painting

One of Charles Bell’s paintings of a casualty from the Battle of Corunna. It depicts a soldier suffering muscle contractions during the final stages of tetanus. The image was composed after Bell watched 3 soldiers suffer with the same condition

This drawing tells the wrinkled forehead; the elevated brow; the closed eye; the dilated nostril; the rigid masseter; the fixed jaw; the closed mouth; the corrugated lips; the bubbling saliva; the retracted head; the shortened neck; the starting cervical muscles; the turgid veins; the arched spine; the raised chest; the troubled breathing; the catching diaphragm; the heaving abdomen; the separated arm; the squared elbow; the bent wrist; the clenched fingers; the incurved thumb; the extended and separated legs; the bent down toes; the livid surface; the whole figure rigid as wood – a pitiful sight.

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