HOW MAY OUR PRESENT METHODS OF MEDICAL ILLUSTRATION BE IMPROVED

In looking over our contemporary medical literature one can not help being impressed with the inadequate character of the majority of the illustrations. This applies to our text-books as well as to our periodicals. I do not refer merely to the artistic inefficiency of the cuts, which is very evident, but also to the scientific inefficiency. Our popular magazines and the novels of the day are usually very well illustrated, the pictures are artistic, correct and well printed. Why should the medical literature not keep pace with this progress? It is true that medical illustration requires highly specialized knowledge and skill, which is not acquired in the same manner in which the painter of still life, landscape or portraits acquires his, namely, through simple observation of objects with which he has been familiar from childhood up. The trouble is that the medical illustrator is not familiar with the objects he