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NOTABLE NAMES IN MEDICAL ILLUSTRATION
A. Kirkpatrick Maxwell
PATRICK ELLIOTT
Many of us are familiar with the illustrations of A.K.Maxwell from Gray’s Anatomy, Hamilton’s Anatomy andvarious other publications, although his life and backgroundis less well known. A. Kirkpatrick Maxwell was born atAnnan on the north side of the Solway in 1884. After hisfamily moved to Glasgow and, whilst still a boy, his fatherencouraged his special interest at school, which wasdrawing. His father owned a printing business in Dumfriesand arranged an apprenticeship for his son with a lithogra-pher in Glasgow. He also encouraged him to attend eveningclasses at the City School of Art.
As chance would have it, a friend of Maxwell’s aroundthis time helped to introduce him to a Dr Bles of theDepartment of Zoology at the University of Glasgow, whowas writing a book and looking for someone to illustrate it.In illustrating the book by Dr Bles he gained a considerablereputation as an illustrator and began to take on more workof this kind, from as far afield as Edinburgh, Dublin,Liverpool, Cambridge and, especially, London.
He had another stroke of luck when in 1915 during theFirst World War he received a telegram unexpectedly fromColonel Sir George Makens, RAMC: ‘Can you come toBoulogne immediately to make surgical illustrations?’Maxwell accepted the invitation and began to make carefuland accurate pictures of post-mortem specimens and warinjuries, including gas gangrene and the consequences ofinfection. Many of these drawings were published in theBritish Journal of Surgery.
After a few months Maxwell returned to Scotland and, inthe meantime, Colonel J. R. Elliott, RAMC (later Professorof Medicine at University College Hospital, London), who
ISSN 0140-511X printed/ISSN 1465-3494 online/99/030130-02 © 1999 Institute of Medical Illustrators
Journal of Audiovisual Media in Medicine, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 130–131
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had seen the drawings he had made in the army, arrangedfor Maxwell to be enlisted in the army as a medicalillustrator ‘for the duration’. He returned to France and waspaid by the newly formed Medical Research Council andgiven the rank of sergeant in the RAMC.
He came into contact with some interesting people,notably, Captain (later Sir) Alexander Fleming, destined todiscover penicillin. Life was tough in France and Maxwellhad several narrow escapes from exploding bombs. Hemade an invaluable series of over 1000 drawings of warwounds and diseases that were stored at the Royal Collegeof Surgeons in London. After the war was over, Maxwellsettled in London with its many medical schools and latervisited his mother and sister who were living in NewZealand. He made several further trips to New Zealand andreturned with many landscape sketches. He always lovedwalking, especially on the hills, and spent holidays inFrance and Switzerland often walking more than 40 miles ina day.
On his return from his first visit to New Zealand he wasappointed Artist to the Department of Anatomy andEmbryology at University College Hospital, London, underProfessor Elliot Smith, on a half-time basis, which left himfree to work for other clients, notably Dr Leitch, director ofCancer Research at the Cancer Hospital.
As it so often does, history repeated itself and, after thefirst year of the Second World War, which he spent in NewZealand, he unexpectedly received another telegram, thistime from Sir Cecil Wakeley RNVR, at Haslar Naval
Hospital in Portsmouth: ‘Could he come back to Englandimmediately and draw pictures of battle and air-raidcasualties?’
Again Maxwell responded to the call and after working inPortsmouth for a while he moved to Cambridge where heembarked on the illustration of Boyd and Hamilton’sEmbryology, which he himself regarded as ‘some of the bestwork I have ever done in my life’. Maxwell also illustratedmany other books during a busy working life includingQuain’s Anatomy, Gray’s Anatomy and Hamilton’s Anatomy.As a Medical Artist myself, I have greatly appreciated theclarity, skill and beauty of Maxwell’s illustrations over theyears, having obtained several copies of these volumes as avaluable addition to my anatomical reference collection.
A. K. Maxwell died at the age of 91 in 1975 and has lefta great legacy of fine medical illustrations for study andreference. Although there are still many books in printcontaining Maxwell’s work, unfortunately few originals arestill in existence. With the destruction of all his illustrationsgiven to the Royal College of Surgeons during a bombingraid in the Second World War and the regular clearances ofpublishers, only a few remaining illustrations have beenfound in the collection of Professor W.J. Hamilton and asmall number of drawings archived by various publishers.
Written by Patrick Elliott, Senior Medical Artist, RoyalHallamshire Hospital, Sheffield. Much of the material onwhich this article was based comes from an original articlepublished in Medical and Biological Illustration (1973), 23:17–22 by R.M.S. Bell and A.E. Clark-Kennedy.
Notable Names 131
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