MI - Medical Illustrations

Collection of watercolour illustrations of medical cases drawn by J Connolly. The majority of the cases are dermatological, but there are also two surgical illustrations. Each illustration has the name and age of the patient in the bottom left, with Connolly's signature in the bottom right. In a couple of cases the name of the disease has been added in a different hand.

Illustration of the case of Eliza Moffat, aged 35, treated at the Adelaide Hospital. Note reads 'Intimately mixed medullary cancer with enchondroma. The tumor was encysted movable and pulsatile. Removed by B W R in Sept. 1872. Wound healed by the end of following Nov. Vide Dub. Monthly Journal for 1st Jan. 1873.

William Bourke Kirwan was born in Dublin in about 1814, the son of a picture dealer. Kirwan studied art, and exhibited miniatures and water-colours in the Royal Hibernian Academy. Kirwan's chief occupation during the 1830s and 1840s was as an anatomical draftsman and medical illustrator for Dublin's medical professions. In 1852 Kirwan was tried for the murder of his wife at Ireland's Eye. Although found guilty and condemned to death, the evidence was judged not wholly conclusive and the sentence was commuted to transportation for life.

Series of water-colour illustrations, and some photographs, of skin diseases produced by Wallace Beatty. Most seem to be cases Beatty treated in the Adelaide Hospital. It seems possible that some of the illustrations were used as teaching aids, and the collection also includes a couple of large charts which deal with the etiological classification of skin diseases.