Preface to the Revised Edition: Studying Responding to the Suffering of Others
Preface: Listening to the Breath of Art and Medicine with a Stethoscope

Chapter 1.
The disease that changed the world

01.
Very small and dangerous things that are after human blood
: The Poor Poet, Carl Spitzbeck
02.
Cadavers that contributed to the development of modern medicine
: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Willem van der Meer, by Michiel Jans van Miervelt
03.
The plague, a catastrophe that completely changed the foundations of Europe
: Saint Sebastian Pleading for the Victims of the Plague, by Jose Rifférins
04.
Between medicine and humanity
: The Doctor, Luke Fildes
05.
The Winner of World War I, the Spanish Flu
: "Family", Egon Schiele
06.
Hansen's disease, fostered by our own prejudices
: "The Beggars," Pieter Bruegel the Elder
07.
A love that left behind a 'flower of sorrow'
: The Death of Hyacinth, Jean Broc
08.
The stomach cancer that brought an unparalleled hero to his knees
: Napoleon in his study at the Tuileries Palace, Jacques-Louis David
09.
Diphtheria, which took the lives of countless baby angels
: Diphtheria, Francisco Goya

Chapter 2.
Disease that became the painter's brush

01.
Cheers to the 'Green Fairy' who comforted poor artists and workers!
: A Glass of Absinthe, Edgar Degas
02.
People who live in the dark
Hope, George Frederick Watts
03.
Good sleep, bad sleep, weird sleep
: "Nightmare" by Henry Fuseli
04.
Quack doctors who mock the Hippocratic Oath
: "Removing the Stone", Hieronymus Bosch
05.
Vincent van Gogh and Two Doctors
: Portrait of Dr. Felix Rey, Vincent van Gogh
06.
One Death, Three Conflicting Views
: The Death of Marat, Jacques-Louis David
07.
Gambling addiction, a game destined for destruction
: The Cheating Gambler at Cards, Georges de La Tour
08.
Post-traumatic stress disorder that develops after a life-threatening disaster
: "Tarquin and Lucretia", Titian
09.
The fate that ensnares 'Night Walkers': a genetic disease
: Coffee Pot, Toulouse-Lautrec

Chapter 3.
Prescription found on canvas

01.
Butterfly on the neck, thyroid gland
: "Roger Saving Angelica", Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
02.
The Two Faces of Wine
: The Sick Bacchus, Caravaggio
03.
Orientalism and Suicide, Packaged Sensually and Mysteriously
: The Death of Cleopatra, Guido Reni
04.
Dwarfism, a disability created by a world that values ​​superiority based on physical characteristics
: The Boy with Bow Legs, Giuseppe de Rivera
05.
Illness of body and mind caused by unresponsive love
: The Doctor's Visit, Frans Van Miris
06.
Breathtaking Fascination: Stendhal Syndrome
: Portrait of Beatrice Cenci, Elisabetta Sirani
07.
A mother's first gift to her baby, breast milk
: The Virgin of Rita, Leonardo da Vinci
08.
Gout that hurts even when the wind blows
: Gout, James Gillray
09.
The eye is the lamp of the body; if your eye is clear, it will be full of light.
: The Virgin and Child with the Councillor Joris van der Paele, Jan van Eyck

Chapter 4.
Myths and religions that have created a rich narrative in medicine

01.
The tragic wheel of fate that inspired Freud's dreams
: Oedipus and the Sphinx, Gustave Moreau
02.
Narcissism, the daffodil blooming inside me
: Narcissus, Giulio Ventur
03.
A heartless mother who killed her child with her own hands became the origin of medicine.
Medea in Trouble, Anselm Feuerbach
04.
kill oneself, commit suicide
: The Suicide of Judas, James Tissot
05.
Echoes that diagnose and treat diseases
: Echo, Alexandre Cabanel
06.
Violence of the gaze, voyeurism
: Lady Godiva, John Collier
07.
Rediscovering Sleep, the Misunderstood Useless Thing in Life
: Sleep and His Brother's Death, John William Waterhouse
08.
Prometheus' gift to mankind before fire
: Prometheus, Giuseppe de Ribera
09.
Atlas supporting the human head, a 'small universe of the human body'
: Atlas and the Hesperides, John Singer Sargent
Search for works/search for people

Why did a doctor go to an art museum?

There are doctors who spend the most time in art galleries after spending the most time in the clinic.
Today, too, he takes off his white coat, leaves the hospital, and heads to the art gallery.
Why did he go to the art museum? Medicine and art, seemingly contradictory fields, share a common denominator: humanity.
At the center of medicine and art are humans who experience birth, aging, illness, and death.
There are paintings that vividly depict people suffering from disease, like Goya's "Diphtheria," while there are paintings that explore the unconscious at the very bottom of the human psyche, like Fuseli's "Nightmare."
Jan van Eyck's "Madonna and Child with the Councillor Joris van der Paele" projects the disease in more detail than even the most advanced medical equipment, such as a CT scanner.
For medical professionals, art is a 'record of humanity' that strives for the perfection of body and mind, that is, a 'lifelong record' of human endeavor to live healthily.
If you listen closely to the canvas with a stethoscope, you can hear the story of a human being standing somewhere between life and death.

Listen to the breath of famous paintings and medicine through a stethoscope!

Birth, aging, illness, and death are the 'trajectory of life' that all humans carry with them as their fate.
The trajectory of a person's life can be clearly seen through a few famous paintings.
Napoleon, who died in 1821, is a figure who is constantly surrounded by conspiracy theories about the cause of his death, including the 'poisoning' theory and the 'arsenic poisoning' theory.
The key to solving the mystery surrounding Napoleon's signature lies in the art museum.
The three famous paintings of Napoleon, painted over time, concisely show the life, aging, illness, and death of Napoleon.
In David's painting, Napoleon in his study at the Tuileries Palace, we can see the early symptoms of stomach cancer that came to Napoleon.
In the painting, Napoleon is seen unbuttoning a few of his waistcoat buttons and putting his right hand inside.
This pose, which appears frequently in other artists' works depicting Napoleon, was adopted to relieve pain in the pubic area.
Napoleon died six years later in exile on the island of Saint Helena, a life of mixed glory and shame.
Vernet's painting, "Napoleon on His Deathbed," which depicts Napoleon's last moments, also lends support to the theory that the cause of death was stomach cancer.
Napoleon in the painting is emaciated and withered.
This is in stark contrast to the pot-bellied figure in Delaroche's Napoleon Bonaparte at Fontainebleau, which depicts him a few months before his exile.
Gastric cancer is accompanied by symptoms such as weight loss, loss of appetite, and wasting of fat tissue and muscle (p. 90).

Looking at a masterpiece through a medical lens opens up a new way to interpret the painting!

For a doctor, an art gallery is a clinic, and the figures on the canvas are no different from patients visiting the clinic.
The people in the painting suffer from illness that consumes their bodies and minds, and lament the finiteness of life.
And sometimes, they bravely face the disease and win.
Their confessions are the most universal human stories because they contain human existential pain.
Bacchus in Caravaggio's painting "The Sick Bacchus" appears to be very sick at first glance.
The face of young Bacchus, which should be shining with life, is pale and his lips are white.
When I look at his eyes, the whites of his eyes are yellowish.
This is a symptom of jaundice that can be seen in patients with hepatitis.
Bilirubin is a yellow pigment produced when dead red blood cells are broken down in the liver, and is excreted from the liver along with the dead red blood cells into bile.
However, if there is a disease in the liver, bilirubin is not excreted, resulting in jaundice.
“Sick Bacchus” is a self-portrait of Caravaggio, who suffered from hepatitis caused by acute alcoholism after not being able to eat properly and relying on alcohol for his meals (p. 224).

There is a picture of a man struggling to hold up a huge sky.
He is Atlas, who was punished by Zeus's wrath and was forced to hold up the sky.
Sargent's "Atlas and Hesperides" depicts a scene from Greco-Roman mythology, but to a medical practitioner, it is no different from an X-ray photograph of our body.
The name of the bone at the top of the spine (the first cervical vertebra) that supports the head, which weighs 4 to 7 kg, or heavier than a watermelon, is 'atlas'.
For modern people, the sky supported by Atlas is digital devices like smartphones.
Because of the digital devices we keep in our hands 24 hours a day, the atlas inside our bodies is being transformed into a turtle neck (page 400).


There is a painting of a short-spouted coffee pot drawn with rough brush strokes.
The shape of the coffee pot, with its large body and thin, short legs, feels strange.
This painting, titled “Coffee Pot,” is not a still life.
A self-portrait of a man who knew how to wittily describe his disability by saying, “My body is shaped like a coffee pot with a spout that is too big.”
With short legs that had stopped growing due to a genetic disease, a disproportionately large head, and a plump body, Lautrec drew himself on canvas using the shape of a coffee pot (p. 198).

From plagues that decimated civilizations to the scars of our hearts.
Medical Stories from Famous Paintings Encountered Outside the Clinic

Lee Jung-seob lost his son to diphtheria, woke up from his sleep, and painted a picture.
When the poet asked about the painting, he said this.
“I drew friends so that our baby wouldn’t be bored on the way to heaven.
“I also drew a peach so that he wouldn’t be hungry.” Lee Jung-seob buried his son’s body and the painting together in a small wooden coffin (page 106).
Lautrec, who suffered from a congenital bone disease called pyknotic dysostosis, said, “If my legs had been just a little longer, I would never have painted” (p. 211).
The illnesses that came to the painters and the images of people suffering from the illnesses they witnessed became the 'brushes' that served as midwives for numerous masterpieces.

Deadly epidemics such as the plague and the Spanish flu have changed human history, accelerating the decline and fall of civilizations.
The tragic world swept by the epidemic was depicted on canvas more vividly than any medical document.
Some diseases depicted in ancient paintings, such as hepatitis, gout, clubfoot, and the Medea complex, are still a threat today.
Through famous paintings, this book explains key turning points in medicine, including deadly epidemics that ravaged humanity, the emergence of surgeons, the development of antibiotics and vaccines, the birth of psychoanalysis, and the emergence of cutting-edge medical equipment like ultrasound.

Must-reads for Medical School Multiple Mini-Interviews (MMI), Personal Statements, and Medical Essays

Medical school admissions assess not only the applicant's academic ability but also the non-cognitive qualities necessary for a doctor from various perspectives.
A representative evaluation method is the "Multiple Mini Interview (MMI)," which assesses empathy, communication skills, and situational awareness. The MMI presents applicants with a variety of optional situations they might encounter in the medical field and asks them how they would handle them.
Reading activities recorded in the student record book (life record book) are also very important in medical school admissions, as the qualities necessary for a doctor, such as empathy and communication skills, are proportional to literacy.

For over seven years since the first edition was published, medical and educational experts have not hesitated to place "The Medical Scientist Who Went to the Art Museum" at the forefront of their "must-read" list for medical school admissions, including for MMI, personal statements, and medical essays.
Medicine is a discipline that responds to the suffering of others.
Because the object of medicine is human beings suffering from the pain of disease.
Empathy, the ability to communicate with patients and understand their pain, is the most important skill for a doctor.
In that sense, appreciating the artist's works, which capture everything from infectious diseases to the raw emotions of the heart, with keen sensitivity, is a good training for developing empathy.
Furthermore, this book, which constantly questions the role of medicine and doctors, is an excellent textbook for cultivating the virtues necessary for medical professionals.

ㆍThe 'slaughterer' who killed the most people in 200,000 years is still with us!
ㆍDavid's portrait of Napoleon holds the key to solving the mystery of Napoleon's cause of death!
ㆍWhat disease did Jan van Eyck project onto his canvas more clearly than any cutting-edge diagnostic equipment?
ㆍVan Gogh is a victim of medical malpractice who lost his life due to Dr. Gachet's negligence!
ㆍCaravaggio's Bacchus suffers from 'hepatitis due to acute alcoholism'!
ㆍWhy did Da Vinci, who was well-versed in anatomy, draw the Virgin Mary's breasts higher than where they should actually be?
ㆍWhy are the shoe sizes different in Titian's Portrait of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor?
ㆍWhat is the fatal error in Prometheus, which vividly depicts Prometheus's suffering of having his liver eaten by an eagle?
ㆍThe plague that devoured a third of Europe's population began with a single corpse that the Mongols threw into a castle on a catapult!
- When writing my personal statement for Seoul National University, I used this book, which combines life sciences and art, to appeal to my suitability for the major.
_ Kim** (Seoul National University College of Medicine, Class of 2019)