Carbon dust technique procedure demonstrating the carbon dust technique by Max Brödel Brödel is credited with the development of the
carbon dust technique for medical and scientific illustrations. He had been looking for an acceptable medium able to show the vividness and detail characteristic of living tissue, and made the breakthrough using clay-surfaced lithographic transfer paper. Using a wide variety of media, realistic multi-dimensional representations of complex anatomical structures are able to be constructed. The dust is made by shaving carbon pencils against abrasive surfaces, and then applying this fine dust onto textured, calcium-coated paper with dry brushes. Increasing the depth and dimension of the image, the carbon dust technique was able to add highlights, shadows, and texture to Brödel's work. Due to the limitations of the black and white printing era, the relative ease of reprinting artwork created with carbon dust made this a highly suitable technique for a wide variety of scientific illustrations. Popularized in the 1900s, this method is applied with various different materials and techniques, but the same principles are still used today. This is because of its ability to capture a remarkable amount of fine visual detail, as well as a bridge allowing for close collaboration with physicians.
Department of Art as Applied to Medicine In 1910, Brödel received an inviting offer for a position at the
Mayo Clinic. Gynecologist and close friend of Brödel,
Thomas S. Cullen, began raising funds for a department where Brödel could remain content at Johns Hopkins and train the next generation of medical illustrators with the necessary skills and background. In 1911, Brödel became the inaugural director for the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine at Johns Hopkins. His goal was to train medical illustrators to work in conjunction with physicians to increase understanding of how the body works. The program was the first medical illustration program, and attracted both medical and art students from all around the world. In an article published in the September 1911 edition of The Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, Brödel laid out his case for the creation of the department. “Its purpose,” he wrote, “is to bridge over the gap existing between art and medicine, and to train a new generation of artists to illustrate medical journals and books in the future and to spare them the years of trial and disappointment of their self-taught predecessors.” The Department of Art as Applied to Medicine is still recognized for their excellence in visual communication in science and medicine. Many former students at the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine would later make up a large percentage of the founding members of the Association of Medical Illustrators, which began in 1945. • Elizabeth Brödel - She was one of Max Brödel's daughters who worked at the Woman's Clinic in the
New York Hospital and later became the first elected Treasurer for the
Association of Medical Illustrators. • James F. Didusch - He was the first student under Max Brödel from 1911 to 1913 and worked as the illustrator for the Carnegie Institute of Embryology at Johns Hopkins University until his death in 1955. • Dorcas Hager Padget - She was a self-taught artist who received training from Max Brödel before working for neurosurgeon
Walter Dandy and eventually became a scientific researcher at the Department of Embryology at the
Carnegie Institution of Washington and later at the
University of Maryland School of Medicine. • Muriel McLatchie - She was another student of Max Brödel at Johns Hopkins University. In the early 1930s she went to Boston and later established a department of Medical Art at the Massachusetts General Hospital. McLatchie was also one of the founding members of the Association of Medical Illustrators. Institutions that have been influenced by Brödel's work in medical illustrations include the Wilmer, Brady, Mayo and Lahey clinics, the
American Museum of Natural History, and Yale, Minnesota, Rochester, Toronto and Tulane Universities.
Notable textbooks •
Operative Gynecology (Vols. I&II), (New York: D. Appleton and company, 1898), Howard A. Kelly •
Gynecology, (New York, London: D. Appleton and Company, 1928), Howard A. Kelly •
Medical Gynecology, (New York: Appleton, 1908), Howard A. Kelly •
"The Vermiform Appendix and Its Diseases"
The Indian Medical Gazette 41, no. 2 (February 1906): 70–71. Kelly, and Elizabeth Herndon. •
Gynecology and Abdominal Surgery (Vols. I&II) (Philadelphia and London: W. B. Saunders company, 1907), Howard A. Kelly and Charles P. Noble •
Myomata of the Uterus, (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1909), Howard A. Kelly and Thomas Stephen Cullen •
Diseases of the Kidneys, Ureters and Bladder (Vols. I&II), Howard A. Kelly and Charles Burnham
Johns Hopkins Hospital In 1938, a portrait of Brödel by artist Thomas C. Corner, was presented and displayed in the halls of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine alongside portraits of medical pioneers,
William Osler,
William Stewart Halsted,
Howard Atwood Kelly, and
William H. Welch. This display of recognition was initiated by the vice president of the
W.B. Saunders medical publishing company, Mr. R.W. Greene.
Brödel Archives The majority of Brödel's illustrations and his uncompleted manuscript are housed in the Brödel archives located at the
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Visitors and researchers are allowed to reproduce a selection of his works with special permission. All of Brödel's work for Kelly and
Thomas S. Cullen are numbered from 1 to 989. == See also ==