The Semiotics of Surgery
Explore the "semiotics of surgery" through its tools and models.
In "Tools of Torture" learn about how surgeons borrowed from other fields to shape their own. In imagery of the martyrdom of Saint Agatha, torturers employ blacksmithing tongs or gardening shears to dismember the saint's breasts from her body. Mastectomy tools, such as Hildanus's device and Helvetius's tenaculum helvetianum, reproduce these 'torture devices' into curative aides.
The second exhibit "The Model in Parts" asks what else did the surgical field borrow to make their work legible when modelling these advancements to a larger audience? That is to say - beyond the medical field, how was public shaped to respond to the surgical field and its devices?