Art and Medicine with Frank Netter

I learned about Frank Netter today, but I was aware of his work before today. Frank Netter was born in the early 1900's and grew up wanting to be an artist. During high school he went to a design school, but his family didn't want him to be an artist. He decided to go on the medical school and he became a surgeon. He opened up a practice, but it was not profitable at all. This was in the middle of the Great Depression.

He did some freelance art work for pharmaceutical companies, most notably CIBA, and it tuned out to pay a lot more than his own private practice. He then gave up the practice of medicine and started to make medical illustrations full-time.

Doctors still use and love his illustrations. I have seen them in my current Histology and Physiology classes. There were posters of Netter's illustrations hanging up in the cadaver lab at BYU.

Here's an example of his art:

From University of Waterloo

I guess I think he is really cool because I like drawing and I like the human body. It reminds me of when I drew a bunch of pictures to study for my anatomy class.