Mersin Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Lokman Hekim Tıp Tarihi ve Folklorik Tıp Dergisi

Öz

Object: The history of medicine and pharmacy, two important scientific disciplines in the history of health sciences, has always aroused interest and curiosity. Until the end of the XIXth century, the lack of detailed and informative pictures in many medical articles and books written in these fields made it difficult to understand and learn. It was an expected tradition to benefit from the drawings and paintings of the artists to enrich the visual content of the books, especially those containing the historical processes of medicine and pharmacy. In this way, it was aimed to enrich the archive of the history of medicine, as some artists began to use photomechanical techniques.
Method: In the study, the development of modern medical illustration and the explanation of the terms were briefly summarized, while combining artistic talent and skill, the subject was moved to a different point. The reason why these efforts, which want to show a process from the ancient age to the XXth century, are widely used by illustrators is that the history of health consists of elements such as art and aesthetics. It has been observed that the effectiveness of this form of depicting the history of health, which is especially common in American medical culture, reached its peak in the XXth century.
Result: In the article, the short life of Robert Alan Thom (1915-1979), who is known for his successful work in illustrating the history of medicine and pharmacy in the XXth century, but is not well known in our country, and a full list of painting collections and content titles by Parke-Davis&Co related to both scientific fields are presented.
Conclusion: It is important to access the full list of these pictures, known as 40 for the history of pharmacy and 45 for the history of medicine, prepared by Robert Alan Thom at the request of Parke Davis&Co. Since there is no other study in this sense in our country, we believe that this study will make an important contribution to those who want to access or benefit from the collection. Considering that the number of illustrations related to the history of health is low today, and the existing illustrations are generally produced by computer-aided digital media, these labor-intensive studies of a period are important for the history of medicine.