The Wound Man & His Afterlives

 During the HS97 Community Building Week, I had the pleasure of attending Jack Hartnell’s talk titled “Wound Man: Three Early Modern Afterlives of a Medieval Surgical Image.” An art historian and Associate Professor at the University of East Anglia, Jack Hartnell mostly investigates the relationships between objects and their makers. He focuses on the original contexts and perceptions of these objects - mostly from the medieval ages. Because of my deep research interests and curiosity about the practices and traditions that medicine was rooted in during medieval times, I was excited to attend this talk!

As foreseen by the title, the talk’s subject of interest was the image of the “Wound Man” — one of the most fascinating objects found in medical manuscripts of the medieval period. During this online lecture, Hartnell explored this figure’s journey throughout the past centuries. 

Hartnell started by describing the image — it is that of a man covered in a multitude of wounds. He’s been ruthlessly stabbed and punctured with blades, peppered with insect bites, and ridden with bodily bleeds and swellings. He is deeply unwell. However, Jack Hartnell argues that in spite of the incredible ailments consuming his body, the Wound Man is still very much alive. The purpose of the image crystalizes: the Wound Man was not created with the purpose of instilling fear. Rather, it was created to — paradoxically — represent something much more hopeful: the vigor and powerful potential of late medieval medical knowledge. The phrases and paragraphs pointing to the wounds on the image indicate the medieval cures for the wounds or illnesses at the indicated location. This interpretation was shocking to me, because it greatly contrasted the initial impressions I had when I first looked at the image.  

I was very intrigued by the descriptions of the medical culture during the medieval period. Wounds were a big topic of discussion during such times, and surgical writings (which the Wound Man is considered one) at the time were so detailed in informing practitioners how they might address or treat injuries. This is contrary to the commonly held misconceptions about how medieval knowledge “lacked.” Thus, the Wound Man was of interest to many people and physicians at the time. 

But even beyond that, Hartnell was not satisfied with the mere discussion of the cures on the Wound Man images. He wanted to further explore the supplementary materials (literary, visual, artistic) used alongside the image. I understand where his stance is coming from, because the contexts of this figure’s use can tell us a lot about the significance it held, and more importantly, about how that significance has changed over the centuries. This took up a significant portion of the talk, whereas Hartnell explored several different contexts and locations the image was used after its dissemination and international distribution. In fact, the image became so accessible that so many variations were created in different countries around Europe. Over the centuries, this medical image became aestheticized and romanticized in literature and academia. 

Overall, Hartnell’s talk made me reflect on and critically think about the ways that history is often shaped by the people writing it. This historical object in question - the Wound Man image - has stayed alive through the past few centuries, but in different ways. This is where the Wound Man’s afterlives come into play - they were adapted, presented, and perceived in a multitude of manners due to their presence and delivery in a multitude of contexts. Each different representation of the Wound Man tells the story of the people who produced it. It tells us how they conceived their own bodies and how these perceptions were impacted or distorted by the work of medieval artisans at each time period. I am leaving with questions about how our modern-day artisans depict illness and cure - especially during a deadly pandemic like that of  COVID-19. And I will ponder for a while more.  

This was perhaps one of the most fascinating talks I have attended. I am glad to have participated in this History of Science Community Building Week and listened to such interesting insights!