Tag: digital highlight

Digital Highlights: “The Hospital Pupil’s Guide Through London”

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The hospital pupil’s guide through London, in a seres [sic] of letters : from a pupil at St. Thomas’s Hospital to his friend in the country ; recommending the best manner of a pupils employing his time, and interspersed with amusing anecdotes relative to the history and oeconomy of hospital’s [sic] (1800) claims to be a collection letters sent from a medical student in London to a friend who is planning to come to London and matriculate in the same medical school. There is no author name, although the initials “J.C.” are appended to a brief introductory letter directed to the country student’s sister. (The country student did not survive to come to London.)

J.C. (assuming those to be the initials of the author) writes an amusing and highly readable account of his time in London, discussing the student hierarchy (“The only persons more priveledged [sic] than Dressers are the Apprentices…” (11)), the order of his lectures (“…almost before I am awake, I go to the Midwifry [sic] Lecture…” (13)), and the design of London hospitals (“The entrance to Mr Guys [sic] Hospital is certainly very grand…” (34)). He describes student life, talks about his classes, and gives his friend advice over how and when to matriculate and with what professors for which subjects.

Flip through the pages below or follow this link to read The hospital pupil’s guide.

Digital Highlights: News for (Alumnae) Nurses

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In February of 1907, the Alumnae Association of the School for Nursing at the New York Hospital agreed upon the publication of a newsletter for their alums: “It is hoped that the paper, if continued, may help to keep the members of the association in closer touch with one another…” Eight members were appointed to “gather news.”

This inaugural issue included notes about a fund for sick nurses, and brief notes about alumnae clubs and members: “The new Club rules have been drawn up, and submitted to the nurses for approval. Mrs. Robinson is abroad for an indefinite time.”

As time went on, the newsletter included more content: news about the school, notification of upcoming meetings and events of interest to alumnae, and general pieces about the state of the nursing profession.

Click through the pages below or follow this link to read The Alumnae News.

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

Digital Highlights: Coram and the Foundlings

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b21686464_0006The Foundling Hospital, founded in 1739 by Captain Thomas Coram in London, is the subject of John Brownlow’s 1858 The history and design of the Foundling Hospital : with a memoir of the founder. At the time of the book’s publication, the Hospital was still on its original site in in Bloomsbury. The Hospital has since transitioned into a charitable foundation, named after the founder of the Hospital: Coram.

The Hospital itself has a fascinating history, starting from the very beginning with Coram’s lengthy struggle to get a Royal patent for the hospital and Parliamentary guarantees of funding to allow more children to be taken in. Approximately ninety-two children were taken in per year in the first fifteen years of the Hospital’s operations, the only restrictions in acceptance being a transmissible disease such as smallpox or syphilis. (9)

Brownlow’s is not the only history of the hospital and the London Metropolitan Archives and the Foundling Museum curate the Hospital’s records. Brownlow records that, as time went on and it became possible either that parents would want to reclaim their children or children track down their parents, those surrendering a child were requested to leave an identifying token: “A half-crown, of the reign of Queen Anne, with a hair. An old silk purse. A silver fourpence, and an ivory fish. A stone cross, set in silver.” (18) Many of these items, being quite durable, have survived and are held by one or the other of the above institutions.

Flip through the pages of Brownlow’s book below or follow this link to read The history and design of the Foundling Hospital : with a memoir of the founder.

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

Digital Highlights: CSI (circa 1905)

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Police procedurals — such as the popular CSI series and its spin-offs and imitators — were not the cultural presence in turn of the century America that they are today. The development of the detective story and the crime novel are fascinating topics in and of themselves, but so is the development of “legal medicine” — what we might now call “forensic pathology.”

Frank W. Draper was one of the original practitioners of legal medicine in Massachusetts. He held positions at Harvard University, first in 1877 as a lecturer in legal medicine under Professor Walter Channing and then in 1884 as a professor of the same subject. When the Office of the Massachusetts Medical Examiner was created in 1877 to replace the officer of the coroner, Draper was appointed as the first ME for the Commonwealth.

Draper wrote one of the original North American texts on legal medicine, A text-book of legal medicine in 1905 — as with many professors since his appointment, he had to create the textbook for the classes he taught.

Flip through the pages below or visit A text-book of legal medicine to read Draper’s full text.

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

Digital Highlights: Pain Explained

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According to the posthumous biography written by Edith Ellis (wife of sexologist Havelock Ellis), James Hinton was born in 1822, in Reading, England, outside of London. During his career as a physician, Hinton wrote widely on a variety of subjects, medical, physiological, and ethical.

Among his many publications was The Mystery of Pain: A Book for the Sorrowful in 1880. Hinton made an appeal for learning from unavoidable pain that was firmly rooted in a Christian understanding of the utility of suffering.

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

Digital Highlights: Tour an “ultramodern” hospital in the year 1900

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QuarterCwithFHW_picOnly_009A Quarter of a Century with the Free Hospital for Women is a small picture book published in 1900, not long after the hospital had finished construction of its grand, new facility by a pond in Brookline, Massachusetts. The volume, held in the rare books collection at Harvard Medical School, Center for the History of Medicine, was recently digitized by the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Archives and made available online via the Medical Heritage Library. It will be of special interest to students of the history of institutional architecture, and to those interested in the history of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The Free Hospital for Women is one of BWH’s organizational “grandmothers.”

QuarterCwithFHW_picOnly_002If you’ve ever wondered what a state-of-the-art hospital looked like a hundred plus years ago, flip through the photographs in this little book. See elegant arches and woodwork, gas lights, fireplaces, a grandfather clock, and Tiffany windows. There is a patient sitting room with a piano, a dining room with linen tablecloth and flowers, patient ward beds with gauzy white curtains, and a sitting porch with a view of Riverdale Park. All together the hospital seems more like a resort found in the Berkshires than anything resembling hospitals as we have come to know them in the 21st century.

 

QuarterCwithFHW_picOnly_011Amazingly, this beautiful facility was designed exclusively forpoor women. From 1875 to 1919 those without means were taken care of by the FHW at no charge. By 1919 the hospital had become so successful at its core mission of treating the diseases of women that patients of all economic levels were eager to be admitted there and the by-laws were amended to allow some who could pay.

In 1966 the Free Hospital for Women and the Boston Lying-in, a local maternity hospital, merged to form the Boston Hospital for Women. In 1975, the Boston Hospital for Women merged with the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and the Robert B. Brigham Hospital. By 1980, all three hospitals had centralized operations and moved to one location in the Longwood area of Boston. The original FHW building was sold to a luxury condominium development company, but the enduring medical legacy of the Free Hospital for Women was reflected in the new name chosen for the combined institutions, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.

Digital Highlights: Bell’s Art

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Sir Charles Bell (1774-1842) is probably best known for his work in the human nervous system. He was one of the first to work out the detailed ramifications of human nerves and their myriad connections and interconnections. His work proved to be foundational in the field of neuroscience and resulted in the naming of at least one condition after him, Bell’s Palsy, a form of temporary facial paralysis.

Bell also had interest in the arts and some practical experience as an artist. This gave him some advantage in terms of describing his anatomical dissections and presenting them both to other medical professionals and the public. He also wrote an early book on the application of knowledge learned from medical dissection to art: The anatomy and philosophy of expression as connected with the fine arts. This was first published in 1806 but republished at least once later in the century after Bell had achieved a position of prominence in Victorian London.

Flip through the pages of Bell’s work below or follow this link to read The anatomy and philosophy of expression as connected with the fine arts.

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

Digital Highlights: Medical Education for Women

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This seemed like an appropriate highlight for a Friday in Women’s History Month: An appeal on behalf of the medical education of women from 1856.

The pamphlet — under 20 pages long — is a succinct summing up of the history of women as medical professionals. It only takes a few pages to do this because Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman admitted to a medical college in the United States, had received her degree less than a decade before this publication. The pamphlet appeals not only for a wider admittance of women to medical schools, but for the establishment of a hospital for women within New York City.

The proposed hospital — based on the New York Infirmary and Dispensary for women and children which had been opened in 1854 — was to be a teaching hospital as well as a straightforward place of treatment.

Flip through the pages below or follow this link to read An appeal.

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

New to the MHL: Hiram Corson Diaries

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Dr. Hiram Corson, an 1828 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, made his first diary entry March 31, 1827, while he was still a medical student.  His last entry was dated January 31, 1896.  He died March 4, 1896.  He was well-known nationally and was highly respected by such illuminati as Sir William Osler.

The diaries of Dr. Hiram Corson give many insights into the man, the society and times in which he lived, the Civil War, and most especially into medical education and the medical profession of the nineteenth century.  More than any other man in America, Hiram Corson was responsible for women physicians gaining recognition and being accepted into the medical profession.

Undaunted by reprisals or scorn, Hiram Corson was an outspoken abolitionist.  His sense of justice caused him to respond to many issues.  His public awareness throughout his long life is reflected in his diaries, which contain a treasure of information.

For more than thirty years he worked for the better care for the mentally ill.  In 1877 Pennsylvania Governor John F. Hartranft appointed Dr. Hiram Corson to the Board of Trustees of the State Lunatic Asylum at Harrisburg “in recognition of his life-long interest and zealous efforts in behalf of the insane.”

Flip through the pages below or follow this link to read any one of the three volumes of Hiram Corson’s diaries.

Digital Highlights: The Clue of Handwriting

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"The Standard Forms of Executives" from French's "The psychology of handwriting."

“The Standard Forms of Executives” from French’s “The psychology of handwriting.”

Got a spare half hour this weekend? Want to know more about yourself? Then have a look at William L. French’s 1922 The psychology of handwriting — complete with illustrations!

Are you a tea drunkard? French can tell from the downstroke of your cursive hand. Could you be a good salesman? If your handwriting is firm, confident, and rather small, French thinks yes. And don’t hope to escape if you take pleasure in deceiving others: French can tell from the height of your letters.

Flip through the pages of French’s book below or follow this link to read The psychology of handwriting. As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!