Melissa Grafe's blog

Portraits of Wounded Bodies

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

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.

The Drs. Coleman at Yale - a New Collection for Research

The Medical Historical Library recently acquired a collection of over 600 items dating from the late 18th and 19th centuries, including legal documents, correspondence, manuscripts, printed matter and photographs pertaining to the Coleman family of New Jersey. Of particular medical historical interest in this new collection are materials by two Coleman brothers, the Yale-educated physicians Dr. Isaac Pearson Coleman (1804-1869) and Dr. James Beakes Coleman (1805-1887).James and Isaac exchanged over fifty letters in which they share some of their experiences at the newly founded Medical Institution of Yale College. One such letter sent to Isaac after his 1829 graduation from James, then still in New Haven, comments on Yale faculty: “We have in one of the new Professors one of the most theoretical criticising fellows to be met with. No writer from the flood to the present time escapes his lash and the worst of it is, he is an able and learned man and does it handsomely”.In addition to attending the Medical Institution of Yale College, as was customary at the time for young aspiring physicians, the brothers had also obtained medical training under experienced preceptors. Their apprenticeships under Dr. Ewing and Dr. de Belleville of Trenton, respectively, are documented in the collection, as well as James’s acquaintance with Thomas Story Kirkbride.During the decades as practicing physicians in New Jersey, the brothers continued to write on personal and family matters; they mention patients, including one case of “natural smallpox of the distinct variety, about 1,000 pustules,” as well as matters of contention in the profession such as “the modern notion of treating all acute diseases by the antiphlogisticating starvation method.” The collection also features manuscript lecture notes by James Coleman, recording a series of public lectures he prepared on the subject of phrenology.The Coleman brothers collection, 1748-1910, Ms Coll 36, is now open for research! A finding aid will be posted shortly.Blog post by Judit Balassa, intern at the Medical Historical Library

Letters From a 19th Century Homeopath

The Medical Historical Library recently acquired a collection of letters by John J. Cushing, one of the first homeopathic physicians in California. Cushing wrote in the 1850s to his family in Providence, Rhode Island from San Francisco, where he set up practice. The collection contains colorful anecdotes about Gold Rush era San Francisco, including some on his experiences as a doctor there.In his letters, Cushing tells how he got barred as a homeopath from the newly formed local Medical Society on account that “the board could not regard my diploma as evidence of my medical education.” The correspondence also chronicles his efforts to maintain a practice against the fierce competition that he describes on January 31, 1855 as there were “four doctors to one patient.” Cushing eventually prospers despite difficulties in collecting his fees during money shortages, recounting gifts of gratitude and payments in kind from his patients. He reports on cases such as a 4-month convalescence from typhoid fever in 1857, and a difficult delivery of an 11lb. baby, in a letter dated January 15, 1855. His correspondence also illustrates customs and social norms of his time: for instance, he comments that people frowned upon bachelor doctors attending ladies of class. by Judit Balassa