Art Analysis: The Gross Clinic

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Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic) The Gross Clinic is a painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. Based in a Jefferson Medical College surgical amphitheater, world famous surgeon Dr. Samuel Gross can be seen performing a surgery on the thigh of an unknown patient. Gross, along with some colleagues, was demonstrating to a class his newly developed procedure that helped to treat bone infections. Surgery in that century was mainly amputations, but The Gross Clinic is the first painting to depict surgery as a healing procedure and method. The patient in the painting is being treated for osteomyelitis of the femur, which would have resulted in an amputation in any other century before. The Gross Clinic also shows how surgical