Medical Historical Library News

An image from the Teratology exhibit There are 3 upcoming exhibits opening this month in the Rotunda, Hallway, and Foyer, in addition to Harry Potter!  Please join us for an exhibit tour for the Teratology and Prodigies exhibits on Wednesday, January 28th, at noon.   "Teratology: The Science and History of Human Monstrosity," in the Rotunda of the Medical Library Opening Jan. 22 at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library Dates: January 22nd-May 15th, 2015 Curated by Courtney Thompson, doctoral candidate in the History of Science and Medicine, and Melissa Grafe, Ph.D, John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History From early modern marvels to sideshow performers, the abnormal body has provoked wonder and fascination, even as it has inspired the scientific study of monsters. This exhibit explores the history of the science of human monstrosity, from early modern accounts of human-animal hybrids and prodigies through to present-day explorations of birth defects. The exhibit traces the different approaches to human abnormalities/monstrosity since the fifteenth century, demonstrating the various ways in which monsters have been described, explained, classified, and displayed to an interested public. An image from the "Prodigies and Marvels" exhibit "Prodigies and Marvels" on view in the main Hallway of the Medical Library, curated by Susan Wheeler Many of the individuals who evoked wonder were well known to contemporary audiences through the dissemination of inexpensive broadsides and prints. A selection from the Library’s extensive, and seldom seen, collection on this subject introduces a few of these individuals from the 16th through the early 19th centuries. The exhibit was prepared by Medical Library curator Susan Wheeler. Please join us for an exhibit tour for the Teratology and Prodigies exhibits on Wednesday, January 28th, at noon. This exhibit will run through May 15, 2015. "100 Years of Public Health at Yale" in the Foyer of the Medical Library, January 29th-May 15th, 2015 Curated by Toby Appel, Ph.D, and Melissa Grafe, Ph.D, John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History The Yale School of Public Health celebrates its centennial throughout 2015. One of the oldest accredited schools of public health in this country, it today advances public health through research, education and practice in its home city of New Haven, across the United States and throughout the world.  This exhibit examines the rise of public health at Yale beginning with the appointment of C.E.A. Winslow in 1915 through the work of the School in the present day.

Happy 145th Birthday Harvey Cushing!  Harvey Cushing, born on April 8th in Cleveland in 1869, was the last of ten children of Henry Kirke and Betsey Maria Cushing and descended from a long line of Cushing doctors. A brief list of his accomplishments include:  He considerably improved the survival of patients after difficult brain operations for intracranial tumors. In clinical medicine, he was an early advocate of x-ray and blood pressure determination. He developed techniques to control bleeding from the scalp and promoted decompression for relief of pain in cases of inoperative brain tumors. Cushing was an early adopter of electrosurgery, playing a role in the development of Bovie electrocautery tool with physicist W. T. Bovie. He was the world's leading teacher of neurosurgeons in the first decades of the 20th century. For Cushing’s 70th birthday in April of 1939, The Harvey Cushing Society, formed in 1932 by younger neurosurgeons in Cushing’s honor, met in New Haven Ct. for a celebration.     At the formal dinner Louise Eisenstadt, MD, colleague and collaborator of the Curator of the Brain Tumor Registry presented Cushing with the gift of Bibliography of the Writings of Harvey Cushing, prepared by the Harvey Cushing Society and published by Charles C Thomas. To learn more about Cushing’s life and accomplishments, visit the Cushing Center.

 We have a secret!  Blog post on an item in the Books of Secrets exhibit, by student curator Jarrell Ng          Something that has both puzzled and fascinated me throughout this course is how the professors of secrets and their books became so authoritative even though many of their recipes were fantastical, and probably never worked. The charlatans especially - as depicted in Jan van de Velde’s print “The Quack: Populus vult decipi” (1603-1641) - were blatant in their fraudulence, performing songs, comedy and cheap carnival tricks to attract crowds, “appropria[ting] recipes from earlier books of secrets”[1], and of course fabricating secrets of their own. How could people have been so enthralled by such falsities, and why was such a market of lies so sustainable?            A common narrative advanced is that the theatricality of their displays - “the mountebanks put on a slapstick comedy, using the characters, devices and gigs of what would later be called the commedia dell’arte”[2] - made the ciarlatania beloved source of entertainment for European publics. Sure, this may account for their popularity, but it fails to explain why people took the further step of actually spending moneyto purchase their phony remedies. Van de Velde’s print seems to acknowledge this; it de-emphasizes the theatricality of the charlatan’s display - he stands back with his arms on his waist, allowing his nostrums to speak for themselves - subtly hinting at the possibility that people were actually drawn to the mountebank’s secrets themselves, and not just beguiled by his diversions.            Perhaps then, those who purchased these false secrets were simply gullible; naive or desperate enough to be convinced of their authenticity. Yet, given the farcical methods that charlatans used to ‘prove’ their remedies, to merely conclude that all their customers were foolish seems unsatisfying. Even the professors of secrets, who made a more deliberate effort to establish legitimacy than the ciaralatani- and were therefore less obviously unreliable - should, conceivably, have lost their credibility once people tested out the recipes in their books and discovered that many were ineffective. Thus, unless one believes that European publics at the time were truly that half-witted, gullibility offers a painfully inadequate explanation for why commercialized secrets sustained such popularity; as we know, no less than 104 editions of Alessio Piemontese’s work were published from 1555 to 1699.            Van de Velde’s simple yet sophisticated proposition however, that people want to be deceived (populus vult decipi),is very compelling. As we know, the invention of print did not result in the universalspread of knowledge, or a complete shift away from esotericism. Many constituencies still jealously guarded their secrets from ‘vulgar’, common folk - the Church for instance fought to maintain control of occult forces, while alchemists used decknamenand allegory to obscure the truth of their ‘divine revelations’. Thus, when the professors of secrets published their discoveries in step-by-step recipes within inexpensive books, and the charlatans sold magical remedies in the piazza at affordable prices, they gave the masses a sense of empowerment that went above and beyond the actual utility of the secrets traded. The effectiveness of the recipes or potions was ultimately of little consequence, because what customers in the marketplace were searching for were perhaps not pharmaceutical, alchemical or agricultural recipes per se, but the delightful delusion that it was within their reach to manipulate Nature and control the world around them. The spread of cheap, tradable secrets took power away from traditional authorities such as the Church, and gave those deemed unworthy of such higher pursuits the opportunity to partake in the fashionable hunt for the secrets of nature - the ‘swines’ now had access to the ‘pearls’, and the powerful symbolism of this transition made the question of the pearls’ authenticity largely inconsequential.            There is something thoroughly romantic about this narrative - certainly much more romantic than the suggestion that people were simply too stupid to realize they were being deceived - and it is perhaps the same romanticism that drives our enduring obsession with the books of secrets today.[1]Eamon, W. (1994). Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. Princeton University Press. p.243.[2]Ibid., p.238.

The Medical Historical Library’s digital collection includes School of Medicine photographs, portraits of 16th Century anatomist Andreas Vesalius, Harvey Cushing, and others, medical and surgical instruments, prints, posters, and drawings, and much more!  Recently, thousands of medical works from the 19th and early 20th centuries have been added to the Medical Heritage Library, an online resource of free and open historical resources in medicine.  This exhibit, on view in the Medical Library Rotunda, Hallway, and Foyer, showcases a selection from the thousands of items currently available online, and describes the process of digitization, bringing medical history to users throughout the world with a few simple clicks.  On view April 11 to July 5, 2013

In January 2013, the Medical Historical Library acquired a collection of over 2600 international public health and safety posters from 56 countries.  Topics include maternal and child health, anti-drug and tobacco campaigns, breastfeeding, clean water, prevention of diseases such as malaria and polio, and accident prevention and safety.  Kenya, The Netherlands, Oman, France, and Germany are particularly well represented in the collection.  Posters issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization, and Doctors without Borders are also included.  Please contact Melissa Grafe, melissa.grafe@yale.edu, for more information and for access to the posters.