“Sebastian Kniepp’s Legacy to Worishofen,” pictured at the beginning of “The Codicil.”
As colder weather comes on, many of us are changing an outdoor for an indoor exercise routine: Sebastian Kniepp wants to help you with that. Continue reading
Frontispiece: “Barbers Hall, Monkwell Street, London” from “The Barbers’ Company.”
The Barbers’ Company is a brief monograph on the combined history of barbering and surgery from ancient Greece through the mid-nineteenth century. Continue reading
Frontispiece from “An essay on electricity, the theory and practice of that useful science, and the mode of applying it,” by George Adams, 1785, shows a physician applying current generated by an “electrical machine,” to a patient’s arm.
“The Society having heard from some of their Correspondents in Germany that what they call a Vegetable Quintessence had been fired by Electricity, I take this Opportunity to acquaint you, that on Friday Evening last I succeeded, after having been disappointed in many Attempts, in setting Spirits of Wine on Fire by that Power.” Continue reading
Title page of “Talks to My Patients.”
In response to what she described as widespread patient request, Mrs. Rachel B. Gleason wrote Talks to My Patients in 1870. Continue reading
Dedication from “The Rappers.”
Table-rapping, table-turning, spirit writing, and other forms of communication with “another world” were common and popular forms of spiritualistic activity in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Some consider that the rapping done by the Fox sisters in the late 1840s as the beginning of the spiritualist movement in the United States. The girls later admitted that their “spirit communication” was fraudulent but by that time — the 1880s — the admission had little effect: the movement was an independent thing. Continue reading
Hawaiian language title page of Walter Murray Gibson’s He mau olelo ao e pili ana i ke ola kino ona kanaka Hawaii [i.e., Sanitary Instructions for Hawaiians]. (Honolulu: Paiia e R. Grieve, 1881).
English language title page of Walter Murray Gibson’s Sanitary Instructions for Hawaiians (Honolulu: P. C. Advertiser, 1881).
The English and Hawaiian language editions of Walter Murray Gibson’s Sanitary Instructions for Hawaiians represent interesting milestones in Hawaiian public health. Continue reading
Photograph and case history of Private Samuel Decker. He posed for this portrait at the Army Medical Museum along with the prostheses he developed after losing both hands to an artillery accident during the battle of Perryville. — vol. 5, image 5.
The Center for the History of Medicine recently digitized a remarkable collection of Civil War-era images titled Photographs of surgical cases and specimens. Nearly 150 years after it was first published, this six-volume set provides a sobering look at the state of the art in surgery during and after the war. Continue reading
Title page of “The Wilderness Cure.”
At the end of the nineteenth century, concerns were common over the enfeeblement of the human form — often the male human form — particularly of those who lived in cities or worked in factories or offices, those “new” and “unnatural” environments.
In 1881, Marc Cook, an office-worker in New York City, wrote The Wilderness Camp, his own personal tale of health revitalized through retreat from the city and return to the country. Continue reading
Frontispiece of “A Collection of Cases…”
Among the titles mentioned in our post on Wednesday was A Collection of Cases Illustrating the Restorative and Sanative Properties of Swaim’s Panacea, an early nineteenth century production of William Swaim. Continue reading
List of other “American Health Primers” from the front of “The Summer and Its Diseases.”
Welcome to summer! It came in with a genuine heatwave here in the Northeast, but heat exhaustion and sunburn aren’t the only ailments prevalent during the summer; Dr. James C. Wilson of Philadelphia wrote a whole book on the subject called (cheerfully enough!) The Summer and Its Diseases. Continue reading
