A beautifully gruesome and strangely enthralling visual tour through disease in an age before colour photography
Its a transfixing, sublime collection of portraits of the highest art The Times
Astonishing images of the dissected and diseased
superbly erudite and lucid accompanying text
Here we see unpacked the mortal elements of many anonymous individuals and by extension our own Will Self, The Guardian
Appalling, if brilliantly rendered
. A fascinating book, albeit only for those with strong stomachs Nature
A fascinating, gruesome look at how the medical profession depicted afflictions before colour photography The Big Issue
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The Sick Rose contents
Exquisitely detailed illustrations from some of the worlds rarest medical books form an unforgettable and profoundly human reminder of mankinds age-old struggle with disease.
The Sick Rose (spread)
This evocative overview, incorporating historic maps, charts, medical instruments and case notes, reveals the fears and preoccupations of an era at the mercy of epidemics, infection and bodily decay.
Richard Barnett is an academic medical historian with a PhD in History of Medicine and is author of 'Medical London' and the 'Dedalus Book of Gin'. He received one of the first Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellowships.
