Images Dated 2014

Watson and Crick with their DNA model

^BCOMMERCIAL USE REQUIRES CLEARANCE.^bThe discoverers of the structure of DNA. James Watson (b.1928) at left and Francis Crick (1916-2004), with their model of part of a DNA molecule in 1953. Crick & Watson met at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, in 1951. Their work on the structure of DNA was performed with a knowledge of Chargaff's ratios of the bases in DNA and some access to the X-ray crystallography of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King's College London. Combining all of this work led to the deduction that DNA exists as a double helix. Crick, Watson and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, Franklin having died of cancer in 1958. Photographed in the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK, in May 1953

© A. BARRINGTON BROWN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Halsted, Cushing and Young operating

Halsted, Cushing and Young operating. Pioneering American surgeons William Halsted (1852-1922), Harvey Cushing (1869-1939) and Hugh Hampton Young (1897-1941) operating on a patient at John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, USA, with physicians and students watching. Halsted was one of the four founding physicians of John Hopkins Hospital, which opened in 1889. He introduced aseptic technique and the Halstedian approach to surgery, which emphasised the careful handling of human tissue, control of bleeding and anatomically accurate dissection and suturing of tissue. Cushing was a skilful brain surgeon who pioneered several important techniques, including the control of blood pressure during surgery. Young specialised in genito-urinary surgery, performing the first surgery for the treatment of prostate cancer. Photographed circa 1903-1904

© NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Dantes Inferno, suicides and the Harpies

Dante's Inferno. Canto XIII, line 11: Here [suicide tree] the brute Harpies make their nest (at right: Dante and Virgil). Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) wrote his epic poem Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) between 1308 and his death in 1321. Totalling 14, 233 lines, and divided into three parts (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso), it is considered the greatest literary work in the Italian language and a world masterpiece. It is a comprehensive survey of medieval theology, literature and thought. Artwork by French artist Gustave Dore (1832-1883); engraving from The Vision of Hell (1868), Henry Francis Cary's English translation of the Inferno

© MIDDLE TEMPLE LIBRARY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY