Final images for Medical Landscapes project

These are the final images for the project, I have left off captions for now as I need to work on the final versions for presentation. That and they have all been mentioned before, save the last three in the series above. In order these are views of the Royal Oldham Hospital, site of the birth of the first test tube baby, Edward Jenners 'shed' where he discovered and inoculated against Smallpox and an area of Worcester where Charles Hastings built safe clean social housing for local artisans, he was also the founder of the BMI.

I admit now that the significance of the events photographed above far out way the short summery I have given so far, however I am planning text to accompany the work that will state a better case for each site and event. Once completed I will post another picture blog with captions and also a slide show with text. So please dont assume that this is the last version as it is.

Until then...

More Medical Landscapes

These two images are of Sir Howey park in Tredegar, South Wales. They show a memorial to Aneurin Bevan who used to hold his parliamentary constituency meetings on this hill top.

The next two images show St Nicholas Church in Marston, Oxfordshire where Norman Heatley and Howard Florey are buried. Both men were involved in the discovery of penicillin and although neither are household names compared to Alexander Fleming, they were responsible for taking Flemings bright idea and turning it into a usable and consistent drug. Like others featured in the project, the number of lives they saved is innumerable. 

This is the Kings Centre in Oxford, a community church run conference and meeting space. However in 1980 it was the home of Oxford Instruments Plc and was where the worlds first full body MRI scanner was built. Magnetic resonance imaging was recently described by Professor Robert Winston as one of the most important scientific advances in our lives. And you cant argue with a 'tash that good!

This is 'Pie Corner', now Cock Lane, and according to lore is where the great fire of London finished. It was also the site of the Fortune of War pub opposite the entrance to St Bartholomews Hospital, and was used by ' resurrectionists' for the display of drowned bodies, which were then selected by surgeons from across the road for use in teaching.

This is another view of Nye Bevans memorial in Tredegar.

The project is nearing to a close now, mainly due to university hand in dates. The next blog should include three more landscapes of equal importance to those already featured; Edward Jenners House, the Worcester of BMA founder Charles Hastings and the Royal Oldham Hospital.

Medical Museums

This is the project that preceded, and inspired, the medical landscapes project I am currently working on. I became aware that, in many cases, the medical history of Britain is presented in a quiet almost secretive way. Often these museums are tucked away in the basements or corridors of the great areas of medicine they seek to venerate, and in one case the whole building is both museum and conference centre mixing lectures and fine art.

I wanted to show how these two worlds of old and new exist, one creating the other to support itself.

Medical Landscapes

Right, have decided to fire up the old blog idea for the final push in. Mainly because I would like to keep people in the project and those interested outsiders informed as to what is happening, though it will be a visual blog in the main.

The idea of the work is to create New Topographics inspired landscapes of sites that are of special interest in British medical history. Most of these places are unknown or unseen by the public at large and this is an attempt to highlight that important things can happen anywhere. The images are made intentionally 'without art' in order to show the everyday nature of the scenes, if the pictures are made to look special then the lose their relevance to the project.

These are images made so far, they are intended to work alongside more detailed text to give an idea of what the picture represents. The captions below are for illustration and are not representative of the final text to be included.

Lanesborough Hotel, before becoming a 5* hotel this building was St Georges Hospital and was were Henry Gray wrote his book on anatomy (or his famous TV program). The various war memorials are included to represent the vast leaps in medical science that war provides.

This house was one of the London residences of the Crimean War nurse Mary Seacole.

Residence of William Hunter, anatomist.

The next three are all shots of Embankment in London, built by Joseph Bazalgette as part of his sewer program for London. Creating the sewers and using embankments to speed the flow of the river helped reduce and end water-borne disease in London. The number of lives saved is innumerable. 

The Pub here  is named after John Snow and the memorial pump without handle celebrates his achievement. He worked out the cholera was water borne and not air borne by tracking an epidemic in London back to this single site. He removed the handle and the disease stopped, however he would die without his work being recognised. 

John Merrick, the Elephant Man, was first found in a freak show being held at the building that now houses a sari shop by Frederick Treves, a London surgeon. After being robbed in Europe Merrick made his way back to London and was cared for in The London hospital (it is really called The London!).

The building in scaffold is the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery at Kings College London. Whilst her efforts in the Crimea are subject to many debates, Nightingale did help make large strides in the teaching of Nursing and strangely the visual presentation of statistics!

Please comment as you see fit, but bare in mind that this site is also being seen be people outside the course who are involved in the project and might not appreciate our sense of humour!