Home Blogs Melissa Grafe's blog

Melissa Grafe's blog

New exhibition on the Early Modern Pharmacy, 1500-1800

March 27, 2018 - 11:17am by Melissa Grafe

The Historical Library is please to announce our newest exhibition: The Early Modern Pharmacy: Drugs, Recipes, and Apothecaries, 1500-1800 April 2nd-July 5th, 2018 What did a pharmacy look like in Europe, between 1500 and 1800? What kind of activities took place within its walls? Who were the pharmacists? What kind of drugs did they make, and where did the ingredients come from? This exhibit, organized by the students in Professor Paola Bertucci's undergraduate seminar Collecting Nature and Art with the collaboration of Sarah Pickman, engages with these questions. It shows that, in the early modern period, collecting recipes and making medicines were common household activities carried out by women, while apothecaries often became targets of satire. The exhibit focuses also on a number of American ingredients, like coffee, cocoa, tobacco and chocolate, initially regarded as potential cure-alls, and on the mythical mandrake. Join us for an opening reception April 2nd at 5:15 in the Rotunda of the Medical Library.

Cataloging Cushing's Patients

May 30, 2017 - 3:26pm by Melissa Grafe

The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is pleased to announce the completion of a grant funded to catalog 2,600 glass plate negatives from the Cushing Brain Tumor Registry.  The grant proposal, "Rethinking Early Neurosurgery: The Harvey Cushing Collection," was funded through a National Network of Libraries of Medicine-New England Region Knowledge/Data Management Award.  From mid-February through April 30th 2017,  a team of graduate and undergraduate students carefully inputted information on over 3,000 glass plate negatives into the Cushing Center database, exceeding the estimated amount in the grant. The negatives depict Dr. Harvey Cushing's patients, including histology.  Harvey Cushing, the pioneer and father of neurosurgery, was born on April 8, 1869 in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Yale University in 1891, studied medicine at Harvard Medical School and received his medical degree in 1895. In 1896, he moved to Johns Hopkins Hospital where he trained to become a surgeon under the watchful eye of William S. Halstead, the father of American surgery. By 1899 Cushing became interested in surgery of the nervous system and began his career in neurosurgery. During his tenure at Johns Hopkins, there were countless discoveries in the field of neuroscience. In 1913, Cushing relocated to Harvard as the surgeon-in-chief at the new Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Cushing continued to operate on several hundred patients a year with remarkable results.  In addition he was relentless in his recording of patient histories and continued his careful attention to the details and documentation of each surgery. In 1932 Harvey Cushing retired and in 1933 he agreed to join the staff at Yale University, his alma mater, as the Sterling Professor of Medicine in Neurology.  Cushing died in 1939. The negatives are undergoing rehousing and digitization, and will be made available for research through the Cushing Center database, which brings multiple parts of Harvey Cushing's work together in one place.  The database, still in development, will allow researchers to explore Cushing's medical work and patients.  Please contact Terry Dagradi, Cushing Center Coordinator, for details.  

Secret Miracles of Nature

December 12, 2013 - 9:41pm by Melissa Grafe

We have a secret!  Blog post on an item in the Books of Secrets exhibit, by student curator Nell Meosky    Levinus Lemnius (1505-1568) was a Dutch physician who served the community of Manhuissatraat for nearly fourty years, traveled throughout Western Europe, and was highly regarded for his work during epidemics in 1529, 1532, and 1537.[1] Late in life and after his wife’s death, Lemnius went to seminary and became a priest, a transition which informs much of his most well-known book, De Occultis Naturae, which was first published in 1564. [2]Nearly a century after Lemnius’s death, De Occultis Naturae (literally, “The Hidden Nature”) was translated into English by an unknown translator, and given the title The Secret Miracles of Nature.[3]  Later, the work would be combined with a German manual on midwifery to produce Aristotle’s Masterpieces. Upon first glance, The Secret Miracles of Nature is an imposing book, much larger than other books of secrets of its day at approximately 11” by 7”. This is likely a sign that the printer was able to invest significantly in creating an impressive image for the book, supported by the robustness of the paper and binding that were used to construct it. Thanks to the reputation of Lemnius, who is described on the title page as “that great physician” and is acknowledged by scholars as well-respected, the printer was probably able to expect good sales of the book to higher class readers. The size of the book allows for more generous margins, which a reader could use to take notes on the recipes recorded within. The font of the text is somewhat larger than that of contemporary books of secrets, but not to scale with the size of the book, creating a formidable amount of reading to be done to reach the end of its 300-some pages. It does not appear, though, that the book was necessarily meant to be read from cover to cover in one setting, as it is made of up discrete recipes. The cover is worn and the edges of the pages, particularly at the very front and back of the book, appear almost charred, very brittle and dark. This suggests that the book was in fact used frequently, and the uneven staining of the pages hints that some of the sections may have been used more often than others. Although no readers’ names are recorded in the book, it seems to have been last owned by an individual around 1911, 250 years after its debut. Lemnius (or the translator) organized the volume into four discrete books: the soul and its immortality; plants and living creatures; diseases, their symptoms and cures; and other rarities. There is also a “bonus book” at the end, containing rules for how a man should lead his life. This book is particularly interesting because of Lemnius’s late-life career as a priest, and it begs the question of whether the four books were penned previously, with the fifth being added once Lemnius completed seminary. Within these books are many chapters, which are named quite descriptively and leave little room to imagine what is discussed on the pages indicated. This organization, and the abstract-like titles of chapters, makes it very easy to find the particular question that you are looking for an answer to – in fact, the titles could serve as something of an executive summary for those who do not wish to read the entire text. However, despite the clear organization of the books in their titles, their content overlaps. In book 1 (on the immortality of the soul), chapter V, Lemnius writes “of the strange longing of women with child, and their insatiable desire of things; And if they cannot get them they are in danger of life.” This chapter, while tangentially related to the soul because of the generation of a new soul through pregnancy, does not seem to quite fit the theme of the rest of the chapters of that book. However, after paging through the rest of the chapter, a logical flow begins to emerge: Lemnius begins with relationships between men and women, then to pregnancy and determination of gender (…the chapter on driving pests away from corn not withstanding). In content, The Secret Miracles of Nature is highly comprehensive, blending natural knowledge with philosophy.The language of the forward is difficult and arcane, but the language of the chapters is often easy to follow and engaging, and Lemnius addresses the book to “those that practice physic, and all others that desire to search into the hidden secrets of NATURE for the increase of Knowledge.” Lemnius often makes references to Hippocrates when explaining his medical decisions, and in book 2 includes disease knowledge from the rare and mystical to the most mundane: on physical phenomena, unnatural vs. natural death, the virulence of epidemics, and drunkenness. These medical portions are interesting in their blending of observation and experience with belief and religious texts; for example, on pg. 108 in Book II Chapter X: Every filthy smell is not hurtfull to Man, Lemnius observes of smells that “for some of these will difusse contagions, and resist corrupt diseases. By the way, whence came the Proverb, that horns are burnt there.” Lemnius was an author of great medical and spiritual prowess, and does not shy away from sharing his wisdom of both kinds in this, his greatest work. [1]PC Molhysen and PJ Block,New Netherland biographical dictionary. Part 8. AW Sijthoff, Leiden 1930. Accessed Oct 27, 2013 https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/molh003nieu08_01/molh003nieu08_01_1789.php 2 Charlotte F. Otten, Hamlet and the Secret Miracles of Nature. Notes and Queries (1994) 41 (1):38-41. https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/41/1/38/4593545 [3] Ibid.  

Delightful Delusions: A reflection on Jan Van de Velde’s “The Quack: Populus vult decipi” (1615-1641)

December 5, 2013 - 9:57pm by Melissa Grafe

 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.

A Vietnam War Surgeon Writes Home

June 17, 2013 - 11:41am by Melissa Grafe

The Kristaps J. Keggi Vietnam War service collection, recently donated to the Historical Medical Library, contains the complete correspondence between Dr. Kristaps J. Keggi and his wife, Julie, during his time as a surgeon in the Vietnam War. The materials were all donated by Dr. Keggi, the current Elihu Professor in Orthopedics at Yale School of Medicine. The scope of the collection—personal letters, photographs, teaching materials and war wound images- presents a unique and comprehensive look into the life of a war surgeon. Letters detail stories of MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital), Montagnards plagued with leprosy, ceremonies with local tribes, a visit from a Playboy bunny and, of course, the extensive surgeries performed in a combat zone. A sample of photographs and letters are on display at the Historical Library.  

Unveiling Medicine’s Past: Medical Historical Collections Online

April 19, 2013 - 3:22pm by Melissa Grafe

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

Over 2600 International Health and Safety posters at the Medical Historical Library

March 21, 2013 - 10:30am by Melissa Grafe

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.

"Nearly Well"- the story of Civil War soldier Robert Butcher

January 27, 2013 - 10:04pm by Melissa Grafe

Robert A. Butcher, Co. H, 82nd Infantry, Pennsylvania Robert A. Butcher was 21 when he enlisted in H Company 82nd Infantry Pennsylvania. Before the war, he was living with his mother, father, brother and sister in Philadelphia. His head was struck by a sabre on April 6th 1865 at Burkes’ Station, Virginia and he suffered two major cuts across the top of his head. He was admitted to Harewood Hospital on April 16th and, although the wounds healed rapidly, he began complaining of severe headache and intolerance to light. His anterior head wound re-opened a month later and began discharging unhealthy pus. After the wound opened, his headache gradually subsided and the wounds healed again. Physicians discharged him on June 9th and listed him as “nearly well.” Robert moved through three different homes for disabled veterans over the course of the next sixty years until he died in 1933. The first was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second was in Grant, Indiana, and the third was in Chesapeake, Virginia. He varied from being listed as an inmate to being listed as a mental patient. He is buried in Hampton National Cemetery. On view now, the Medical Historical Library explores Civil War medicine through the haunting photographs of wounded soldiers in an exhibit, "Portraits of Wounded Bodies: Photographs of Civil War Soldiers from Harewood Hospital, Washington, D.C., 1863-1866." Selections from a set of 93 photographic portraits, including Robert Butcher's, from Harewood Hospital, Washington D.C. are on display in the Rotunda of the Medical Library. In the foyer of Sterling Hall, the exhibit expands to include a larger discussion of Civil War medicine and surgery, including hospitals and nurses, using images and materials from the Medical Historical Library. On view until April 1st, 2013.  An online version of the Harewood Hospital photographs is available in the Digital Library.

Portraits of Wounded Bodies

January 7, 2013 - 2:28pm by Melissa Grafe

Portraits of Wounded Bodies:  Photographs of Civil War Soldiers from Harewood Hospital, Washington, D.C., 1863-1866 January 16th-April 1st, 2013 Tours open to all on Wed. Jan. 23rd, 4 p.m., and Friday Jan. 25th at noon! One hundred and fifty years ago, the Civil War raged throughout the United States, creating thousands of casualties.  On view now, the Medical Historical Library explores Civil War medicine through the haunting photographs of wounded soldiers.  Curated by Heidi Knoblauch, a doctoral student in Yale’s Section of the History of Medicine, and Melissa Grafe, John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History, selections from a set of 93 photographic portraits from Harewood Hospital, Washington D.C. are on display in the Rotunda of the Medical Library.  These images, some quite graphic, depict soldiers recovering from a variety of wounds, including gunshot wounds.  The soldiers’ case histories and stories, analyzed by Heidi Knoblauch, are part of a larger examination of medical photography and Civil War memory as America commemorates the 150th anniversary of the war.  In the foyer of Sterling Hall, the exhibit expands to include a larger discussion of Civil War medicine and surgery, including hospitals and nurses, using images and materials from the Medical Historical Library.  An online version of the Harewood Hospital photographs is available in the Digital Library of the Medical Historical Library. This exhibit is on display at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, 333 Cedar Street. For more information, contact Melissa Grafe, Ph.D, John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History, at melissa.grafe@yale.edu.

Exhibit: Medicine at Work

October 9, 2012 - 2:45pm by Melissa Grafe

Medicine at Work: A Selection of Instruments and Materials from the Medical Historical Library September 22nd, 2012-January 13th,2013 Medicine at Work, on view beginning September 22nd in the Rotunda of the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library and foyer of Sterling Hall, exhibits instruments, prints, catalogs, fee bills, and books describing and depicting a variety of medical work. Surgical operations and tools, trepanation, electrotherapy, anesthesia, bandaging, and dissection and toxicology are a sample of some of the medical work that happened in the past, and continue today. This exhibit will use selections for the collections of the Medical Historical library to provide context for the tools and materials used in medicine and surgery.  Among its significant collections, the Medical Historical library has approximately 600 medical and scientific instruments and over 7000 prints, posters, and drawings.  
Subscribe to RSS - Melissa Grafe's blog