Monthly Archives: February 2017

Charles Bell: Artistry and Anatomy

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By Anne Garner, Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts

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Close-up of plate 1 showing the heart, from Charles Bell’s Engravings of the Arteries, 1801.

Imagine you’re a medical student, and inside your go-to study text is this astonishing, hand-colored image of the heart (above). Twenty-first century medical students should be so lucky!

Engravings of the Arteries by the Scottish anatomist, Charles Bell (1774-1842), was first published in 1801, some 57 years before the first edition of Henry Gray’s Anatomy. Devised for medical students, it aimed to offer accurate and simply-rendered illustrations of the arteries to “present to the student at one glance the general distribution of the vessels and to fix them in his memory.”  The book was used by students as a preparatory text for surgical study and practice.

The ten beautifully-rendered engravings in this volume were delicately colored by hand, and labelled with letters corresponding to explanatory descriptions of the arteries on the opposite page.  In the preface to this work, Bell is explicit in his instructions on how the book was to be used:

In studying the arteries, or any part of anatomy, we should, in the first place, run the eye over the corresponding plate, then read the general description in the text; and lastly, proceed to study more closely, step by step.

For Bell, true anatomical understanding was aided in pairing accurate drawing with thorough description.  Bell also believed that a variety of bodies should be used as subjects, and that the artist must choose the most typical anatomical examples to copy accurately. Any deviation from usual forms would be preserved in the illustration, but noted and explained in the description.

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Plate 3, showing the carotid artery, the lower thyroid artery and the upper thyroid artery in Charles Bell’s Engravings of the Arteries, 1801.

Engravings of the Arteries was the second volume of two; Charles’ brother, John Bell, an eminent surgeon, had written the first volume of this companion set, Engravings, Explaining the Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles, and Joints, in 1794. The elder brother mentored the younger in medicine, though Charles’s formal training occurred at Edinburgh University (he earned his medical degree there in 1798.)  Both Charles and John taught anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, until 1804, when the brothers were banned from practicing medicine in Edinburgh by the faculty there, jealous of the success of their anatomy classes.  They moved to London that year and established a new anatomy school, as well as a thriving surgical practice.

On the left: Plate 6, showing the arteries of the arm, and on the right, plate 9, showing the arteries of the lower extremity, both from Charles Bell’s Engravings of the Arteries, 1801.

Trained as an artist, Charles Bell’s skill in this respect is a landmark of his considerable body of anatomical work.  In 1806, Bell wrote an important book, Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting, combining his interest in art and medicine in a book rich in information.  This new book, for an audience of visual artists, advanced ideas he’d first voiced in Engravings, arguing for great attention to anatomy to render the human body accurately (this time, for art’s sake.)

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Bell argued in Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting (1806) that the ancient models often imitated by painters did not accurately reflect anatomical realities.

During his career, Bell also made important inroads in determining the sensory functions of the nervous system.  He was an early advocate of the idea that different parts of the brain controlled different functions; his pioneering work on the brain and cranial nerves influenced the work of other important brain researchers for decades[1].  Bell’s palsy, or facial paralysis caused by nerve dysfunction, is named after him.

For art lovers–and heart lovers too, on our minds this National Heart Month of February–Bell’s gossamer drawings have a special place in the history of anatomical illustration.  Bell understood that image and text could work in concert to save laborious use of words to convey anatomy.  But he also understood the added value of drawing the body with attention, skill, and reverence.  Bell knew that accurate and clear drawings could dramatize with nuance the systems of the body, in all their astonishing perfection. That idea is very much on display in this beautiful book.

Reference:

[1] Bell C. On the nerves; giving an account of some experiments on their structure and functions, which lead to a new arrangement of the system. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 1821 Jan 1;111:398-424.

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The Marrow of Tragedy: Disease and Diversity in Civil War Medicine

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Today’s guest post is written by Dr. Margaret Humphreys, Josiah Charles Trent Professor in the History of Medicine at Duke University. She is the author of Yellow Fever and the South (Rutgers, 1992) and Malaria: Poverty, Race and Public Health in the United States (Johns Hopkins, 2001), Intensely Human: The Health of the Black Soldier in American Civil War (2008) and Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War (2013). On Tuesday, February 21 at 6pm, Humphreys will give The John K. Lattimer Lecture: “The Marrow of Tragedy: Disease and Diversity in Civil War Medicine.” To read more about this lecture and to register, go HERE.

In a memorable scene from the movie Gone with the Wind, Southern belle, Scarlett O’Hara, picks her way through the battle-wounded men lying on the ground near the train station in Atlanta, frantically seeking Dr. Meade to help her with her sister-in-law Melanie’s imminent delivery.  Meade brushes her off and turns to a screaming soldier, telling him that his leg would have to come off, and without anesthesia.  The man’s screams echo as Scarlett heads back to Melanie’s bedside.  This cinematic portrayal of Civil War medicine reflects a wide belief that there was no anesthesia at that time.  Indeed, it was said that the war occurred “at the end of the medical middle ages.”  (This quotation is widely attributed to Union Surgeon General William Hammond, but without citation).

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Scene from Gone with the Wind (1939).

In my book, Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War, I begin from a different perspective, recognizing that there was such a thing as “good medicine” and “bad medicine” during the War.  Medical care could be effective, and it could make a difference in disease and injury outcomes.  For example, chloroform and ether anesthesia meant most surgery occurred with the patient unconscious (although Confederate surgeons did run out of these supplies in desperate circumstances, such as the siege of Atlanta near the end of the war).

Alarming as the notion of amputation completely without anesthesia, are the revealing mortality rates from disease at this point in the war. Put simply, for every one white Union soldier who died of disease during the War, a little over two black Union soldiers died, and almost three Confederates succumbed.[i]

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Image source: Getty Images.

How can we account for these differences?  A major factor was the quality and quantity of food, a core ingredient of the modern concept of “social determinants of health.”  White Union troops also received better hospital care, calling on part of the strong social networks of the folks back home and their political impact.  The Union hospital system was much better funded, with full access to important medicines, such as quinine, opiates, and anesthetics; and the technology of cleanliness, which included clothing, soap, and disinfectants.  Nursing care was key, as well, with northern hospitals staffed by volunteer nurses, while those in the south were often civilians or slaves challenged by lack of formal training as well as lack of resources.

To learn more about Civil War medicine, join us on Tuesday, February 21 at 6pm. Register HERE.

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Image source: Harper’s Weekly, April 9, 1864.

 

Note:

[i] Actual numbers, per 1000, were 63, 143, and 167, respectively.

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with 19th-century Medical Trade Cards

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By Becky Filner, Head of Cataloging

During the last two decades of the 19th century, the United States witnessed an explosion of mass-market advertising in the form of trade cards. A combination of factors contributed. Lithography, first invented in the late 1700s, made it practical to print large runs of images relatively inexpensively. Heavy paper became less expensive because it was being made from bleached wood pulp instead of cloth. The invention of the camera supplied endless images for reproduction. Advances in high-speed steam presses made it practical to mass produce trade cards, and new modes of transportation made it possible to distribute them throughout the country.[1]

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This medical trade card for Pond’s Bitters (“cures constipation, headache, indigestion, biliousness, malaria, dyspepsia”) encourages the couple depicted to focus on each other and “let the dog have the lunch!”[2]

The cards pictured here are all from an extraordinary new collection. Late last year, the Academy library received The Bingham Patent Medicine Collection as a bequest. This rich collection – a complement to our William Helfand Collection of trade cards – contains approximately 4,900 trade cards produced by pharmaceutical manufacturers in the 19th century.

These cards advertising “El Tricofero de Barry” and “Pildoritas de Reuter” were printed in New York by Barclay & Co., but the text is in Spanish. Click to enlarge.

The late Walker Bingham was a completist, and his carefully assembled collection reflects years of assiduous collecting and research. An announcement will be made when the collection is available to the public. Meanwhile, have a look at Bingham’s book, The Snake-Oil Syndrome: Patent Medicine Advertising, for more of his cards and an excellent overview of pharmaceutical advertising. Here he writes of patent medicine:

It is probable that most of the nineteenth century patent medicines had no effect at all on the diseases that they were sold to cure. They were not even palliatives. Some sufferers may have been misled into taking patent medicines instead of more effective (and possibly more expensive) drugs prescribed by a doctor, but generally speaking, at that stage of medical learning there was often little that any doctor could do for a patient with a serious disease except give emotional support.[3]

The medicines that did have more than a placebo effect often relied on ingredients like morphine, cocaine, heroin, opium, chloroform, and alcohol. These drugs were especially dangerous when given to children or self-administered in large doses. The patent medicine business was booming in the late 19th century, and it relied heavily on advertising to attract customers since the medicines were ineffectual at best. In addition to trade cards, patent medicine companies produced millions of newspaper ads, almanacs, show cards, and other mailing pieces.

Most trade cards were designed to appeal to women and children, with sentimental images of animals, flowers, babies, families, and scenery.[4] The Valentine’s Day images below fall into this category, with roses, doves, and cherubs promoting Brown’s Iron Bitters (“Cures Malaria, Dyspepsia, Weakness, &c.”), Burdock Blood Bitters (“It makes pure, healthy blood, and regulates all the organs to a proper action, cures constipation, liver and kidney complaint, female weakness, nervous and general debility, and all the distressing miseries from which two-thirds of the women in American are suffering”), Boschee’s German Syrup (“No person suffering with consumption, coughs, colds, croup, bronchitis, asthma, or any disease of the throat, lungs or chest can take it without getting immediate relief”), and Wilson’s Popular Corn Salve (we are not told what this product does, but “every box [is] guaranteed or money refunded.”)

Most trade cards were designed to appeal to women and children, with sentimental images of animals, flowers, babies, families, and scenery. Click to enlarge.

Sentimental images of couples also sell products, including a trio of kissing couples selling Smith’s Bile Beans (they “cure biliousness”), two different images of couples with umbrellas, one selling Dr. P.O. Baldo’s Blood and Liver Pills and the other selling Wilbor’s Compound of Cod Liver Oil and Phosphates, and a trade card that recommends buying a bottle of Race’s Indian Blood Renovator for your new wife “to prove to her [your] fervent love.”

Sentimental images of couples also sell products. Click to enlarge.

Other more satiric and risqué trade cards are clearly aimed at an adult audience. The card below, “The Five Senses,” is one of the racier examples in the Library’s trade card collection. The back advertises Lash’s Kidney & Liver Bitters, described as “a mild cathartic and sure cure for constipation, indigestion, biliousness, dyspepsia, malaria, chills and fever, nervous or sick headache.” The front of the card shows a series of five images of a woman “seeing” a man, “hearing” him approaching, “smelling” a flower he has given her, and sitting in his lap while he is “feeling” her bottom. The final image, “Tasting,” shows the edge of a bed and the woman’s dress, undergarments, and stockings thrown across a chair. Apparently taking Lash’s Kidney & Liver Bitters will ensure a happy Valentine’s Day!

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“The Five Senses” (above) is one of the racier examples in the Library’s trade card collection.

References:

[1] Summarized from A. Walker Bingham’s account of trade cards in The Snake-Oil Syndrome: Patent Medicine Advertising (Hanover, Massachusetts: The Christopher Publishing House, 1994), p. 117-119.
[2] All trade cards in this post are from The Bingham Patent Medicine Collection in the Library of the New York Academy of Medicine.
[3] Bingham, p. 7.
[4] According to Bingham, mothers used to paste trade cards into albums as birthday or Christmas presents for their children (p. 117.)

#ColorOurCollections: Day 5

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Thank you to all the institutions that took part in  #ColorOurCollections, and to all the talented artists who colored! We loved seeing your work, and some of our favorites are shared below.

We’re still tallying up participants, but so far 100 institutions have registered on ColorOurCollections.org and contributed to the collection of coloring books located there. Many more participated on social media. Institutions, it’s not too late to register and add your coloring book! The registration page will remain open until next Friday, February 17th at 5PM.

Many of this year’s coloring books featured art, plants, and animals (you can’t go wrong!), but we also saw a few other themes emerge. We saw women’s history in the coloring books of the Brooklyn Public Library, the New York State Library, Frances Willard Memorial Library and Archives, University of Houston Special Collections, and our own coloring sheet. Architecture and buildings were highlighted in Numelyo, Macalester College, DeWitt Wallace Library, Gore Place, the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and many others. University archives joined in full force this year with participants such as New Mexico State University Library Archives & Special Collections, Loyola University New Orleans Special Collections & Archives, Hunter College Archives & Special Collections, and University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections. 

#ColorOurCollections will return February 5-9, 2018! Until then, ColorOurCollections.org is there for all your coloring needs!

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Coloring book: Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine, University of Minnesota Libraries

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Coloring book: University of Reading Museums and Collections Coloring Book

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Coloring book: University of Missouri Libraries, Special Collections and Rare Books

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Coloring book: Cambridge University Library

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Coloring book: Smithsonian Libraries

Check out even more beautiful colored pages in the below slideshow.

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Aldrovandi’s Quadrupeds, and #ColorOurCollections: Day 4

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It’s the fourth day of #ColorOurCollections, a week-long special collections coloring fest we’ve organized on social media. Check out all the coloring books at colorourcollections.org.

A set of charming four-footed beasts from the quadrupeds volume of Ulisse Aldrovandi’s (1522-1605) multi-volume  natural history encyclopedia is our choice for today’s coloring sheets.

Aldrovandi grew up in Bologna as the privileged son of a noble family.  His father, Teseo Aldrovandi, served as secretary for the Senate of Bologna and his mother was a first cousin of Pope Gregory XIII.  From an early age, Aldrovandi displayed a restless intelligence, studying mathematics, law and philosophy before finally earning a degree in medicine and philosophy from the University of Padua in 1553.

By the time he earned his degree, Aldrovandi had already developed a passionate interest in natural history.  A popular teacher, he taught philosophy and other subjects at the University of Bologna before he was appointed the first professor of natural sciences in 1561.  Aldrovandi’s interest was sparked by personal encounters with other major figures in the world of 16th century natural history, including the ichthyologist Guillaume Rondelet and the botanist Luca Ghini. While Ghini failed in his attempts to garner support for the establishment of a botanical garden in Bologna, Aldrovandi was successful, founding the garden with the support of the Senate in 1568 and serving as its director for almost 40 years.  He also travelled widely, often with students, to collect plants  and natural history specimens.

Over the course of his lifetime, Aldrovandi assembled a natural history museum of 18,000 specimens, as well as an extensive herbarium.  Only four of the thirteen volumes of his magisterial Storia Naturale were published during his lifetime; the others appeared posthumously over a period of decades.  He left the museum collections, his library, his unpublished manuscripts, drawings, water colors and the wood blocks that were meant to be used to illustrate the encyclopedia volumes to the city of Bologna when he died.  A portion of the specimen collections can be visited today in the Istituto delle scienze at the Palazzo Poggi, while the manuscripts, watercolors, and wood blocks are available for study in the library at the University of Bologna.

If you like Aldrovandi’s majestic beasts, you’ll love the following coloring pages from our participating institutions.

We’re mesmerized by Dittrick Medical History Center‘s beautiful Anatomy of an Horse (1683) by Andrew Snape.

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Enjoy coloring the many details of University of Strathclyde Glasgow‘s regal lion from Michael Maire’s Atalanta Fugiens (1618).

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Finally, here is the legendary manticore for your coloring delight. The Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History adds a bit of whimsy with Historie of foure-footed beastes(1658) by Edward Topsell.

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Check back in tomorrow for the last day of #ColorOurCollections!

 

Hebra’s Atlas of Skin Diseases, and #ColorOurCollections: Day 3

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It’s the third day of #ColorOurCollections, a week-long special collections coloring fest organized on social media. Every day on our blog, we will feature #ColorOurCollections coloring sheets from our library, along with content from participants worldwide.

Today’s Academy coloring sheets come from the works of Ferdinand von Hebra  (1816- 1880), a significant figure in the influential Vienna school of dermatology. Dermatology emerged as a clinical specialty in the early to mid-19th century, and in 1849, Hebra was appointed the first German language professor in the subject, at Vienna General Hospital.[i]

Hebra’s Atlas of Skin Diseases (1856 – 76) was a monumental work printed in 10 installments, with mostly life-sized illustrations, using the new technique of chromolithography, which allowed the artist to draw directly onto the lithographic stone and print in color. The illustrations were created by two Viennese painter physicians, Anton Elfinger and Carl Heitzmann. Each issue of the Atlas was dedicated to a group of disorders which affected the skin.

The “tattooed man” is an unusual addition to the Atlas, being presented as of cultural rather than the clinical interest. Unusually, the tattooed man is also identified by name, as Georg Constantin, a circus performer from Albania. Constantin was a well-known circus performer, who traveled extensively in Europe and North America. He spent time with Barnum’s Circus as “Prince Constantine,” where he also sold pamphlets describing his tattoos (which are variously described as Chinese and Burmese in origin).[ii] Constantin’s body was covered with 388 tattoos of animals and symbols in red and blue. As was Hebra’s habit, Constantin was depicted twice in the Atlas, once in full color and once as the outline drawing presented here.[iii]

Itching to color the tattooed man? Some of these intricate patterns from participating institutions may also be your groove.

From University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Health Science Library: Adam Lonicer, Naturalis historiae opus novum (1551).
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From Amguedddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales: Benjamin Wilkes, Twelve new designs of English Butterflies (1742).

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We’re also loving Muhlenberg College Trexler Library‘s maps coloring book.  Check out this detailed world map of Johann Baptist Hormann’s Planiglobii terrestris cum utroq hemisphærio cælesti generalis repræsentatio (1720).muhlenbergcollege_colorourcollections_maps

References:

[i] Holubar, K. (1981), Ferdinand von Hebra 1816–1880: On the Occasion of the Centenary of His Death. International Journal of Dermatology, 20: 291–295. doi:10.1111/j.1365-4362.1981.tb04341.x

[ii] Margo DeMello, Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community (Duke University press, 2000), p56. DeMello states that Constantin sold pamphlets describing the “Chinese cannibal natives” who had forced his tattooing on him. In Hebra’s Atlas the tattoos are identified as being Burmese. There is also a suggestion that Constantin had himself tattooed with an eye to displaying himself as a circus attraction.

[iii] Mechthild Fend, “Skin portraiture ‘painted from nature’: Ferdinand Hebra’s Atlas of Skin Diseases (1856-76)”, in Hidden Treasure, Michael Sappol (ed), New York: Blast Books, 2012, pp. 122-26.

Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal, and #ColorOurCollections: Day 2

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Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal has quite a curious publication story.  We’ve transformed six images from this stunning eighteenth-century botanical first published in 1737 in London into coloring sheets.

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Blackwell’s melon, colored by library staff member, Emily Miranker.

Aberdeen-born Elizabeth Blackwell (1700-1758), the daughter of a successful merchant, married her cousin Alexander Blackwell at age 28.  Though trained in reading Greek and Latin, Alexander practiced as a physician in Aberdeen, without appropriate permissions. The couple relocated to London when his right to practice medicine in Aberdeen was challenged.  In London, Blackwell opened a printing shop—again without the proper credentials, and again with less than stellar results.  When he couldn’t pay his business debts, he was installed at the city’s Highgate Prison.

Elizabeth, by then a mother, needed to find a way to support her family.  The printer’s shop she operated with her husband had made her a savvy observer of the book marketplace.  She realized that a new high quality herbal including New World species didn’t yet exist.  She took a room next to the Chelsea Physic Gardens, which exhibited some of the new American plants.  Later, she ferried the finished drawings to the prison at Highgate, where her husband supplied the Latin and Greek names of the plants and their uses. Some American plants, like sassafras, native to Virginia, were given only the English and Latin names.

Alexander also offered counsel on the plants’ medicinal uses.  The text accompanying sweet gum, here, “sweet cistus of candy” attests that it “Stays Vomiting” and that “the Fume of it Comforts the Brain” (we’re hoping that these same effects can be said about the practice of coloring these images).

blackwell_watermarkblackwell3Elizabeth was not only responsible for the drawings themselves, but did the engravings of the drawings on copper plates for printing.  In many copies, she hand-colored every single plate.  The images were first published at a rate of four a week, beginning in 1737, but through her own connections and market-savvy, she soon secured a book deal.  With the profits, Elizabeth was able to secure Alexander’s release from Highgate Prison, though their reunion was temporary (later he was put to death in Sweden for treason, though that is another story).

This week, we’re grateful that our own copy of Blackwell’s Curious Herbal is gloriously pristine so that we could transform them into a bouquet of coloring sheets.

In need of color specifics?  Blackwell’s text gives vivid, precise descriptions of the hues of her selected plants.  Great Bindweed (v.1, plate 38), which blooms in the late summer, has leaves that are “a willow green” with “Flowers white,” while her Female Piony possesses “leaves a grass green and flowers a fire crimson.”

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We leave it to you imaginative colorists to fill in these pages in any range of glorious hues you like!

While we’re on a plant theme, let’s take a look at some beautiful coloring pages from participating institutions.

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New York Botanical Garden includes this lovely sunflower in their coloring book. Source: Basillius Besler, Hortus Eystettensis (1613).

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Williams College Libraries includes this ready-to-color image from Leonhart Fuchs’ De historia stirpium (1542).

Don’t forget to check out more coloring books at colorourcollections.org!

#ColorOurCollections 2017: Day 1

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The second annual #ColorOurCollections week has officially begun! From February 6th through 10th, libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions are showcasing their collections in the form of free coloring sheets. Follow the hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms to be introduced to new library collections, find out more about your favorites, and have some fun. Throughout the week, we will be featuring new coloring books from other institutions on the blog, and be sure to visit the #ColorOurCollections website for the list of participants and a collection of coloring books created for the campaign.

We also plan to showcase the work of the talented colorists out there! Share your filled-in sheets on social media with the hashtag #ColorOurCollections for a chance to get featured on our blog.

Our coloring book this year features hooved creatures from Ulisse Aldrovani’s Qvadrvpedvm omniv bisvlcorv historia, 1621; beautiful botanicals from Elizabeth Blackwell’s A curious herbal, 1739; and a dashing tattooed fellow from Ferdinand Hebra’s Atlas der Hautkrankheiten, 1856-1876. Download our full coloring book and check back throughout the week for background on our sources.

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The coloring content shared by collections so far tell us we are in for an incredible week! We’re particularly taken with Europeana’s Art Nouveau coloring book. The style lends itself beautifully to coloring sheets and we cannot wait to get started on the nasturtium design.

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The Biodiversity Heritage Library’s new coloring book features the work of great naturalists such Pierre Belon, Mark Catesby, and John Gould.

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We’re excited to see some new participants this year! The Rosenbach created several coloring sheets based on bookplates from their exhibition The Art of Ownership.

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Keep following #ColorOurCollections on your favorite social media outlets. Happy coloring!