Right ventricular hypertrophy and congestive heart failure in a 54 year old man with pulmonary hypertension due to chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1949.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1949.

1 painting : watercolour, with pencil, black ink and gouache highlights ; sheet 18.5 x 31.7 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.

Right ventricle, l<eft> ventricle, right atrium, sup<erior> vena cava, aorta, pul<monary> a<rtery>, inf<erior> vena cava, r<ight> auricle, right ventrical opened Lettering inscribed in black ink as key, accompanying typed note with patient history states patient was a green grocer with cardiac failure, dyspnoea and dyspepsia. He later suffered a haematemisis attack and lung congestion prior to death. Post-mortem findings included an old gastric ulcer scar, right ventricular hypertrophy and congestive heart failure Bears number: 172/1949

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 33393i

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.