An atlas of horrible things that could happen to you in the 15th century

Today, he's known as "Wound Man", but once upon a time this illustration was just one part of a standard medical or surgical text book. You'd get your basic illustrations of anatomy. Then you'd get your Wound Man, to show you all the different, awful things that could happen to that anatomy. A 2009 blog post from the Wellcome Library explains:

Captions beside the stoic figure describe the injuries and sometimes give prognoses: often precise distinctions are drawn between types of injuries, such as whether an arrow has embedded itself in a muscle or shot right through. (The latter is better – the arrowhead can be cut away and the shaft withdrawn smoothly, whilst the embedded arrow will tear the muscle with its barbs when pulled out.)

The other interesting thing about this illustration: It's also an example of how the early printing industry worked. According to the Bernard Becker Medical Library at Washington University, there were several different versions of the Wound Man, but the same version would show up in multiple books — a result of surgeons and printmakers literally carrying the same wood blocks from one printing press to another.

Read more about surgery and medicine during this time period by visiting the excellent history of science blog: The Chirurgeon's Apprentice

Wound Man via David Ng

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: History • medicine • Science • surgery • war

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OldBrownSquirrel

It’s amusing to glance at this image and imagine that the “Operation” board game dates to the 15th century.
- Jen Onymous
  
  Argh, you beat me to the first “Operation” comment.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Here’s one of my design school projects. It’s a record of every injury or surgery that I’d had until then. The background is made up of excerpts from my medical record and the lines are my patient ID number.
  - OldBrownSquirrel
    
    Damn! You’re one messed-up kouros!
- pjcamp
  
  Ah dammit!
  
  Ok, I’ll add to the joke pile — Operation as seen by the corner barber.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

Meh, Wounded man just needs to man the F up, walk it off.
welcomeabored

I’ve been smacked upside the tricep with a turkey leg. It’s not so bad.
RadioSilence

Has someone cut the tip off his willy? Of all the things happening to him, that makes me wince the most :(
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Duanburge/100000313244887 Mark Duanburge

There is a large, wooden sculpture, which seems to be based upon this drawing, displayed in a medieval castle in Jersey.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bazzer73/7678731738/
theophrastvs

What’s with the jaunty little hat? (“that’s..no… hat!”)
http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

There is no arrow to the knee, Skyrim guys. Not a one.
http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

Wound man? Where’s the spring?
http://twitter.com/GiantRobotPilot Drew Christensen

His head smashed in and his heart cut out
And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged
And his nostrils raped and his bottom burnt off
And his penis…
http://twitter.com/beep54orama B E Pratt

“Cmon, C’mon!! It’s just a flesh wound!”