art had already reached the Saturday Evening Post and the New York Times, but his progress as an illustrator faced strong opposition from his parents, who asked him to pursue a more "stable" career. That led him to the field of medicine, and he became a surgeon after attending City College and New York University. Fate conspired against his practice, and with the Great Depression in full effect, his potential patients couldn't even afford the most basic health services.
Netter's skill in both fields allowed him to take on freelance work for pharmaceutical companies, which sought his illustrations to boost sales during those tough times. His definitive departure from medicine came from a curious misunderstanding: a client requested his services, and Netter asked for $1,500 for a set of five images, but the client interpreted it as $1,500 per image and paid the $7,500 without protest. Netter's popularity exploded when CIBA (now part of the multinational Novartis) commissioned an illustration of a human heart to promote the sale of digitalis (used to treat heart failure). The medical community's response was so impressive that requests for additional copies (this time without the advertising) multiplied.
Frank Netter's work gave rise to more than 4,000 illustrations, many of them collected in dozens of volumes, including the CIBA Collection of Medical Illustrations. Celebrated for their realism and precision, anyone without a medical background will be quickly impressed, even frightened, I'd say. Of course, this isn't on the level of the master H.R. Giger or the strange captures made by the pioneers of photography, but for logical reasons we'll issue an NSFW warning, as there are some frontal nudes among the images.
The Gallery
Source: Dangerous Minds
