From shame to fame: The improbable career of the great anatomist-surgeon D. Hayes Agnew.

David Hayes Agnew began his career as a country doctor in rural Pennsylvania in 1838. After a 3-year diversion as a partner in a large ironworks business that went bankrupt in 1846, Agnew, seriously in debt, returned to the medical profession in Cochranville, PA, hoping to focus on surgery. Recognizing that he needed to improve his knowledge of anatomy, he purchased cadavers from Philadelphia and dissected at home in his spare time. When he was finished dissecting, he covertly moved bodies to a nearby pond so he could later collect skeletons after eels had removed the remaining soft tissues. This worked well until Agnew and the townspeople found out that a local fisherman, known for selling the most delicious eels, fished exclusively from this pond. Agnew was asked to leave Cochranville and he moved to Philadelphia, where he purchased the Philadelphia School of Anatomy and worked as a surgeon at Blockley Hospital. During the Civil War, he became renowned for his ability to manage gunshot wounds. Agnew was upwardly mobile in Philadelphia, becoming one of America's most prominent 19th-century academic surgeons. When President James Garfield was shot by an assassin, Agnew was called to care for him. When he retired from his position as the John Rhea Barton Professor of the Principles and Practice of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, the medical students hired the famous American realist painter, Thomas Eakins, to produce The Agnew Clinic, which became one of the artist's two most important paintings. Clin. Anat. 32:661-671, 2019. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Pennsylvania Anatomy Act of 1883: Weighing the Roles of Professor William Smith Forbes and Senator William James McKnight.

Effective Anatomical Acts transformed medical education and curtailed grave-robbing. William S. Forbes, Demonstrator of Anatomy at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, authored the Pennsylvania Anatomy Act of 1867, but it was ineffective. In December of 1882, Forbes and accomplices were charged with grave-robbing. Forbes was acquitted in early 1883, but his accomplices were all convicted; nevertheless, these events precipitated a strengthened Anatomy Act in 1883. Forbes was crowned the Father of the Pennsylvania Anatomy Act and was revered by the Philadelphia medical community for his personal sacrifices for medical education; they even paid his legal fees. Over the remainder of his life, Forbes received many honors. However, there was a second major player, rural doctor William J. McKnight, a convicted grave-robber and State Senator. The evidence shows that Forbes precipitated the crisis, which was a racial powder keg, and then primarily focused on his trial, while McKnight, creatively working behind the scenes in collaboration with Jefferson, Anatomy Professor William H. Pancoast, used the crisis to draft and pass transformative legislation enabling anatomical dissection at Pennsylvania medical schools. While not minimizing Forbes suffering throughout these events, McKnight should be appropriately recognized for his initiative and contributions, which far exceeded those of Forbes.

Realismo pictórico y medicina: las dos clínicas quirúrgicas de Thomas Eakins / Painting realism and medicine: the two surgical clinics of Thomas Eakins

Realism is a painting style that began with Millet and Courbet in politically convulsed France in the middle of the nineteenth century. In the second half of that century, the pragmatic and democratic tradition of the United States fostered the careers of many realist painters, including that of Thomas Eakins. Eakins, trained in France, developed his career completely associated with Philadelphia at a time when this city was in the vanguard of American emerging industry, culture and medicine. Eakins The clinic of Dr. Gross and the The clinic of Dr. Agnew are icons of these developments and symbolize a perfect union of art and medicine. Both paintings permit the viewer to appreciate the artist s mastery, originality and Americanism while simultaneously tracking the progress of surgery as evidenced by the introduction of asepsis, anesthesia and nursing. Eakins mastery is revealed by its use of some European Old Masters approaches to portray medical professionals undertaking their daily duties in their work environments with critical and unadorned vision. This combination of vision and skills led Eakins to create a highly original yet analytical art. Unfortunately, his representations were far ahead of his time and resulted in under appreciation of his paintings and a censorious reaction to their content. His contemporaries rejection of Eakins work negatively affected his career as a painter, as a teacher and even his private life. This judgment was overturned in subsequent years and by the twentieth century Eakins was recognized as an American master without parallel.

Sport, medicina e arte: a 'ciência encantada' do corpo nas obras de Thomas Eakins / Sport, medicine and art: the 'enchanted science' of the body in the works of Thomas Eakins

Analisa as representações de esporte e medicina na produção do artista norte-americano Thomas Eakins, um dos mais influentes e originais dos Estados Unidos na transição dos séculos XIX e XX. Parte do pressuposto de que Eakins conseguiu traduzir esteticamente um emaranhado de representações relacionadas à modernidade, entre as quais o prelúdio da relação íntima, e na época ainda sui generis, entre prática esportiva, saúde e medicina, intermediado pela ideia de espetáculo. Espera-se que este estudo seja mais um contributo para a promoção do que temos chamado de uma arqueologia social do esporte, uma prospecção de sua presença por entre as redes e teias sociais.