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Apr 1, 2022

   Images from the Bert Hansen Collection of medicine and public health in popular graphic art Like audiences today, 19th-century readers of popular magazines and newspapers learned about public health initiatives and medical discoveries through articles and imagery. The Medical Historical Library team digitized over 500 images from The Bert Hansen Collection of Medicine and Public Health in Popular Graphic Art (Ms Coll 67), representing the earliest works in a very large collection that contains materials from 1850-2010. The new digital collection contains chromolithographs and... Read More

Mar 4, 2022

In a new hallway exhibition, Scenes from the Great Depression and its aftermath are presented in the works of recent immigrants and others for the Federal Art Project and the Works Progress Administration.  Works include: The Relief Station, 1938, Lithograph by Oscar Van Young b. Viena 1906 d. U.S.A.1991,  "The Relief Station," a realistic and not uncommon scene in art of the period, reflects the despair and patience of families who could no longer feed themselves without assistance. After coming of age in Russia during the civil war, Oscar was sponsored by influential American... Read More

Feb 1, 2022

Innovation & Evolution in Hip Replacement Surgery: Highlights from the Keggi–Rubin Hip Implant Collection at Yale University  On view in the Cushing Rotunda, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library January 28th - April 29th, 2022      This exhibit explores the evolution of hip replacement surgery through historic implants selected from the new Keggi—Rubin Hip Implant Collection at Yale University. The displayed implants trace the trials, innovations, successes, and failures of hip replacement surgery over time, providing insight into the dynamic world of surgical history. By... Read More

Jan 6, 2022

         The Medical Historical Library is the new home for a large collection of approximately 3,800 short published works on topics related to child welfare used by Arnold Gesell and the staff of the Yale Child Study Center as a reference collection. Topics include children and the war; day care centers; education; infant mortality; juvenile delinquency; intellectual disability and the eugenics movement; mental health; mental illness; nurseries; and nutrition. A portion of collection materials documents organizations and conditions relevant to child welfare in New Haven and... Read More

Jan 3, 2022

   The Medical Historical Library is pleased to announce a new gift of patient records from Boston’s Waltham Hospital (which closed in 2003) dating from 1889 to 1897. Within 7 bound volumes are what are now called progress notes, operative reports, pathology reports, and medication records written by attending physicians. The volumes provide a snapshot of patient care, disease, and medicine in late 19th century Massachusetts. The collection is a generous gift of Alan M. Engler, M.D.; Yale College, Class of 1976.  The Waltham Hospital medical records (Ms Coll 82) are now available for... Read More

Dec 3, 2021

The Medical Historical Library is pleased to announce a gift of approximately 230 books and manuscripts from the libraries of David Riesman, M.D. and John P. Riesman, M.D.  The books range over a wide variety of topics and time periods, with the earliest texts dating from the 16th century. While volumes containing the works from highly influential medical authors such as Florence Nightingale, Herman Boerhaave, and Thomas Willis are part of the gift, other books in the collection provide medical advice and science fun for more popular audiences. Examples include a 1774 copy of William... Read More

Dec 1, 2021

The Medical Historical Library announces that the Wilfrid Rall computational neuroscience research collection (Ms Coll 83) is now open for researchers. The collection is a gift of Gordon Shepherd, MD, DPhil, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Neuroscience at Yale, and the family of Wilfrid Rall. Rall (1922-2018) was a neuroscientist whose work focused on the electrical properties of neurons and the functions of neuronal dendrites. His development of cable theory and the compartmental modeling approach for studying dendrites and synaptic integration helped found the discipline of... Read More

Aug 3, 2021

When people think of astrology today, they may conjure images of online horoscopes and celebrities casting birth charts as part of popular culture. Astrology has a much longer lineage, particularly connected to medicine and science. Medical astrology was widely practiced in Europe between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Part art, part science, it was integral to several fields of study, linking medicine to natural philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy, among others. In spring 2021, art historian Laura Phillips, Ph.D., Graduate School Alumni Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow at the... Read More