Visualizing medicine

Willberg’s study reminds us of the ways our feelings manifest in our bodies, and of the essential physicality of our lived experiences.  A dancer and massage therapist, her comics explore science narratives while encouraging us to know ourselves anatomically and to understand historical and cultural approaches to the body.  In Silver Wire (image, top left) two girlfriends talk at the park about the histories of medical and decorative sewing, discussing the so-called great surgeons of history, whose medical knowledge came at the expense of enslaved people.  In another mini-comic, Stitchin’ Time (image, bottom left), she imagines a fictional partnership between two classical medical authorities, Galen and Celsus as they stitch up a wounded gladiator, to hilarious effect. Willberg’s drawings are tender, sharply observed, and well-researched: many of her mini-comics come with bibliographies so that readers can dig more deeply into the history of medicine.