Margaret Humphreys to Speak on African Americans in Civil War Medicine

You are cordially invited to attend a lecture by the distinguished historian and professor Dr. Margaret Humphreys titled “African Americans in Civil War Medicine”. Many histories have been written about medical care during the Civil War, but the participation and contributions of African Americans as nurses, surgeons, and hospital workers has often been overlooked. The event will be held on May 10, 2017 at 5:30 PM at the Knowledge Center of the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences located at 701 West 168 Street (Fort Washington Avenue) on the Columbia University Medical Center campus. Continue reading

Nuisance or Necessity? Historical Perspectives on the ‘Informed’ Patient

Dr. Dana Atchley interviewing a patient, 1958. Photo by Elizabeth Wilcox, courtesy Archives & Special Collections, Columbia University Health Sciences Library.

Dr. Dana Atchley interviewing a patient, 1958. Photo by Elizabeth Wilcox, courtesy Archives & Special Collections, Columbia University Health Sciences Library.

The History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series presents Nuisance or Necessity? Historical Perspectives on the ‘Informed’ Patient, by Nancy Tomes, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of History, Stony Brook University, New York.

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Digital Highlights: Johann Remmelin’s “Kleiner Welt Spiegel”

The Archives and Special Collections of the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library of Columbia University have digitized the 1661 German translation of Johann Remelin’s Catoptrum Microcosmicum.

Check out the great video made about the process:

And read their full post about digitizing a medical pop-up book! You can check out the final result in the MHL here.

Images from the Library

Full page color illustrations of sections of the human cranium, including skull, brain, and membranes

From Gautier Dagoty’s Anatomie de la tête : en tableaux imprimés, qui representent au naturel le cerveau sous différentes coupes, la distribution des vaisseaux dans toutes les parties de la tête, les organes des sens, & une partie de la nevrologie ; d’après les piéces disséquées & préparées, par M. Duverney … en huit grandes planches, dessinées, peintes, gravées, & imprimées (1748).

As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!

New to the MHL: Anatomy, Myology, and Operative Surgery

The Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library has recently added several important volumes in the history of medicine to the Medical Heritage Library.  Though the Health Sciences Library participated in MHL’s Sloan Foundation and NEH funded digitization projects, the size of these items precluded them being digitized at that time.

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From the Albinus anatomy.

Bernhard Siegfried Albinus’ monumental anatomical atlas of 1749, Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum Corporis Humani [Plates of the Skeleton and Muscles of the Human Body], is one of the best-known works in the history of anatomy. It features striking engravings of human skeletons standing before tombs, cherubs, and the first living rhinoceros to reach Europe.

Another volume includes two works by Jacques Gautier-D’Agoty: Anatomie de la Tête (1748) [Anatomy of the Head] and Myologie Complette en Couleur (1746) [Complete Myology in Color].  Gautier-D’Agoty was an artist and engraver, not an anatomist, and his works, while scientifically unimportant, are noted for their bold use of color and sometimes weird and fantastic images of the human body.

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From the D’Agoty anatomy.

Joseph Pancoast’s Treatise on Operative Surgery (Philadelphia, 1844) is a landmark of 19th century American surgical writing.  It’s particularly noted for its excellent chapters on plastic surgery, but also contains significant sections on neurological and ophthalmic operations.  The 486 illustrations on 80 plates are known for their accuracy and detail and made this work an American medical best-seller with about 4,000 copies sold over nine years.

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From the Pancoast treatise.

The digitization of these works is a collaborative effort among the Columbia University Libraries’ departments. It is part of an ongoing project to restore and repair larger quarto and folio rare books held by the Health Sciences Library’s Archives & Special Collections.  The volumes are first treated by professional conservators at Columbia University Libraries’ Conservation Laboratory. They are then digitized by the Imaging Laboratory, part of the Libraries’ Preservation & Digital Conversion Division.

Besides being accessible through the Medical Heritage Library, the volumes can be found via CLIO, the Columbia University Libraries Online Public Access Catalog.

The Health Sciences Library’s conservation project is funded by the Jerome P. Webster Endowment, bequeathed to the Library by Dr. Webster, Columbia’s first professor of plastic surgery, prominent historian of medicine, and bibliophile.

As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!

Digital Highlights: Overworking Your Brain

“Brain-work” may not be something we’re thinking about in the middle of the summer but the dangers of overwork are always with us — at least, so thinks Horatio C. Wood. In 1880, he published Brain-work and overwork to publicize his view of the causes and cures of mental over-exertion which include gluttony and artificial stimulants — it seems unlikely that his arguments against coffee and tea made many converts. Still less attractive to the modern readers are his criticisms of the modern working woman: “Among the saddest wrecks of our modern civilization are the faded, heartless, helpless, and hopeless women…” (73)

Flip through the pages below or click this link to read Brain-work and overwork.

As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!