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At all times, one of the most serious areas of visualization was the visualization of medical information. Medicine, it seems, can not exist without a visual series, and not only because there is a mandatory need to show, not just tell. In medicine, from its very beginning – from its very Foundation – it was important to group and derive an algorithm. And to tie this algorithm on visual indicators. Since, in medicine, from the very beginning, sought to show the symptoms, indicators and manifestations of diseases and reactions of the body to treatment. And these symptoms, without exception, had groups and common indicators.
There were incredible findings and the Japanese, and the French, and the Arabs – but here I want to talk about an incredible example of visual classification in the Germans.
So today we are talking about Ophthalmodouleia – about brilliant German work of art, because the book is simply impossible. But so, in principle, Yes, it is a book, and not just a book, but a serious scientific work published in 1583 in Germany. There are only three or four of them left on the planet now. And, of course, this is a terribly sad fact and I am also terribly sorry, because it is a masterpiece for all time and I would like that everyone who is somehow connected with the visualization of information could see it.
Ophthalmodouleia was designed for surgeons and it describes the functioning of the human eye. All the nuances and diseases associated with it. All the principles and deviations in the work of human vision, and, of course, all the principles of treatment and drugs to cure it.
The illustrative material there is absolutely amazing. And not just because they are old engravings – I think everyone is prepared for the fact that any illustration published just a hundred years after Johann Guttenberg launched his printing press will be incredibly beautiful. That is, Yes, of course, many of these illustrations are beautiful, but I want to draw your attention not to how they are elegantly solved, but to their construction – because they are built quite differently from any image that our imagination represents when we say the words "medieval medical illustration".
Today, such books are called "pop up", they often turn themselves into a separate work of art, but only because we do not expect that between two flat sheets of paper can hide so beautiful, voluminous thing, which is already difficult to call an illustration. Yeah, so now I love to build books for the little ones, in which young readers show how a flower, for example. Or what's going on in the castle have a dragon, or like Alice falling in her famous well inside the planet. And the purpose of such books is to impress the imagination, to make the reader hold his breath for a moment in admiration. The authors Ophthalmodouleia when they decided to add in illustration, layers, and volumes, had a completely different purpose – they sought, creating the system to build images, to show the system of the organs of vision and their treatment. Well, here, actually, I should add that not only in the medical literature, in General, this kind of rendering was used for the first time, but how much thought and successfully – look at you. Incredible, agree.
PS by the Way, Yes, for those who have read to the end. In addition to the incredible system of building the presentation of information, I still rejoice in this book and the text. Well, actually, because it says that people who distinguish more colors " definitely turn out to be good lovers and noble husbands should be wary of people whose eyesight allows them to distinguish more than five shades of the same color." Amazing observations of medieval doctors. It is unclear how they came to such conclusions, but it sounds very modern. In the style of research of the world's leading universities:-)
