From George H. Taylor’s An illustrated sketch of the movement-cure: its principles, methods and effects (1866).
As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!
From Hugo W.A. Nahl and Charles C. Nahl’s Instructions in gymnastics (1863).
As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!
As always, for more from the Medical Heritage Library, please visit our full collection!
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
Chapter 1 of "Sex in Education."
Education for women was a hot-button topic in the nineteenth century in much the same way that mandatory testing is today. In 1875, Edward H. Clarke capitalised on the public’s interest in this topic with a lecture that he turned into a book, Sex in Education: or, a fair chance for girls. The book makes for entertaining but rather disturbing reading. Continue reading
A gallery of mouth-breathers adorns the cover of this strange work by George Catlin
Among the collection of works on hygiene and general health that the Francis A. Countway Medical Library has submitted to the Medical Heritage Library, one finds an eclectic mixture of theory and practice advocating everything from the reformation of cemetery burial to the donning of proper footwear; from water cures to treatment of diseases attendant to sedentary office life in the early 19th century. Through a simple subject search one can peer directly into a world where publishers and authors were attempting (often misguidedly) to apply the burgeoning scientific approaches of the day to every aspect of human health, with widely differing results. This work, which is dedicated to “the nervous and bilious,” promises to educate readers about the “art of invigorating and prolonging life by food, clothes, air, exercise, wine [and] sleep,” but nevertheless ends, somewhat ominously, with an extended section devoted to “the pleasures of making a will.” Continue reading
"Diagram of the more important distributions of the autonomic nervous system." From Cannon's "Bodily Changes..." (24)
The experience of having a great meal disturbed by an argument is a common one and a headache can make a work-day seem like it lasts 10 times as long. In 1915, Walter B. Cannon wrote Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage to describe the physical changes that accompany certain emotions. Continue reading
