Scientific Illustration

Long before X-rays were X-rays and daguerreotypes were de rigueur, academia had drawings. Simple, line-dominated dissections of fauna and flora; art meant more for learning than decoration. I could pore over every minute detail for hours...

Death’s Head Sphinx Moth

From: ‘A Monograph of Oriental Cicadidæ’ By W.L. Distant

Drawing of a retinal neuron by Ramón y Cajal

Sequoia sempervirens
From ‘Hooker’s Icones Plantarum’ vol. 4: t. 379 (1841)

From Text Book of Mycology and Plant Pathology,  John W. Harshberger

olio-ataxia: Phytological History 1673 Nehemiah Grew

Pelagia Cyanella, William Keith Brooks, 1910

Snakes: Curiosities and Wonders of Serpent Life. Catherine C. Hopley, 1882.

‘Anatomia del corpo humano’ - Rome, 1559
Juan Valverde d'Amusco

Snake Skeleton, A. Duméril, 1834

Metacrinus Cingulatus
From the 'Report of the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger (1873-76)

Skeleton in Giovard Bidloo’s Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams
 (Gerard de Lairesse)

All images found via Scientific Illustration