Historical Library News
May 10, 2016
The spring 2016 issue of Nota Bene: News from the Yale Library is now available online. This issue has a particular focus on the work of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library as it marks its 75th anniversary this year. In addition to telling the story of the Medical Library, the issue profiles some of the current projects, resources, collections, and exhibits that are making an impact at Yale and in the medical community worldwide.
Dec 15, 2015
(by Nathan Rupp and Melissa Grafe) Nearly 900 Yale School of Medicine theses are now available through Yale University’s online institutional repository known as EliScholar. These include “current” theses published in the last decade that have come out of embargo as well as several YSM alumni theses published as far back as 1952. These theses document the rich research done by Yale’s medical students, and can provide a starting point for current medical students embarking on their projects. We’re also pleased to make this part of our collection... Read More
Nov 3, 2015
Monica Green, a scholar of the history of medieval medicine, recently profiled the Bamberg Surgery, which is part of the Medical Historical Library's collection. The Bamberg Surgery is a surgical text dating from the mid-12th century which was acquired by Dr. Harvey Cushing and subsequently formed part of the original Medical Historical collection at Yale. Green writes: The Bamberg Surgery doesn’t get a lot of love in histories of surgery, because of its patchwork character. As Corner himself said, “it is a notebook, a partially organized collection of notes, memoranda, prescriptions,... Read More
Sep 12, 2014
(Post authored by Terry Dagradi) Cushing operating at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital Photo by Dr. Walter Willard Boyd 1928-32 On October 1, 1926 at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, Harvey Cushing performed an operation—removal of a mass from a patient’s head -- using the first commercial electrosurgical generator developed by to William T. Bovie [1], an engineer employed at Harvard University. The Bovie unit passed high frequency alternating current into the body, allowing the current to cut or coagulate. The device drastically reduced the complications of bleeding... Read More
Apr 8, 2014
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... Read More
Jun 17, 2013
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),... Read More
Apr 19, 2013
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... Read More
Mar 21, 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... Read More