Back when I had TV, one of the channels I would find myself lingering on was the surgery channel. I can’t describe the feeling I experienced as I watched the innards of someone I didn’t know pulsating under bright lights and flashing steel instruments – kind of a combination of chills, queasiness, and captivation. I had a love-hate relationship with it, but I kept coming back for more.
So when I stumbled across these awesome illustrations of 19th Century surgical techniques, I flashed back to those shiny, clinical images, but in a much more artistic form. Pictured are amputations, incisions, Caesarians, and eyeball punctures, but all beautifully rendered in a series of gorgeous 19th Century illustrations. These all hail from the book Crucial Interventions: An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles & Practice of Nineteenth-Century Surgery by Dr. Richard Barnett (available here). These are nice images – stay tuned for the really gross ones…
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions_feature](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions_feature.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions_instruments](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions_instruments.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-anatomy-of-armpit.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-anatomy-of-armpit.jpg0A-.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-anatomy-of-intestine.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-anatomy-of-intestine.jpg0A-.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-Arzneibuch-pages.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-Arzneibuch-pages.jpg0A-.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-caesarean-section-birth.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-caesarean-section-birth.jpg0A-.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-dissection-of-seated-man.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-dissection-of-seated-man.jpg0A-.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-liagture-arteries-in-arm.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-liagture-arteries-in-arm.jpg0A-.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-Ligature-of-artery.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-Ligature-of-artery.jpg0A-.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-musculature-blood-supply.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-musculature-blood-supply.jpg0A-.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-surgery-to-correct-strabismus.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-surgery-to-correct-strabismus.jpg0A-.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-thorax-dissection.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-thorax-dissection.jpg0A-.jpg)
![medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-toe-amputation.jpg%0A](http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/medicalillustration_crucialinterventions-toe-amputation.jpg0A-.jpg)
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