Podcast Summary: New Books Network
Episode: Jack Hartnell, "Wound Man: The Many Lives of a Surgical Image" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Jack Hartnell
Date: September 18, 2025
Episode Overview
This episode explores Dr. Jack Hartnell’s forthcoming book, Wound Man: The Many Lives of a Surgical Image, which traces the complex history and multiple meanings of the infamous “Wound Man” image—from its late-medieval European origins through its reinventions in print and beyond. Blending art history and medical history, Hartnell and host Dr. Miranda Melcher discuss how this striking visual survived and thrived for centuries, and what it teaches us about the interplay of art, medicine, gender, pain, and cultural exchange.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Introduction to Dr. Jack Hartnell and His Work (02:33)
- Hartnell is an art historian focused on intersections between the history of science/medicine and visual culture, based in the UK, now Head of Research at the National Gallery, London.
- Motivation for the book: To uncover why the “Wound Man” image endures, what purposes it has served, and how it both reflects and shapes understandings of the body, injury, and cure.
“Why does anyone decide to write a book? At the end of having written a book, I kind of don't really know why anyone would ever do it again, but people do…” —Jack Hartnell [02:33]
2. What Is the "Wound Man"? Diagram or Illustration? (04:00)
- The “Wound Man” originated in late 14th-/early 15th-century European medical manuscripts.
- Visual Description: A mostly naked man in blue “Speedos” punctured, stabbed, sliced, and covered in wounds, sometimes suffering from disease. Both grotesque and arresting.
- Hartnell argues the “Wound Man” is more than a mere spectacle; it inhabits both the worlds of illustration and diagram—serving as a vehicle for conveying technical medical knowledge.
“It’s very easy to assume [the image’s] purpose was shock value… but actually, it was much more than just this spectacular image. It’s kind of lived what I call an exclusively spectacular life, but... it’s very complicatedly related to the texts of the books…a catalogue of injuries which a contemporary healer would have been able to cure.” —Jack Hartnell [04:00]
3. Precursor Images & Diagrammatic Traditions (09:07)
- Medieval diagrams often used the body as a metaphorical, allegorical, or practical schema—examples include:
- “Zodiac Man” (body overlaid with astrological signs to map treatments)
- “Bloodletting Man” (sites for therapeutic bleeding)
- “Disease Man” & “Sphere of Life and Death” (determining fate through diagrams)
- These visual strategies fused abstract universalism with individual subjectivity.
“It’s a really useful metaphor… the body is a really, really kind of common and very keenly and interestingly used one.” —Jack Hartnell [09:07]
4. Gender and Normativity in Medical Diagrams (16:09)
- Most “universal” medical diagrams depicted a male figure—even when discussing female-specific health issues.
- Notable exception: The “Disease Woman,” found in a subset of texts alongside the Wound Man/Disease Man—shows a woman (often with a wimple, signifying marital status and legitimacy), with internal anatomy (e.g., intestine, womb, sometimes a fetus) rendered visible.
- Inclusion of head coverings for “disease women” performs social work: It legitimizes depiction of female anatomy for medical/educational purposes and distances viewing from sexualization.
“The male body remains normative. But it’s interesting that the Wound Man comes quite specifically from one of the few places in which we see the female body diagrammed as well.” —Jack Hartnell [19:56]
“A wimple… goes some way towards legitimizing the medicalized gaze… rather than a more lustful engagement.” —Jack Hartnell [24:00]
5. Users and Uses: Who Used These Images and Why? (26:31)
- Range included professional surgeons (not university-trained doctors, but artisans working hands-on), monastic communities, merchants, town councils, and laypersons.
- Images were practical references, training tools, status symbols, encyclopedic curiosities.
- Stark contrast between rough, utilitarian working copies and exquisite, display-quality painted versions.
“You get a sense this is someone’s working notebook… not an image that’s being produced by someone for someone else… he’s just noting down what he’s seen somewhere else so that he can remember it himself.” —Jack Hartnell [28:10]
- Books containing Wound Man could serve as luxury items or collective resources, e.g. in town halls to consult on medical emergencies.
6. The Transition to Print & Technical Innovation (35:58)
- Early printers were drawn to the challenge of reproducing complex images.
- The “Wound Man” becomes a star image in early printed medical books, e.g., the Fasciculus Medicinae (Venice, 1491)—a multi-image book featuring urine charts, Zodiac Man, Disease Man/Woman, and Wound Man, aimed at professionals and the educated elite.
- Integrating text and image was a technical feat—woodblocks were cut with plug-ins for reverse-set metal type.
“I think, actually, sometimes things that are technically difficult draw lots of different kinds of printers to it. And I think that probably actually is the case… with the Wound Man.” —Jack Hartnell [35:58]
“The busier the image, the harder that is. So these are really… a sort of technical marvel when they're produced at that moment.” —Jack Hartnell [43:19]
7. Visual Consistency: Why Is ‘Wound Man’ So Calm? (46:37)
- Wound Man’s affected tranquility—no matter how brutal the assault—is deliberate.
- The figure is not shown dead, but alive and curable; his serenity offers hope to healers and patients, emphasizing the possibility of cure, not suffering.
- Pain was deeply coded: nobles and saints bore pain stoically (sanctity or social standing), while visible agony was reserved for criminals or the damned.
“No matter how drastic a patient you might come across, it won’t be as bad as this guy. And this guy’s still alive and covered in different ways that he can be cured.” —Jack Hartnell [46:48]
- Wound Man’s anonymity and placidity maintain his status as “everyman,” while freeing the surgeon from associations with punishment or sin.
8. Christian Iconography and the Wound Man (53:36)
- Clear resonance with Christian art—especially images of Christ and the saints bearing wounds, and the Arma Christi (instruments of the Passion).
- The arrangement of wounds/weapons sometimes echoes images like the “Sunday Christ,” where Christ’s body is pierced by work tools as a Sabbath warning.
- The “anesthesia of sainthood”—bearing pain without outward distress—pervades both religious and medical iconography.
“It’s impossible for it not to be [a reference to Christ]. If we’re talking about common images… that is one of the most prominent visualizations that people would have come across.” —Jack Hartnell [53:36]
9. Global Spread and Afterlives of Wound Man (57:40)
- Print facilitated rapid international dissemination (Spanish, Italian, English, Dutch, and French editions).
- The image became increasingly separated from its original textual context, functioning as an emblem of surgery (“herald”) rather than as a teaching aid with textual keys.
- Hand-drawn and copycat versions proliferated; even reached early modern Japan, appearing in medical scrolls via Dutch and German intermediaries.
“It really sort of zips all around the world in incredibly kind of remarkable ways.” —Jack Hartnell [62:18]
10. Hartnell’s Current and Future Projects (62:47)
- New professional focus: advancing research infrastructure and public engagement at London’s National Gallery, including opening a research center in 2028.
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On writing the book:
“Why does anyone decide to write a book?... I kind of don’t really know why anyone would ever do it again, but people do.” —Jack Hartnell [02:33] -
On the ambiguity of diagrams:
“They enliven a text…but they also explain and get right into the nuggets and detail of actually kind of technical description and understanding…It’s quite complicated for an image to inhabit both of those things at the same time.” —Jack Hartnell [07:06] -
On the power of clothing (wimples):
“Maybe…a wimple is some way towards suggesting that she is married… that legitimizes the child in her womb, but also legitimizes the medicalized gaze.” —Jack Hartnell [24:00] -
On emotions and pain:
“Pain is really socially contingent…where you can show it and where you can present it is really socially contingent.” —Jack Hartnell [49:42] -
On Christ-like parallels:
“It’s impossible for it not to be [a reference to Christ]…The more grotesque an image of Christ or of the saints…the more someone is meant to feel and understand their kind of suffering and appreciate that the suffering is borne with…grace.” —Jack Hartnell [53:36]
Timestamps for Main Segments
- 02:33 — Dr. Jack Hartnell’s background and aims
- 04:00 — What is the Wound Man: illustration vs. diagram
- 09:07 — Precursor images and diagrammatic traditions
- 16:09 — Gender, the normative body, and exceptions ("Disease Woman")
- 21:08 — Significance of clothing/head coverings
- 26:31 — Medical and non-medical uses; who used these images?
- 35:58 — Transition to print, challenges and innovations
- 46:37 — Why Wound Man looks so serene
- 53:36 — Christian iconography's impact
- 57:40 — Dissemination beyond medieval Europe
- 62:47 — Future work: research at the National Gallery
Conclusion
Dr. Jack Hartnell’s Wound Man unpacks the rich and unexpected life story of a singular image—its mixture of bodily horror, healing optimism, and cultural resonance. This conversation traces how an image that once answered immediate surgical needs evolved into a global icon, entwining art, medicine, religion, and societal ideas about the body and suffering for centuries to come.