Joseph Maclise
Maclise published his own Surgical Anatomy in 1851, which, unusually for anatomical drawings, included several depictions of the dissection of a black man. His American publishers whitewashed the images of the black men, lightening their skin and changing their features.
Dissection of the trunk of a seated black man, showing major blood-vessels. Coloured lithograph by J. Maclise, 1851. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection.
In 1848, Quain published The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body. The drawings were done by Joseph Maclise, esq., a surgeon. Quain discussed Maclise’s drawings in the preface:
‘I obtained the assistance of my friend and former pupil, Mr. Joseph Maclise. In reference to that gentleman’s labours, it may be allowed me to say, that while I have had the co-operation of an anatomist and surgeon, obviously a great advantage, the drawings will, I believe, be found not to have lost in spirit or effect. It affords me great gratification to render my acknowledgments to Mr. Maclise, for the readiness with which he aceeded to my wishes, and undertook so arduous a task, and the zeal with which he has devoted himself to it in the intervals of application to the duties of his profession’.
RICHARD QUAIN
Richard Quain was born in county Cork in July 1800, to father Richard Quain and a mother whose name is unknown. His brother Jones was also a man of medicine, working at Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the University of London. Richard served an apprenticeship to a surgeon in Ireland, and then moved to London to study at the Aldersgate School of Medicine. He attended the lectures of James Richard Bennett, a lecturer on anatomy, and assisted him in his office as a demonstrator of anatomy. When Bennett died in 1830, Quain became senior demonstrator of anatomy.
Quain became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1828, and became the first assistant surgeon to University College in 1834. He worked his way through the ranks, and became full surgeon and special professor of clinical surgery in 1848, and consulting surgeon to the hospital in 1866. He married Ellen Midleton, a widowed viscountess, in 1859, and the pair had no children together. At the time of his death, he was surgeon-extraordinary to Queen Victoria. He died on 15 September 1887.
Richard Quain, surgeon at University College Hospital, London. Lithograph by T. Bridgford. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection.