Title: Choo Yihleang
Secondary Title: Man with large tumor on right cheek
Description: By Lam Qua, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches, 1838.
Tumor:
Case Number: 4903
Year: 1838
Modern Suggestion: According to the doctors consulted by the Gordon Museum: Very large Epidermal cyst? Branchial cyst? Lipoma?
Credit: Courtesy of Yale University Medical Historical Library
Dr. Peter Parker's Case History
d formidable in prospect, has really proved of less trouble than often attends the removal of a tumor but a hundreth part of its size. It has been the more interesting as being the first instance in which I have applied a ligature to a vein. But the result favors the conclusion that, veins may be tied with as much impunity as arteries. In the present instance one ligature came away of itself on the 12th, the other on the 14th day."
Additional Commentary
The fact that there are a number of images similar to this one of Choo Yihleang in this gallery may reflect the importance of this case for Parker in 1838 and/or the need for copies of images for the proposed Medical Missionary Society Pathological museum (see the introductory essay). Because the majority of the paitings were needs be done in a preoperative moment, Parker could not have known that the operation would turn out to be much simpler than it appeared. While Lam Qua's study gives some hint of the patient's amazing implacability, it does not fully display the precarious situation of the tumor along the carotid artery. Parker's concern about using a ligature on a vein springs from ...

The Mysteries of Lam Qua: Medical Portraiture in China 1836 - 1855
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