Peter Parker Collection

Artist: Lam Qua (1801-1860)

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Case Study from Peter Parker's Journal, Nov. 1836.

"At 11 a.m. the patient was seated in a chair supported around the wast by a sheet. The time did not exceed a minute from the application of the scalple till the arm was laid on the floor. The best representation of the arm after amputation, so far as its shape is concerned, is that of a large ham of bacon. It weighed 16 catties, equal to 21 1/8 pounds. All who were present pronounced the case the mose remarkable they had ever seen. The patient is the first Chinese, so far as I know, who ever voluntarily submitted to the amputation of a limb. The patient made a good recovery."