The Italian title is generally taken to mean Our Lady of Health, the Latin Our Lady Health of the Sick. But another tradition traces the name to the Virgin's complaining to Pope Gregory the Great that "you no longer come to salute me." Both the Italian Salute and the Latin Salus can also mean "salvation."
The painting on the left is a late exemplar located in Rome's La Maddalena, in the chapel of St. Camillo de Lellis, patron saint of nurses and founder of what is now known as the Order of Ministers to the Sick.
As in the much older examplar in the Basilica of Cosmas and Damian (also in Rome), the Christ Child points to his mother with his right hand while his left hand caresses that of his mother.
Another exemplar, modeled after the Maddelena Madonna rather than the one at Cosmas and Damian, is in the Sanctuary of St. Camillo in Milan.
There are other Madonna della Salute traditions. The one in Venice, associated with the plague of 1630, disposes the figures' hands in a more traditional fashion.
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