Digital Highlights: Charcot’s Lectures from the Salpêtrière

Illustration from "Lectures" of a patient in a 'hystero-epileptic attack.'

Illustration from “Lectures” of a patient in a ‘hystero-epileptic attack.’

Jean-Martin Charcot, head of the medical staff at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, France, was a popular figure in late nineteenth century France. He was famous beyond French borders and part of his fame stemmed from the Leçons sur les maladies du système nerveaux, faites à la Salpêtrière, translated into English by Doctor George Sigerson as Lessons on the Diseases of the Nervous System and published in three volumes starting in 1877. (Check out Volume Two and Three!) Continue reading

40,000+ Items!

Plate from “Beiträge zur Geburtskunde und Gynaekologie…”

We’re pleased to announce that the Medical Heritage Library collection on the Internet Archive has topped 40,000 items. As of this writing, we are, in fact, over 43,000! Continue reading

Digital Highlight: Sickroom Lessons

Title page from "Life in the Sick-Room." Click the image to go directly to the book!

For several years in the mid-nineteenth century starting in 1839, English social activist Harriet Martineau was a housebound invalid, suffering from the pain of a tumor. Before this period, she was an extremely active writer and traveller, moving around the United Kingdom and the United States to examine living conditions and current affairs in both countries. Continue reading

Digital Highlights: Doctor’s Orders

Title page of "Letters To A Young Physician..."

James Jackson’s 1855 Letters to a Young Physician Just Entering Upon Practice makes for great reading. The volume consists of 27 “letters” of advice from Jackson to the newly qualified medical graduate. Jackson covers a variety of subjects and starts with a lengthy dedication to his  friend, John Collins Warren, enumerating his colleague’s accomplishments, thanking him for his friendship, and giving the reasons for his publication of the work in hand. Continue reading

Digital Highlights: York Retreat

The original building of the York Retreat. (19)

The care of the mentally ill has been a current topic in medical discourse for centuries. In the late eighteenth century, a Quaker named William Tuke opened the York Retreat in York, England, as a new type of mental health hospital. In 1892, Tuke’s grandson, D. Hack Tuke, who had been a visiting physician at the Retreat, wrote Reform in the Treatment of the Insane as a history of his grandfather’s pioneering efforts towards reforming the care of the mentally ill. Continue reading