In light of the maintenance going on at the Internet Archive which is making access to the MHL collections a little unpredictable, check out these past features in our Digital Highlights series! Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
A patient suffering from 'mania' during an episode.
In 1843, Sir Alexander Morison published The Physiognomy of Mental Diseases, a compilation of observations and sketches of mental patients. Continue reading
From George J. Engelmann’s Labor Among Primitive Peoples (1883).
As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!
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
Anatomical chart frontispiece from Faulkner and Carmichael’s The Cottage Physician (1892).
