Medical Historical Library News

(by Susan Wheeler) Mary (and Sue) from Cushing/Whitney Medical Library on Vimeo. Sue Coe came to Yale for the opening of “The AIDS Suite, HIV-Positive Women in Prison and other works by artist/activist Sue Coe” on September 15 and gave an impromptu discussion of her drawings on display at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library.  The exhibit, on view through January 18, introduces seven large drawings by Sue Coe selected from among thirteen drawings acquired by the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library in 2015. These new works related to The AIDS Suite, 1994, are exhibited with prints by the artist which were acquired over the last decade.  Previously acquired drawings from the series Through Her Own Eyes on HIV-positive women in prison, 2006, are also on view.   Sue Coe is considered one of the foremost political artists working today. Her graphic work has been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and is in the permanent collections of major museums such as Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art.  Watch other excerpts from Coe's talk at the links below: It’s Over:  https://vimeo.com/187360494 Doctor Pollard Leads Ethics Rounds:  https://vimeo.com/187359005 Louis:  https://vimeo.com/187360917 Infectious Disease Clinic:  https://vimeo.com/187359961

(by Erin Travers*) Drawing after Jacob van der Gracht's Third Figure, Cushing Manuscript, Yale University. Early-18th century. Red and Black Chalk On the back of a letter from the antiquarian and bookseller Menno Hertzberger, dated 29 March 1927, Harvey Cushing recorded his observations concerning a manuscript of Jacob van der Gracht’s printed drawing book, the Anatomy of the outer parts of the human body (The Hague, 1634; Rotterdam, 1660), which had been sent to Boston from Amsterdam. This text, prepared by the seventeenth-century Dutch painter and engraver for the use of “Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, and also Surgeons,” brought Van der Gracht renown during his life, and continues to be his most well known work today. The manuscript version contains twenty-two pages of text and illustration, including a handwritten version of Van der Gracht’s preface, a section on the bones taken from André du Laurens, fragmented comments on the muscles, and explanatory registers for the accompanying illustrations of skeletal and écorché figures that mimic those published in Andreas Vesalius’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Basel, 1543). Hopeful that the drawings may have been preparatory works for the engraved plates, on inspection, Cushing found that the use of red and black chalk to demarcate the flesh and bones of the figures, while visually pleasing, was not conducive to the medium of print. Moreover, he writes that the larger scale of the figures and the presence of the registers on the back of the illustrations, made it unlikely that these were the final cartoons from which Van der Gracht worked, though they may have been an earlier experiment by the seventeenth-century Dutch artist. Contemplating whether a previous owner may have added the text to the illustrations at a later date, Cushing noted, “The paper, however, in the original seven leaves of text bears the same watermarks as that on which the drawings are made. It would be interesting to know the date and place of this paper.” During my time at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University as a Ferenc Gyorgyey Travel Research Grant recipient, I have pursued Cushing’s curiosity and investigated the watermarks hidden in the paper of the Van der Gracht manuscript to determine the date and location of its production.  Using online databases, including the Memory of Paper,  compiled by the Bernstein Consortium, my research makes use of resources that were not available to Cushing in the early twentieth century. Moreover, it is only with the relatively recent publications on Dutch watermarks, such as Theo and Frans Laurentius’s study of the Zeeland archives, or Nancy Ash, Shelley Fletcher, and Erik Hinterding’s works on Rembrandt’s prints, that this type of research is possible. Yet, despite the advances made in this field since the early twentieth century, this method for dating a work on paper should be approached with caution, as the medium is both geographically and temporally transient, and therefore should be considered as a general guide for attribution. Fleur-de-lys watermark "IV" countermark Together, watermark analysis and study of the formal properties of the drawings offers complementary evidence through which we can determine the relation of the manuscript to the published drawing book. The Cushing manuscript offers a clean and consistent watermark of a Strasbourg Bend, a shield with two diagonal bands that is mounted by a fleur-de-lis, and a countermark of the letters “IV."  Indicting the initials of the paper maker Jean Villedary (1668-1758), the countermark, design of the watermark, their size and relation to the vertical chain lines of the paper are consistent with samples dating from Amsterdam and London between 1718 and 1722, making it likely that the manuscript was produced in the first quarter of the eighteenth century (Churchill, no. 437 and Heaward, nos. 73 and 78). Given this date, the possibility that the drawings could have been executed prior to the publication of the printed text is unlikely, and visual analysis of the figures confirms this hypothesis. The process of engraving in the early modern period entailed the incision of a design into a copper plate, which was coated with ink and then pressed onto a piece of paper, transferring the image and resulting in the reversal of the initial example. Essentially, the preparatory work and final print should appear as mirror images of one another. However, in the case of the Cushing manuscript, the figures share the orientation found in the final prints.  Carefully adhering to the model provided by the prints, the drawn figures that occupy the Cushing manuscript are copies made at a later date, and as such offer information concerning the continued engagement with and changing expectations of these types of illustrations by artists and anatomists. Questions concerning this shift are addressed in my on-going dissertation research, which examines the exchange and adaptation of pictorial knowledge between artists and anatomists in the seventeenth-century Netherlands. I am grateful to the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library for its support of my project, and greatly appreciate the opportunity to investigate an inquiry first raised by Cushing nearly one hundred years ago. *Erin Travers is a PhD candidate, history of art and architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara, and a 2016 Ferenc Gyorgyey Fellow

(by Melissa Grafe and Charlotte Abney Solomon)   In celebration of Harvey Cushing's birthday on April 8th and the Medical Library’s 75th Anniversary, the Medical Historical Library invited all Instagram users visiting the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale to share their best photos taken within our space. Contestants used the hashtag #HappyBirthdayHarvey and tagged our account, @yalemedhistlib. On display are the winners of the Instagram Challenge.   Brainiest Instagram: Best photo taken in the Cushing Center @rolfoid- Jon Rolfe Jon commented on his photograph that “The Cushing Center is a fun place for brainy Yale students.” Most Studious Instagram: Best photo taken while studying in the library- Honorable mention @annapziganshina- Anna Ziganshina Anna tells us that "it is never too early to learn." Judges’ Favorite Instagram: Best photo overall @archibrarian- Diane DiFazio What inspired Diane to take this particular photo:  “A few things: I expected a beautiful reading space at YMHL, but I'm often drawn to the details, and the metalwork in the Library caught my attention, so I took this photo because it represented medicine (hello, rod of Asclepius!), as well as the distinctive bookcases, other Tudor-style interior details, natural lighting, and bi-level space. My background's in architecture and I'm a librarian, so it was thrilling to be in a space that was both well-designed and inspiring; the Library continues the architectural traditions of great libraries. (And, I love how Harvey Cushing's ideas were realized by his friend and former classmate, architect Grosvenor Atterbury.) I thought the balustrades around the mezzanine (in the rotunda, too) were interesting, but I didn't realize how cool Atterbury's design really was until later! I thought, "Neat, I wonder if that's wrought iron," but later read that the railings are aluminum ... with decorative steel cutouts (!), and that it was all designed to mask lighting fixtures, which is such a fantastic modern way of the architect to handle things! So good.”   Happiest Birthday Instagram: Best selfie or other photo including an image of Harvey Cushing or the words “Happy Birthday Harvey” @kevin.a.nguyen- Kevin Nguyen With this selfie, Kevin noted, "Biology gives you a brain, but life transforms it into a mind."     Most Collectible Instagram: Best photo taken of an image, book, or other item in any CWML current or historical collections @sona.ghorashi- Sona Ghorashi Sona accompanied her photograph with this comment: "A path to the light through the shadows, at the Medical library."    Most Studious Instagram: Best photo taken while studying in the library @magic_meg- Megan Ritchey Megan captioned this lovely image of the Medical Historical Library with "The whole place to myself.”  

The Medical Historical Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, is pleased to announce the following recipients of the Ferenc Gyorgyey Research Travel Award for 2016-2017: Whitney Wood, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birbeck, University of London A New Way to Birth?  Herbert Thoms and the International Natural Childbirth Movement Whitney Wood’s research explores the natural childbirth movement in Canada.  As part of this research, Wood will be examining the Herbert Thoms papers (https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ru.0656), as Thoms was an international leader in the movement and produced quite a bit of material on the topic of natural childbirth. Whitney Wood is planning to come to the Medical Historical Library in Spring 2017. Erin Travers, Doctoral Candidate, History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara Boundaries of the Body: The Art of the Anatomy in the Seventeenth-Century Netherlands Erin Travers will be examining Dutch anatomies, particularly Jacob van der Gracht’s drawing book, Anatomie der wtterlicke deelen van het menschelick lichaem.  These anatomies form the basis of her dissertation.  She will at the Medical Historical Library July 18th-23rd, 2016. Many thanks to the selection committee: John Warner and John Gallagher.

  The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is delighted to announce the appointment of our new director, John Gallagher. John joined the staff of the Yale Library in 1999 as a library services assistant in the Library Shelving Facility. He moved to the Medical Library in 2000 where he took the position of evening & weekend circulation supervisor, and was quickly promoted to the head of the circulation department. After completion of his Masters of Library Science in 2004, John was promoted again to the head of Access and Delivery Services. He was instrumental in pioneering and establishing the Scan on Demand service at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, which evolved into the Scan and Deliver service for the wider Yale Library system. He served as the library liaison to the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation and co-chaired the library’s joint Department Committee for Best Practices, a university-wide initiative to foster and promote better management/labor relations and collaboration through interest-based problem solving. During this time, John also chaired a management/labor Access Services Assessment Task Force that reduced check-in errors at all libraries. As deputy director for Public Services and later associate director, John oversaw the completion of a number of major medical library renovations, including a complete renovation of the Medical Historical Library’s rare book stacks and staff areas, the construction of a Secure Reading Room, and the construction of the Cushing Center. In 2012, John was selected to participate in the National Library of Medicine/Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries’ Leadership Fellowship Program. John's participation in this prestigious and highly competitive program gives testimony to the quality of his leadership abilities. Susan Gibbons, University Librarian and Deputy Provost for Libraries & Scholarly Communication commented, "John’s appointment is fantastic. Not only do we add a talented colleague to the library’s senior leadership team, but John’s career demonstrates the opportunities for career advancement at Yale University Library." Even with all his responsibilities, John has an open door policy and welcomes staff to share their thoughts, ideas and feelings with him. John is a mentor, teacher, friend and leader.  We welcome John as our new director!