Pharmacopoeia

One for the Road 1999

An artificial hip removed from a patient who had osteoarthritis is shown beside the estimated total number of pills they would have taken in lieu of having a prosthesis fitted.

One for the Road was shown in the context of other works and medical objects as part of Schmerz (Pain) in 2007 at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum der Gegenwart – Berlin:

“The exhibition PAIN traces the many expressions of pain: a picture of the crucifixion, the preserved specimen of a gouty hand, a video installation showing mourners, the flickering electric impulses of a nerve cell, a scream. Combining and confronting art works and objects from the realms of medicine, ethnology, religion and everyday usage, this exhibition ventures to make an expedition along the borderlines of art and medicine. It is intended as a laboratory for new visual and contextual impulses from the different spheres of imagery and objects, and is shown simultaneously in the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum der Gegenwart – Berlin and in the Medizinhistorisches Museum (Museum of the History of Medicine) at the Charité, Berlin’s main hospital”

Mr. Minckton 1999

“I came across Mr Minckton’s pile of unopened pills on a home visit. I asked him if he would like me to take them away. It made me realise how wasteful some of our prescribing habits can be. In fact nearly everyone has a quantity of unused drugs in their medicine cabinet”

Dr Liz Lee

Hip Hip 1999

Clippy Story

In 1978 Joyce Adams was 58 and working as a bus conductor. One lunchtime as she jumped down from her bus to get a sandwich for her driver she fell and fractured her hip. This is called a fractured neck of femur (the femur is the long bone of the thigh). Treatment is an operation to remove the fractured end of the bone which forms part of the hip joint and replace it with an artificial hip joint.

Joyce walked around on her artificial hip for twenty years. It eventually started to become painful as its shaft worked loose where it was cemented into the femur. This necessitated a second operation to replace the artificial hip with a new one and this was performed in Southmead Hospital, Bristol.

Mrs. Adams is now walking around comfortably on her new hip and she gave us permission to use the old one in Hip Hip, permanently on display in the hospital’s out-patient department. Hip Hip enables patients awaiting a hip operation to see what an artificial joint looks like after twenty years of wear. This is contrasted with pills taken for arthritis which, apart from fractured hips is the main reason for patients to have a hip replacement. Patients are understandably very interested in the work as it directly relates to their own experience of illness.

O.T.C. Veil 1998

Easily available vitamins and minerals may look very similar to more dangerous prescription-only drugs.

Photo: Chloe Stewart

Come Dancing 1998

“Come Dancing is a dramatic ball gown decorated with over 6,000 multicoloured, foil covered oral contraceptives trapped in tiny net pockets, rather than appliquéd with sequins. At the waist, where a jewel clasp would be more appropriate, is a Lippes Loop, removed from a teacher for whom it had provided intrauterine contraception for 26 years, an equivalent period to that provided by the gown’s thousands of pills.

“The work resulted from consultations with patients about contraception, during which Dr Lee observed that, despite lacking a visual image of an interuterine contraceptive device, many women had such strong emotional feelings about the coil that they were unable to discuss its use rationally. In contrast, women choosing oral contraception were unlikely to realise the quantity of pills they would have to take over many years. By showing a Lippes Loop alongside the number of pills required to provide equivalent contraception, Come Dancing neatly reveals two previously hidden pieces of information, and helps to inform women about their preferred contraceptive method.”

Colin Martin, The Lancet

Photo: The Wellcome Trust