Portrait of Eliza Lyman from "The Coming Woman."
In the past few weeks, some wonderful 19th century books on home health care and what might be loosely called “advice manuals,” particularly for women, have come into our collection.
Here are a few highlights… Continue reading
We’ve added a few things to our Tools for Digital Research page… Continue reading
From Plymmon S. Hayes’ Electricity and the Methods of Its Employment in Removing Superfluous Hair and Other Facial Blemishes (1880).
As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!
Title page from "Home and Health and Home Economics."
Manuals of behavior, etiquette, deportment, and home economics are common publications even today. The authors of the 1880 Home and Health and Home Economics would probably have a very hard time recognizing the relationship between their publication and, say, Netiquette. Continue reading
Gérard de Lairesse’s original drawing for Govert Bidloo’s Anatomia humani corporis … (Amsterdam, 1685). Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Santé.
The Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Santé (BIU Santé) in Paris, the largest medical library in France with important history of medicine collections and programs, is connecting its users to the Medical Heritage Library by harvesting MHL’s metadata from Internet Archive to allow searching of its content. Continue reading
From Evans and Wormull’s Illustrated catalogue of surgical instruments, appliances, apparatus, and utensils, veterinary instruments, cutlery [etc.] (1876).
As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!
Title page from "An Account of the Disease..."
Medical mysteries are a popular genre — or subgenre, depending on how you classify it! The details of Napoleon’s poisoning, the exact violence used on the Romanovs or Rasputin, or the “Black Dahlia” murder are historical narratives that still get readers. Alongside these large-scale stories, though, there are smaller puzzles in the history of medicine and science. Continue reading
Title page of James Esdaile's "The Introduction of Mesmerism."
Included in portion of Yale University’s Cushing/Whitney Medical Library anesthesia collection uploaded to the MHL, is an intriguing selection of materials regarding mesmerism in medicine, or the act of putting patients in a hypnotic state before a medical procedure and forgoing the use of anesthesia. Continue reading
From William Beebe’s The Bird, Its Form and Function (1906).
As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!
Warnings from the front matter of "The Lady's Own Book."
In 1877, in England, Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, who would become notorious for refusing to take a religious oath to take his seat in Parliament in 1880, were prosecuted for publishing and distributing a book on birth control.
In 1847, in Michigan, Dr. Z.J. Brown published The Lady’s Own Book, or, Female Safeguard; the title goes on to specify that Dr. Brown intends talking about “Generation, Sterility, Impotency, Female Complaints, the Diseases of Infants and Children…” as well as a host of other topics all covered “…in a plain, yet chaste, style…” Continue reading
