The Life and Afterlives of the Medival Wound Man

 I had the opportunity to attend Jack Hartnell’s seminar on the Wound Man on Tuesday. Jack Hartnell, who is an associate professor of Art History at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, focuses his research on the history of medicine, with a focus on the Middle Ages. The Wound Man first appeared in Europe in the 15th century and was originally used to help inform practitioners how to care for injury. Although it is seen as a grotesque depiction today, it was an attempt to discuss and aestheticize wounds. The Wound Man is a depiction of a man, impaled or infected with various ailments, and still has modern prominence, such as the television show Hannibal’s depiction in 2013, or Mount Orgeuil Castle’s installation of the Wound Man in the early 21st century. His seminar looked at the development of the Wound Man over time, starting with 15th century Europe and ending with 18th century Asia. Over time, the Wound Man developed from a labeled diagram to short descriptions of each ailment to full paragraphs to better aid those in the medical field. There was a wide range of ailments listed, from bad nails to trauma treatment, indicating that the Wound Man was meant to be some type of general advisory for surgeons. 

Although the Wound Man began as a figure aimed to aid practitioners in regards to medical care, it began to develop more of an aesthetic aura as the 16th century progressed. Some Czech manuscripts attempted to divide the wound man into parts, and placed each individual part onto multiple pages. In Hartnell’s words, the Wound Man was classicized in England, aestheticized in Germany, and romanticized in France, indicating the Wound Man’s transformation from a medical diagram to aid practitioners to an art piece, combining medicine with the ‘classics’. The first image is the one of the original depictions of the Wound Man from the 15th century- at a first glance, it appears to be much more practical, with each ailment labeled with a respective title, and is clearly not meant to be displayed as an art piece but instead for professionals to refer to when providing care. It does not appear to offer much aesthetic appeal, but serves primarily as an education diagram. 

The second image is from John Browne’s Compleat Discourse of Wounds (1678), and shows how the meaning of the Wound Man changed over time. There are no descriptions of the ailments affecting the Wound Man, and the included ailments seem to be there more for show than for any educational purpose. Instead of the multitudes of injuries afflicting the original Wound Man, there are only seven ailments affected the 17th-century Wound Man. Furthermore, the main focus of the piece is not the injuries themselves, but instead the male figure and his physique. The more modern Wound Man does not seem to be affected by any of the impalements on his body, in contrast to the original Wound Man, whose expression is one of pain. There is not much of a chance that any practitioner would be able to refer to the 17th-century Wound Man in order to help them provide care, and this Wound Man would fit in much better in an art gallery setting instead of being distributed to medical personnel. Although this was a topic I had not heard of prior to this seminar, it was certainly interesting to see the development of the Wound Man throughout the years, as well as seeing its development from a medical diagram to more of a work of art. It displays the importance of visual learning in medicine and shows how medical education can adapt over time.

The Wound Man from Wellcome Library's MS.

Engraving by Robert White featured in John Browne’s Compleat Discourse of Wounds (1678)