Acute ulcerative endocarditis in a 34 year old woman with rheumatic valvular disease and dyspnoea: sections of (a) heart showing left atrium and (b) mitral valve showing perforation of posterior and distortion by rheumatic disease and vegetation. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1950.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1950.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache ; sheet 37.6 x 23.7 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.

Left atrium and left ventricle, aortic valve and left ventricle, acute ulcerative endocarditis, <...> aged 34, 212/50 Lettering inscribed in black ink as key, typed accompanying note with patient history includes meningitis, arthritis and splemic infarction. Patient responded well to combined pencillin and aureomycin therapy. Developed signs of femeral obstruction in left leg and died. Mitral valve showed rheumatic vegetations with a peculiar atheromatous deposit Bears number: 212/1950

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 33900i

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.