Category: Exhibits

New York Academy of Medicine Library Launches Digital Exhibit “Facendo Il Libro: The Making of Fasciculus Medicinae, an Early Printed Anatomy”

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~Post courtesy Kiri Oliver, Communications Manager, The New York Academy of Medicine

The New York Academy of Medicine Library has launched a new digital exhibit, “Facendo Il Libro: The Making of Fasciculus  Medicinae, an Early Printed Anatomy.” The Library, one of the world’s most significant historical libraries in medicine and public health, holds five editions printed between the years of 1495 and 1522 of the Fasciculus Medicinae, which contains the earliest realistic anatomical images in print, and the earliest scenes of dissection anywhere. The digital exhibit explores full scans of these richly illustrated editions, examining each work on its own – and also in context of each other, and looking at the printing techniques that were used to create them.

“The Academy’s dedication to public access to our Library’s collections continues with the launch of a digitized exhibit of this seminal work. Today, scholars and users worldwide can easily access an important resource in the history of medicine and public health,” said Academy President Judith A. Salerno, MD, MS.

The book was first printed in Venice in 1491 by the brothers Gregori at their famous printing house. It was extremely popular, and went through 14 editions by the year 1522.  Originally collected in manuscript form, the text comprises a number of medical treatises on uroscopy, phlebotomy, anatomy, surgery, and gynecology. The book’s woodcut illustrations include skilled renderings of medieval prototypes including a Zodiac Man, bloodletting man, and an urinoscopic consultation.

“This exhibit tells an important story about an influential medical text, and its evolution during the earliest years of printing in Northern Italy. Exploring the book’s astonishing woodcuts, the earliest realistic anatomical illustrations in print, enhances our understanding of how sixteenth-century individuals related to and understood their bodies in times of sickness and health,” said Academy Library Curator Anne Garner.

“Facendo Il Libro” is an addition to the Academy’s digitization initiatives led by Dr. Robin Naughton, Head of Digital. Also included in the exhibit are curated essays on each edition, noting important technical, textual, and artistic changes in each, and on the culture of Venetian print. The essays were contributed by guest scholars

Taylor McCall, PhD, and Natalie Lussey Seale, PhD. This online exhibit was made possible by generous support from The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

 

Call for Artifacts!

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The New York Academy of Medicine is working with the Museum of the City of New York and Wellcome Collection on an exhibition based around epidemic disease in NYC for September 2018. “Germ City: Microbes, Migration, and the Metropolis” will use specific sites of disease outbreaks, and responses to contagious disease, to explore New York City’s public health history.
 
Artifacts with a New York connection are of particular interest, as are artifacts that reflect individual stories and experiences, as well as those relating to clinical and public health responses to disease.
 
We would be grateful for information about specific artifacts and/or details of relevant catalogs or collections. Thanks to those who have already responded to our call, and I look forward to discovering other relevant materials.
Please contact:
Lisa O’Sullivan, PhD
VP and Director
Library and Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health
212.822.7327
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue |  New York, NY, 10029

Medicine in World War I Online Exhibit

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In commemoration of the centennial of America’s entry into World War I in April 1917 through to the Armistice in November 1918, partner institutions contributing to the Medical Heritage Library have developed this collaborative online exhibit on medicine, surgery, and nursing in the war, with texts and images drawn from the digital corpus of the MHL. A significant amount of professional medical and surgical literature was produced even as the conflict continued to rage, and many personal narratives of physicians and nurses and histories of hospitals and army medical units were also published in the years immediately after the war.  A selection of this material is incorporated into the exhibit.

Medicine in World War I is divided into several broad categories: common diseases of the battlefield and camps; injuries and prosthetic devices; shell-shock and stress; military nursing; and the Spanish influenza epidemic.   There are also sections of bibliographic references with links to items in the Medical Heritage Library and a short list of other exhibits devoted to World War I and medicine.

New York Academy of Medicine Library Launches New Digital Collections Website

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de Chauliac_watermarkThe New York Academy of Medicine Library announced
today the launch of its new digital collections and exhibits website, hosted on the open-source framework Islandora and accessible at http://digitalcollections.nyam.org/. The new site makes it easy for the public to access and explore highlights of the Library’s world-class historical collections in
the history of medicine and public health.

“The Academy is committed to enhancing access to our Library’s world-class collections through digitization,” said Academy President Jo Ivey Boufford, MD.
“With the launch of our new digital collections and exhibits website, users across
the globe will have access to an ever-growing number of important resources in the
history of medicine and public health.”

VESALIUS ICONES SUITE_010_watermark2
The website includes a glimpse into the Library’s rare and historical collections material. In one day, high-end photographer Ardon Bar-Hama, courtesy of George Blumenthal, took photos of a subset of the Library’s treasures, which are all accessible via the new website. Visitors interested in cookery can page through the Library’s Apicius manuscript with 500 Greek and Roman recipes from the 4th and 5th centuries. Other highlights includes beautiful anatomical images from Andreas Vesalius’s De Humani corporis Fabrica and striking botanicals like this skunk cabbage
(Symplocarpus Foetida) hand-colored plate from William P. C. Barton’s
Vegetable Materia Medica.

AyersHairVigor_watermarkAlso featured is The William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards, which contains approximately 300 colorful pharmaceutical trade cards produced in the U.S. and France between 1875 and 1895 that were used to advertise a wide range of goods in the nineteenth century. Such cards are now regarded as some of the
best source material for the study of advertising, technology and trade in the post-Civil War period.

“It is gratifying to digitize our materials and see them come to life with the launch,”
said Robin Naughton, PhD, Head of Digital for the Library. “Our digital collections and
exhibits website represent a bridge between the Academy Library’s collections and
the world as it intersects with the humanities and technology.”

The Library will continue to launch new digital collections and exhibits, including
“How to Pass Your O.W.L.’s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course,” which celebrates the 20th
anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and will be
launched on June 26. Two other upcoming digital projects focus on the history of the
book: “Facendo Il Libro/Making the Book,” funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas
Foundation, and “Biography of a Book,” funded by a National Endowment for the
Humanities Digital Projects for the Public grant.

About The New York Academy of Medicine Library
The Academy is home to one of the most significant historical libraries in medicine
and public health in the world, safeguarding the heritage of medicine to inform the
future of health. The Library is dedicated to building bridges among an
interdisciplinary community of scholars, educators, clinicians, and the general
public, and fills a unique role in the cultural and scholarly landscape of New York
City. Serving a diverse group of patrons—from historians and researchers to
documentary filmmakers to medical students and elementary school students—the
Academy collections serve to inform and inspire a variety of audiences from the
academic to the public at large.

Upcoming WWI Exhibit Opening at the UCSF Library

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Recruitment poster.

Recruitment poster.

~This post courtesy Polina Ilieva, Head of Archives and Special Collections, University of California, San Francisco.

Save the date for the upcoming UCSF Archives exhibit: a Centennial Commemoration of WWI featuring UCSF’s role in the Great War, April 12, 2017 – April 2018 on the main floor of the UCSF Library at Parnassus. Continue reading

From Library War Service to Science: Bibliotherapy in World War I

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This Friday, we’d like to point you towards an online exhibit on bibliotherapy as used during World War I. This exhibit was created and curated by Mary Mahoney, a Ph.D. Candidate in History at the University of Connecticut. She is currently completing a dissertation on the history of bibliotherapy, or the use of books as medicine.

Most readers can think of a novel that offered some comfort, a poem that presented direction, or even a biography that provided inspiration. The notion that books can heal is as old as reading itself but, during World War I, doctors and librarians joined together to apply reading as a form of therapy.

 

Imperfecta: Fear, wonder, and science

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~This post courtesy Beth Lander, College Librarian, Historical Medical Library, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

On March 9, 2017, Imperfecta opens in the Mütter Museum, an exhibit curated by the staff of the Historical Medical Library, which will examine in text, image, and specimen how fear, wonder, and science shaped the understanding of abnormal human development. Continue reading

Women Veterans of World War I

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Johns Hopkins Hospital Base Hospital Unit 18 Nurses in World War I, wearing gas masks, 1918.

Johns Hopkins Hospital Base Hospital Unit 18 Nurses in World War I, wearing gas masks, 1918.

The Hopkins and the Great War exhibit features the stories of several women veterans of World War I . By exploring the experiences of the female Johns Hopkins doctors and nurses, the exhibit sheds light on the opportunities women had to serve during the war and the ways in which gendered norms varied by professional training and nationality. Continue reading

Hopkins and the Great War

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“Junior Class Hullabaloo Board,” Exhibits: The Sheridan Libraries and Museums, Johns Hopkins University

“Junior Class Hullabaloo Board,” Exhibits: The Sheridan Libraries and Museums, Johns Hopkins University

Chemistry professors recruited to do research in chemical warfare. Surgeons developing revolutionary new techniques to deal with gruesome war injuries. Nurses stepping into unprecedented new leadership roles at home and on the warfront. Student soldiers living in engineering classrooms converted to barracks. All these things and more were experienced by the Johns Hopkins community during World War I. Continue reading

History of the New York Academy of Medicine

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Academy’s First Permanent Home: In 1875, the Academy purchased and moved into its first permanent home at 12 west 31st Street. This image of the Academy’s first building will take you back to a different time.

Academy’s First Permanent Home: In 1875, the Academy purchased and moved into its first permanent home at 12 west 31st Street.

The New York Academy of Medicine Library began in 1847 with the intention of serving the Academy fellows, but in 1878, after the collection had expanded to include over 6,000 volumes, Academy President Samuel Purple and the Council voted to open the Library to the public.  It continues to serve both the Academy fellows and the general public, providing an unprecedented level of access to a private medical collection.  Today, the Academy Library is one of the most significant historical libraries in the history of medicine and public health in the world. Continue reading