The Wound Man—a medical diagram depicting a figure fantastically pierced by weapons and ravaged by injuries and diseases—was reproduced widely across the medieval and early modern globe. In this panoramic book, the author charts the emergence and endurance of this striking image, used as a visual guide to the treatment of many ailments. Taking readers on a remarkable journey from medieval Europe to eighteenth-century Japan, the author explains the historic popularity of this gruesome image and why the Wound Man continues to intrigue us today. Drawing on a wealth of original research, the author traces the many lives of the Wound Man, from its origins in late medieval Bohemia to its vivid reincarnations in hundreds of manuscripts and printed books over more than three hundred years.

Transporting readers beyond the specifics of bodily injury, the author demonstrates how the Wound Man’s body was at once an encyclopedic repository of surgical knowledge, a fantastic literary and religious muse, a catalyst for shifting media landscapes, and a cross-cultural artistic feat that reached diverse audiences around the world. The Wound Man, we discover, held profound importance not only for healers and patients but also for scribes, students, nuns, monks, printmakers, and poets. Marvelously illustrated, the book sheds light on the entwined histories of art and medicine, showing how premodern medical diagrams represent a unique site of contact between sickness, cure, painting, and print.

Contents

Introduction: Long, Strange Histories
Diagram: Ambitious Figures
Medicine: Wound Mechanics
Affect: Wounds in the World
Into Print: International Intermediality
Image: Wound Man Aesthetics
Epilogue: Nuclear Wound Man

Acknowledgments
Notes

Bibliography
Index
Image Credits

Source: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691243481/wound-man