Category Archives: Events

Researching Neuropsychiatry and Veterans Hospitals During the 1930s at the New York Academy of Medicine 

Posted on by
Reply

By Dr. Michael Robinson, National Army Museum Research Fellow, University of Birmingham (UK), and the Library’s 2024 Paul Klemperer Fellow in the History of Medicine 

I spent one month working in the New York Academy of Medicine’s magnificent library and reading room in the autumn of 2024. This residency enabled me to look at a host of materials dedicated to the treatment of mentally ill American Army veterans of the First World War during the Great Depression (1929–1939). I undertook this research hoping to utilise the USA as an important comparative case study on my current research project dedicated to mental illness and British Great War veterans during the 1930s. By examining mental breakdown and psychiatric medical care during this decade, this research seeks to reveal the delayed traumatic after-effects of war service on ex-service personnel and the potential for additional psychosocial determinants to influence mental ill-health.  

I first became interested in the American experience of post-First World War disability and mental healthcare owing to its regular appearance in the archival records of Britain’s Ministry of Pensions, the government agency responsible for distributing veterans’ pensions and medical care. During the inter-war period, British policymakers regularly cited the US experience of veteran after-care as a deterrent and a case study to avoid replicating. They actively held up the US system as being unfairly exclusive, costly, and liberal owing to its incremental but costly expansion of veteran rights and facilities. Britain significantly reduced its liability on behalf of veterans during the 1920s and 1930s, including the closure of most veterans’ hospitals. Veterans’ medical care in Britain was primarily outsourced to broader public health facilities, the civilian welfare state, and the charity sector.  

By contrast, the US witnessed increased state liability, including a vast financial outlay in funding exclusive Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals and medical facilities. In 1936, owing to the two nations’ inversed approaches to veteran care, one Ministry of Pensions official described the UK and US responses as being of ‘opposite extremes.’1 The primary purpose of my time at the NYAM was to better understand why the British and US systems were the complete inverse of one another. I also sought to appreciate how these contrasting policy trajectories and medical infrastructures affected the lives of mentally ill veterans.  

Portrait of Thomas Salmon, from History of the Interurban Clinical Club 1905-1937, edited by David Riesman (1937).

This comparative approach first led me to NYAM records relating to Dr. Thomas Salmon (1876–1927). For those unfamiliar, Salmon was the American Expeditionary Forces’ chief consultant in psychiatry during the First World War. Before this important role, following the country’s entry into the global conflict in 1917, Salmon visited England to study how it dealt with mental wounds during the war to help inform his country’s approach.2 As a leading figure in the US National Hygiene Movement before and after his war service, the records of Salmon’s war experience reflect a relatively progressive military medical official. He regularly stressed the environmental causes of soldiers’ breakdown. In short, Salmon was more inclined to blame combat neurosis and stress on the dehumanising and brutalising effects of war service than citing faulty hereditary genetics, as was more apparent amongst British military officials. This more empathetic outlook continued into Salmon’s advocacy on behalf of veterans following his return to America. Unlike the more reclusive and disillusioned Dr. Charles Myers, the British Army’s leading psychiatric official, Salmon advocated for healthcare and welfare on behalf of the mentally disabled First World War veterans during the initial post-war years. Described by his biographer as a successful ‘spokesman for veterans,’ the force of Salmon’s personality and his effective collaboration with the American Legion help explain why the American mentally ill veteran stopped being admitted into larger public mental hospitals.3 Instead, the US Federal Government established exclusive medical facilities for veterans from the early 1920s onwards.  

Salmon died unexpectedly whilst sailing near Long Island in 1927. Reflecting his prestige amongst his contemporaries, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, an advocacy organization founded in 1909 by Clifford W. Beers, set up the Salmon Committee on Psychiatry and Mental Hygiene at the New York Academy of Medicine in 1931.4 Regardless, the exclusive medical infrastructure he had helped establish continued to cater to mentally ill First World War veterans into the 1930s. In stark contrast to Britain’s minuscule and dwindling psychiatric infrastructure, the VA provided seventeen neuropsychiatric facilities across its national network of forty-nine hospitals. It offered 10,633 beds for mental ailments, marking a 467% increase over 1921’s availability. The number of beds would be set to increase for the rest of the decade.5 With this exclusive federal medical care program for veterans, the VA published its Medical Bulletin journal throughout the 1930s. Pouring through these issues reveals a lively forum of VA medical officials discussing the continued difficulties of treating veterans during this period.  

Regarding neuropsychiatry—I was struck by how hospital superintendents, nurses, vocational trainers, and social workers regularly articulated a holistic approach to mental healthcare. They cited the psychosocial determinants of health outside of hospital walls. This includes, for example, the detrimental impact of unemployment and poverty on an individual’s mental and bodily health, the emasculating stigma attached to male mental illness, and the potential for harmful self-medication practices such as alcoholism.  

United States Veterans’ Bureau Medical Bulletin (1931), a collection of articles by VA staff and associates dedicated to all aspects of veteran after-care. These various scans come from volume 7.

The materials I reviewed at the NYAM provide a complex and nuanced picture of the post-war treatment of mentally ill World War One veterans. On the one hand, they give an image of an expansive, caring and financially generous veterans’ system. On the other hand, however, they provide comparatively little insight into the personal perspectives of veteran patients to verify the progressive narrative offered by medical officials. In addition, contemporary medical journals reveal increasing resentment from American citizens regarding the spiralling costs of veteran medical care with little in return in terms of cure and recovery.6 This counter-narrative also appears worthy of further research.  

Before arriving in New York, I was unsure how exactly the USA would fit into my larger project of Great War veterans during the Great Depression. However, my time at the NYAM proved incredibly rewarding by revealing how fascinating and unique an American case study is. I look forward to continuing this research into 2025. 

Notes: 

1 Nineteenth Annual Report of the Ministry of Pensions, 1935-1936, 33. 

2 For a write-up of Salmon’s observations and recommendations, see Thomas Salmon, The care and treatment of mental diseases and war neuroses (“shell shock”) in the British Army (War Work Committee of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, 1917). 

3 E. D. Bond, Thomas W. Salmon: Psychiatrist (W. W. Norton & Co, 1950), 160. 

4 For more information on the Salmon Committee on Psychiatry and Mental Hygiene and its records that are held in the NYAM, see https://www.nyam.org/library/collections-and-resources/archives/finding-aids/ARN-0006.html/ [last accessed 18 November 2024]. 

5 E. O. Crossman and Glenn E. Myers, ‘The neuropsychiatric problem in the US Veterans’ Bureau,’ Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 94, no. 7 (1930), 473–478. 

6 For example, see the Crossman and Myers article cited above. 

Tracing the Transmission of Early Modern Recipe Knowledge in the New York Academy of Medicine Library

Posted on by
Reply

By Sheryl Wombell, University of Cambridge, and the Library’s 2024 Audrey and William H. Helfand Fellow.

In seventeenth-century Europe, knowledge about health and healing was shared with family, friends, and acquaintances. In the case of printed books, wider audiences were reached. A significant subset of these communications took the form of recipes: sets of instructions telling one how to make something. These might be instructions for making medicines in the home, with a range of ingredients from the inexpensive and easily sourced, to the rare and exotic products available due to expanding trade. Or they could be instructions to make culinary formulations, which were interpreted as having an impact on the body’s condition due to the lasting influence of the ancient theory of the four humours. Individual recipes, which could be as short as a line or as long as tens of pages, were gifted, traded, and passed around early modern social networks.

A letter penned by the courtier and privateer Sir Kenelm Digby, likely to Sir Richard Grenville, 1st Baronet of Kilkhampton, demonstrates the mobility of recipes in the mid-seventeenth century.i In it, Digby thanks Grenville for sending him a recipe for ‘Sir Walter Rawleys great Cordiall’ but questions its provenance:

I beleive th[a]t it came from me, for it agreeth word for word with my Receipt that I had out of his owne originall book written with his owne hand; & whereof I made at one time as much as stood mee in above 500 [pounds] sterling; & stored the Court, Citty, & Country with it; But I add to it, the Magistery of Rubies, of Emeralds of granales of amethystes, of Saphyres, of each halfe an Ounce to the proportion that you sayth, also, magestery of Crabbs Eyes [3 oz], of Crabbs Clawes [2 oz]; of Contra yarva stone [1 oz], of snakweed of Virginia, of Contra yarva root, of each halfe an Ounce and of Tincture of gold made by spirite of Honey [1 oz]; and I finde this much more efficacious.

The circular path of recipes that Digby describes – when a recipe he believes to be his own is unwittingly returned to him – is testament to the lively early modern traffic in recipe dissemination and collection.

Fig. 1: Copy of a letter from K. Digby in MS ‘Old Doctor 1690’, f. 76, New York Academy of Medicine Library.

Manuscript collections of recipes survive in archives around the world, and the New York Academy of Medicine Library holds a rich cache of such volumes. Thanks to winning their Helfand Fellowship in 2024, I had the privilege of spending five weeks on a close reading of the early modern medical recipe collections at NYAM. This research forms part of my PhD project, which looks at the mid-seventeenth century production, management, and transmission of knowledge about health and healing amongst exiled and mobile elites, including Digby. While my work to date had focused on three key media – printed medical books, manuscript recipe collections, and consultation letters – somewhat in isolation from each other, at NYAM I had the time and resources to explore the relationships between these formats.

One such connection was the integration of transcribed letters into larger manuscript collections. Digby’s letter, for example, was copied into a large bound volume of recipes, letters, and transcriptions from printed books titled ‘Old Doctor 1690’. But in handling the manuscripts I was also confronted with material traces of transmission. In another manuscript, for example, is a recipe for ‘Costiveness to help’, that is, how to relieve constipation. Next to the instructions are two small, shiny blobs of dried red sealing wax. While this is not conclusive evidence that the recipes on the page were copied into a letter, it does indicate that the notebook lay open while a letter was sealed – and likely written – in its vicinity. Through this tiny physical sign, we learn something of the co-presence of writing and collecting practices across the distinct but interrelated media of letters and recipe books.

Fig. 2: Wax in ‘Pagett recipes for medical remedies: autograph manuscript signed, c. 1640–1650’, f. 73, New York Academy of Medicine Library.

The objects of transmission themselves also appear in these recipe collections. A notebook belonging to Owen Salesbury holds a loose paper slip with instructions ‘To Make Elder Claret’ and sent ‘To Mrs Longford att her hous in Wrexham’. Folded slips could be enclosed in a larger letter, or they could constitute the entire missive. The inclusion of the address on this example suggests the latter. The contents of the slip were not transcribed into the body of the notebook but containing it within the bound volume preserved its knowledge. We don’t know precisely how or when a slip sent – or intended to be sent – to a Mrs Longford ended up in Salesbury’s manuscript, but it offers further evidence of the close connections between ephemeral letter formats and the more durable objects of recipe collections.

Figs. 3 and 4: Paper slip in ‘Collection of medical recipes, poems, prayers, and charms: autograph manuscript signed, 1638–1642’, New York Academy of Medicine Library.

Spending time in the NYAM Library’s collections allowed me to get to grips with evidence of early modern recipe transmission. While digitised surrogates of manuscripts have been invaluable in my research, handling these collections has enriched my analysis by bringing their material qualities – size, varying durability, the spatial relationships between their contents, and signs of use – to the fore.

Further Reading:

Ken Albala, Food in Early Modern Europe (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003).

James Daybell, The Material Letter in Early Modern England: Manuscript Letters and the Culture and Practice of Letter-Writing, 1512–1635 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

Elaine Leong, Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and the Household in Early Modern England (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2018).

Alisha Rankin, ‘Recipes in Early Modern Europe,’ Encyclopedia of the History of Science (2023), https://doi.org/10.34758/fvw2-w336.

Color Our Collections 2024

Posted on by
Reply


by Anthony Murisco, Public Engagement Librarian

On Monday, February 5th, we kicked off the eighth annual “Color Our Collections!” This initiative asks libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions to submit coloring books based on their collections. These coloring books don’t just live on our site for that one week; you can access them whenever you want! Over the years we have collected over 800 free coloring books for everyone to enjoy.

Maybe you need an excuse to color? Well, besides just being a fun activity, coloring has been shown to provide other benefits. Research has shown that it makes your brain feel a sense of relaxation. You don’t have to be an artist to break out crayons or colored pencils. The “low stakes” nature of the activity lets you enjoy it more. There may also be the subconscious thought of nostalgia lingering as you color; this used to be something you enjoyed! These factors combine to provide therapeutic effects to coloring (though it is important to keep in mind “therapeutic” is not the same as actual therapy!).

For the NYAM coloring book this year, we chose images of what it was like to be healthy in the 19th and 20th centuries. “Living Well in the 19th and 20th Century” shows activities meant to relax and help people taking care of one another, a woman ready for a bike ride, and acquaintances stopping to shoot the breeze on the grass. These are just some routes that you may take when practicing your own wellness routines.

You can use the hashtag #ColorOurCollections to show off your own work and see what others are doing.

A huge thank-you to our colleagues worldwide who have contributed coloring books to the collection. We couldn’t do it without you!

References:
Ali, Shainna. “Are Adult Coloring Books Actually Helpful?” Psychology Today, 27 Mar. 2018, http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/modern-mentality/201803/are-adult-coloring-books-actually-helpful, accessed February 5th, 2024.

“3 Reasons Adult Coloring Can Actually Relax Your Brain.” Cleveland Clinic healthessentials, 26 May 2020, http://health.clevelandclinic.org/3-reasons-adult-coloring-can-actually-relax-brain, accessed February 5th, 2024.

Combatting Tuberculosis in America After its Microbial Discovery 

Posted on by
Reply

By Sean Purcell, The Media School, Indiana University-Bloomington and the Library’s 2023 Helfand Fellow 

Mr. Purcell completed his Fellowship residency in the summer of 2023 and will present his research by Zoom on Thursday, December 7 at 4 p.m. (EST). To attend his talk, “A Portrait of Tuberculosis (as a Young Microbe): Representing Consumption at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” register through NYAM’s Events page. 

I spent a month over the spring and summer looking through the New York Academy of Medicine Library collections, working towards a mixed methods dissertation, titled The Tuberculosis Specimen: The Dying Body and its Use in the War Against the “Great White Plague.” I came to the library with an interest in the visual culture surrounding tuberculosis at the turn of the twentieth century, and in my research, I have cast a wide net, looking at an array of images, from doctors’ portraits to children at play, from histological samples to photographs of wet specimens. 

The turn of the twentieth century saw major shifts in the public, professional, and governmental interventions against tuberculosis. Robert Koch’s 1882 essay on the microbial cause of the disease led to a broad shift in how medical professionals and the lay public understood and combatted the disease. Koch had figured out a process to isolate the bacteria in laboratory animals and used a series of chemical baths to stain Mycobacterium tuberculosis a bright blue (fig. 1). Seeing the bacteria clear as day under the microscope helped move germ theory forward, and forced doctors and health worker to reconsider how to treat a disease that was, prior to Koch’s essay, considered a constitutional malady. The period after Koch’s essay saw the rise of public health interventions against the disease and the popularization of the tuberculosis sanatorium. 

Figure 1. An illustration of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. From Aetiology of Tuberculosis, 1890, Robert Koch.  

The most influential figure in the burgeoning sanatorium movement was Edward Livingston Trudeau. A doctor who had sought a cure for his own tuberculosis in upstate New York, Trudeau built his own laboratory and sanatorium, the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium, in 1880 (figs. 2 & 3). This institution became a central fixture in the decades to come, as it was equipped with research facilities, and published its public-facing journal for tuberculous patients, The Journal of Outdoor Life.  

Figure 2. The most reproduced image from the Adirondack Sanatorium, showing the first cottage where patients were treated. From A history of the National Tuberculosis Association; the anti-tuberculosis movement in the United States, 1921, Adolphus S. Knopf.  
Figure 3. A view of the facilities at Trudeau’s Adirondack Sanatorium. From A history of the National Tuberculosis Association; the anti-tuberculosis movement in the United States, 1921, Adolphus S. Knopf. 

While Trudeau’s sanatorium was the most prominent institution, it was far from the only one. Many for-profit institutions opened their doors during this period, in addition to the development of publicly funded sanitaria in certain states. Assisting the larger, long-term treatment facilities, some cities and hospitals adopted a dispensary system, where tuberculous patients could get assistance and medicine within an urban space.  

These dispensaries served patients, but also sought to teach the urban poor lessons on hygiene. Doctors and public health workers reeled at the dusty, ill kept living conditions of the urban poor, and argued that improper sputum management, poor ventilation, and dark living conditions were contributing to tuberculosis infections in American cities (figs. 4 & 5). While ideas regarding the “healing air” of a specific environment were becoming out of fashion for tuberculosis practitioners in the early 1900’s, most doctors argued that tuberculous patients should get away from the polluted and uncirculated air common to urban environments (figs. 6 & 7).  

Figure 4. An exhibit showing the unhealthy living conditions of the working poor. The caption reads: “Type of tenement house room as first seen by Department of Health Nurse. Man is ill with Tuberculosis. Baby is ill with Scarlet Fever. Others are in danger of infection. Family is destitute.” From “Album of photographs of exhibits by various departments of the City of New York, Royal S. Copeland, Commissioner, and various health agencies,” 1921.  
Figure 5. An exhibit showing the interventions of a public health nurse. The caption reads: “Same room after nurse has performed her duties. Man has been removed to Sanatorium. The baby has been removed to hospital. Financial aid has been obtained and landlord has been induced to paint room. Instruction has been given to mother in personal hygiene, cleaning up, order, proper diet.” From “Album of photographs of exhibits by various departments of the City of New York, Royal S. Copeland, Commissioner, and various health agencies,” 1921. 
Figure 6. A day camp run by Bellevue Hospital where patients could spend time outdoors on a boat. From New York City’s Institutions for the Tuberculous: Clinics, Sanatoria, Preventoria, Day Camps and other Agencies, 1926, The Tuberculosis Sanatorium Conference of Metropolitan New York. 
Figure 7. Tuberculous patients were instructed to spend as much time as possible outside, no matter the weather. From Pulmonary tuberculosis, its modern and specialized treatment, 1907, Albert Philip Francine.  

The fight against tuberculosis in this period saw a collection of different interventions, and the New York Academy of Medicine’s library offers a unique glimpse into the work of scientists and medical professionals who were trying to fight the disease. My time here as a Helfand fellow has been a boon to this research because of the library’s extensive collections, much of which has not been digitized. 
 
References:  
Feldberg, Georgina D. Disease and Class: Tuberculosis and the Shaping of Modern North American Society. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995). 

Koch, Robert. “Aetiology of Tuberculosis.” Translated by T. Saure. Transactions of the Massachusetts Medical Association. (New York: William R. Jenkins, 1890).  

Koch, Robert. “Die Ätiologie der Tuberculose.” In Gesammelte Werke von Robert Koch, 1:446–54, 467–565. (Leipzig: Verlag Von Georg Thieme, 1912). 

The Healing Power of Art and Community: Viewing the AIDS Quilt at 36 

Posted on by
Reply

By Paul Theerman, Director 

The first panel of the AIDS quilt was put together in 1987—this year the Quilt is 36 years old! 

Image courtesy of National AIDS Memorial.

The AIDS Quilt was the brainchild of gay activist Cleve Jones. A protégé of Harvey Milk, the San Francisco city supervisor murdered in 1978, Jones honored Milk’s life and service with candlelight marches through the city. For the 1985 march he saw the ravages that AIDS was making in the gay community and asked that marchers write the names of friends lost to AIDS on posters. Placed on a wall, the posters resembled a quilt; by 1987 the names had been captured in fabric, a traditional way of memorializing people and events. The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was born.  

Cleve Jones, activist and founder of the quilt, in front of a panel. Image taken from Wikipedia.

The quilt was first displayed on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on October 11, 1987, and contained 1,920 names—a dramatic demonstration of the terrible effects of the disease, only a few years after it came to public notice. At the quilt’s October 1996 display, it covered the entire Mall and was the last time that the whole quilt could be displayed at once. In the years since the quilt began, it has been exhibited throughout the world, often in connection with World AIDS Day on December 1. Today the quilt contains almost 50,000 panels, representing 110,000 individuals. The National AIDS Memorial in San Francisco is responsible for the quilt, mounts special efforts to address the presence of HIV/AIDS in the Black and Native American communities, and shares the quilt online. 

An image of the quilt being displayed in Washington, DC around 1987. Image taken from National AIDS Memorial. 
Advertising the digitization of the quilt from National Aids Memorial, as per their website.

This year, the New York Academy of Medicine is proud to host a portion of the AIDS quilt for World AIDS Day on December 1. We’ll reveal the quilt at our Celebration of the Library on November 29 and exhibit it in the Academy Building throughout December. We hope you can join us to view this sober but also hopeful reminder of how disease devastates communities, and how communities respond, through art, with remembrance and resilience. 

A panel from the AIDS quilt at the National Building Museum used as part of Wikimedia Commons.

_______ 

References  

“The History of the Quilt,” The National AIDS Memorial, https://www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt-history,  accessed November 20, 2023. 

Hello, Summer!

Posted on by
Reply

By Anthony Murisco, Public Engagement Librarian

As we pass the longest day of the year, we arrive at summer!  

We began our celebration of the summer with the annual Museum Mile Festival on Tuesday, June 13th. Each year, all the cultural institutions along 5th Avenue get together to highlight what we have to offer. Think of it as a block party for museums! The stretch starts around 85th Street with The Met and ends at 110th with The Africa Center.  
 
This year the Museum Mile Festival celebrated its 45th anniversary. It also happened to be the 100th birthday of our neighboring institution, The Museum of the City of New York! From where we were set up, we could hear the titular song from the new musical “New York, New York” in observance. 

NYAM’s table was set up outside 103rd Street right across from Central Park. Our set-up highlighted the treasures from our collection with replicas of assorted pamphlets. This included a photo-op with our new skeletal employee. There were plenty of crayons on hand for visitors to engage in sheets from our Color Our Collections coloring books. Sidewalk chalk was on offer to decorate the closed city streets.  

The NYAM Team enjoyed talking with the passers-by. These encounters gave us ideas on how best to invite the community through our doors to engage with our organization. A reminder that throughout the year on the first Monday of every month at 12 pm (holidays excepted), we offer tours of our library highlighting a portion of the collection. While we understand it may not be possible for some to attend, we continue to look for other ways to highlight our rich holdings.  

For some, the Museum Mile Festival is their unofficial kick-off to summer. Others wait for the official start on the day of the summer equinox. Students may celebrate on the last day of classes when their summer vacation starts. 

While not all of us get that traditional summer vacation, the season brings to mind the need for some real relaxation. Whether it be lying by the beach, going for a run in the park, or seeing your favorite baseball team play, we each have our own ideas of what it means to take it easy. It could be a tropical vacation that’s been on your calendar for months, or a day trip you take with friends out East to a winery. One doesn’t have to spend time lamenting a lost youth!  

Some like to relax by swimming. We’ve previously investigated tips and tricks to make your swimming more artful or, the proper scientific form. Others visit different places. Our blog has also shared what happens when the God of love needs some rest and relaxation. It goes to show that if they need it, we do too. 

Here at NYAM, we want to hear how you are spending this leisure time. Send us a postcard detailing what you’ve been up to in your downtime or  some photos or videos (no faces please!) at librarysocial@nyam.org or the New York Academy of Medicine, 1216 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10029 (Attn: Library). We’re excited to see what you are up to!  

Throughout the summer we hope to share with you what others have been doing. We need to recharge once in a while. Your relaxation tips might inspire others! You never know what may lie in your own backyard.  

(Enjoyed the colorful, illustrated images? They come from our William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards collection which is available to view online!)

FIT Visits the NYAM Library

Posted on by
4

By Dr. Evelyn Rynkiewicz, Assistant Professor of Ecology,. Department of Science and Mathematics at the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York.

My name is Dr. Evelyn Rynkiewicz, I am a professor of ecology at the Fashion Institute of Technology. I teach a course there called “Disease Ecology in a Changing World,” and my background and research is in disease ecology of coinfecting parasites in mice. I wanted to present a course like this for FIT students because diseases are something that affect all of us, everyone has experience being sick, and because emerging infectious diseases are a growing global issue (even before the Covid-19 pandemic, which is of course still impacting us). The challenge in teaching science courses at FIT is that our students mainly have majors in the design and business fields, not in the sciences, so I try to make the course material relate to their backgrounds and experiences as much as possible, to make the content more relevant to them. I also want to increase science literacy in my students, making them comfortable reading, understanding, and talking about science in their personal and professional lives.
 
I learned about the New York Academy of Medicine Library after seeing the “Germ City” exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. I got in contact with the Historical Collections Librarian, Arlene Shaner, who set up a visit to show me some of the materials she thought would relate to my course. I was blown away! I knew my students would love to see these historical documents. These materials highlight not only the art and history of how scientists and the public interacted with diseases through time, but also show how intertwined social, economic, and political issues are with how society’s experiences of disease.
 
Our class took a field trip to the NYAM Library and was shown an array of material; from Hooke’s book on microscopy, Edward Jenner’s work describing his development of the first vaccine, to posters and leaflets used from WWII to the present day to inform people about diseases such as malaria, HIV, or tuberculosis. I am always excited to see what students find interesting from this visit. Many enjoyed seeing the graphic design and illustrations used in the posters, such as those by Dr. Seuss and Keith Haring. Others picked up on how women and marginalized groups were often those who did a lot of the work caring for sick and infected people. Some just liked seeing the historical materials related to New York and being able to see how their home was impacted by diseases in the past.
 
One of the main assessments for the course is a creative research project where students choose a disease to study and then make a presentation with something creative related to that disease that would help someone learn more about it. I encourage the students to think about how they could use their skills learned from their major and apply it to this topic. The field trip to the NYAM Library provides the initial inspiration for this. I am always so proud and surprised at what they come up with!

Here are some of the things they created:

A drawn movie poster. The fake film is called Dengue Island. The artist, Arriana Tan is credited as the filmmaker. A drawing of a giant brown mosquito hovers over a small community.

Arriana Tran, a Fashion Business Management major, created a movie poster. Inspired by the warnings her parents shared with her on the risk of becoming infected with Dengue in her parent’s home country of the Philippines.

A malaria testing and monitoring kit. The left of the image is the packaging mock-up. The right lists what would be included; an insect net, spray, educational material, and the tests. It also gives ordering instructions.

Packaging Design major Ethan Wolfsberg designed a malaria testing and monitoring kit that would be able to be used in remote areas that are heavily impacted by this disease. A real-life version would be made in languages appropriate for the area. 

An image of a globe surrounded by various people of different color, size, and shape. On the globe is says "PrEP."

To reduce the stigma of taking PreP, Francis Lavery, also a Fashion Business Management major, made an image that emphasizes that this treatment is appropriate for everyone.

A paper doll. The bald character is wearing a green shirt and blue pants.

Illustration major Leia Garrette wanted to visually show how infection with the agent of Lyme Disease impacts all parts of the body. She created a paper doll where each layer illustrated a different system (e.g. muscles, nervous system) accompanied by an explanation of how each is affected by the infection.

A flyer that reads "Spread Help, Not Disease!" it talks about a theoretical Zika virus support group.

This flyer was created by Sarah Sepulveda from Fashion Business Management. Her plan was for a support group for parents worried about or impacted by Zika virus. There was a focus on Brazil where the outbreak was especially significant in 2016.

Once again, a huge thanks to Arlene and the others at NYAM for their help and insight. I look forward to more collaboration!

Views and Voices of Older New Yorkers

Posted on by
Reply

By Mario Rubano, MPH, Center for Healthy Aging, NYAM

Today’s guest blogger is Mario Rubano, Policy Associate at NYAM’s Center for Healthy Aging. Mr. Rubano plays a central role in the Academy’s next Then & Now event, “The Opportunities and Challenges of Healthy Aging in New York City.” He conducted the interviews documenting the experiences of older New Yorkers and will moderate the discussion of those experiences with historians Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, PhD, and David G. Troyansky, PhD. The event takes place online on Tuesday, November 15, 5:00 to 6:00 pm; you can register here.

The NYAM Library’s “Then & Now” series has explored a wide variety of medical and public health issues, bringing experts and researchers into dialogue with the broader NYAM community. As the Academy’s 175th anniversary celebrations wind down, we’re delighted to feature a different set of experts—older New Yorkers.

NYAM has been at the forefront of NYC older adult health and policy since 2006, when it first joined the Global Age-friendly Cities project, an international effort spearheaded by the World Health Organization (WHO). The following year saw the development of Age-friendly NYC, an award-winning partnership that reimagined how the City could meet the needs of its older residents. This shift was rooted in the 8 Domains of Livability, a collection of interconnected categories that captured the most vital aspects of healthy living for older adults in urban centers. Today, the Center for Healthy Aging (CHA) embodies this legacy in its ongoing mission to improve the health and well-being of current and future aging populations.

The 8 Domains of Livability

At present, New York City is home to roughly 1.2 million individuals aged 65+, and we were lucky enough to settle down with five of the busiest of them for personal interviews via Zoom. The participants, drawn from a network of grassroots age-friendly community groups, shared their insights, memories, experiences, and opinions (with classic New York panache) in a discussion structured around the 8 Domains of Livability. Each of the participants has maintained an active relationship with local community-based organizations, community boards, volunteer groups, or, in one case, as a part-time Reservist working with NYAM. What was immediately clear across each of the interviews was the devotion that each participant has to this city. Whether born-and-bred or a transplant, these New Yorkers were as energized by the city as one could possibly be, and it’s this vigor that brought their reflections to life.

Our Interviewees!

If a single takeaway were to be drawn from these five interviews, it would be that “progress” is a constant process rather than a state-of-being or condition that is achieved. The domain of transportation illustrates this idea. The participants all remarked on the tremendous improvements in comfort and capacity that the public transportation system has undergone over their lifetimes. The advent of air conditioning to ease the misery of a summertime, rush-hour commute, the growing fleet of accessible kneeling buses that simplify the boarding process for individuals with mobility challenges, and the creation of station transfers were all viewed as highlights over the years. Yet, we also heard about significant lapses in the management of bus lines that blatantly ignore the needs of older New Yorkers and, in many instances, place undue burdens on communities of color.

Healthcare access also changed in remarkable ways, both positive and negative, over the course of their lifetimes. House calls from family doctors who knew and treated entire communities gave way to newer models of care that, while noted for their efficiency and quality, were seen as impersonal and disconnected. We heard sobering stories of healthcare in the years before desegregation and the ongoing effects of Robert Moses’ infrastructure projects, like the Cross Bronx Expressway. These stories demonstrate the necessity of continued civic and community engagement, even after broad, landmark victories. Legislative progress—such as that initiated by the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990—must be continuously refined to ensure that the promises of better lives remain intact in an increasingly complex world.

This project has been a thrilling process in itself, and we look forward to sharing these New Yorkers’ stories, and hearing the commentary by our guest historians, Drs. Kavita Sivaramakrishnan and David Troyansky, at the upcoming November 15th Then & Now event.

William Helfand’s Pharmaceutical Trade Cards and the Changing Character of Drug Advertising

Posted on by
Reply

By Joseph Bishop, Princeton University, and the Library’s 2022 Audrey and William H. Helfand Fellow

Mr. Bishop completed his Fellowship residency in summer 2022 and will present his research by Zoom on November 8 at 4:00 (EST). To attend his talk, “Pharmaceutical Visions: How US Drug Companies and Ad Agencies Revamped Their Credibility by Marketing with Scientific Imagery,” register through the Academy’s Events page.

This spring I spent weeks immersed in the vast historical materials available at the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) Library. I had the honor of receiving the Audrey and William H. Helfand Fellowship to pursue a project that I believe would have interested Bill Helfand: an examination of the changes in medical advertising at the turn of the twentieth century. During his life, Helfand amassed an extensive collection of fascinating drug and medical memorabilia and visual art. Much of his collection and work illuminates the dynamic between drugmakers and the public during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.  Significant portions of Helfand’s collection are available at NYAM, and I took advantage of the richly colored and wide-ranging collection of patent medicine trade cards. NYAM also has mountains of pharmaceutical, medical, and allied trade journals and magazines brimming with pharmaceutical advertisements.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the American public saw the rise in large corporate pharmaceutical companies, national and corporate advertising, and federal drug regulation. An important question is what prompted the transformations in medical visual culture that helped to portray drug companies as scientific and research-oriented. To answer that question, I compare late-nineteenth-century patent medicine trade cards with medical ads in Ladies’ Home Journal in the 1920s. This comparison reveals a transition from entertainment and fantasy to a preoccupation with scientific progress and medical authority. My research at NYAM has led me to conclude that drug companies and ad agencies emphasized scientific and medical imagery to revamp their medical credibility and professional image amid national drug regulation and the public’s anger with the industry’s past association with patent medicine.

American patent medicine companies faced scrutiny for producing nostrums with cryptic contents and questionable efficacy during the first decade of the twentieth century. They depended on local advertisement imagery that reflected the nineteenth-century public’s anxieties and aspirations. Popularizations of science were created for various reasons—from entertainment to informing citizens—but they all served to increase scientific and medical awareness within the American public. Philadelphia-based ad agency N. W. Ayer’s accounts show that patent medicine was their most lucrative commodity category, carrying 26 percent of their total revenue in 1878, and their second-most lucrative commodity in 1900, carrying 15 percent. By 1879 in the US, more than 400 religious weeklies each needed a steady flow of advertising revenue to stay in business. Newspapers generated patent medicine business, and medical advertisements sustained newspapers. Nostrum manufacturers developed new marketing techniques, created novel distribution systems, pioneered brand-name products, became an economic link between urban and rural centers, and expanded markets.

Americans living through the last two decades of the nineteenth century saw an explosion of advertising trade cards. Retailers gave away these pocket-sized cards, often stuffed in product packaging as a bonus and easily collectible by customers. Patent medicine companies used these cards extensively, as they proved to be a very successful sales medium. Many people collected cards into albums and created scrapbooks, which children sometimes received as birthday or Christmas gifts.

Image 1:“Ayer’s Ague Cure Is Warranted to Cure All Malarial Disorders”
Dr. J. C. Ayer & Co. (Lowell, MA)
Produced ca. 1875–1895
From the William H. Helfand Collection of
Pharmaceutical Trade Cards at The New York Academy of Medicine
Chromolithograph, 6.1 x 11.6 cm

Trade cards such as Ayer’s Ague Cure (Image 1) evoke an aura of connection with nature and adaptation to the surrounding environment. The image in the bottom right corner depicts an alligator and a couple of frogs discussing Ayer’s Cure as if they used it to protect themselves from malaria. The ad implies that Ayer’s product helps one adapt to one’s environment just as well as the alligators and frogs adapt to theirs.

Image 2: “Cas-car-ria Is Worth Its Weight in Gold”
Product: Cas-car-ria
Produced ca. 1875–1895
From the William H. Helfand Collection of
Pharmaceutical Trade Cards at The New York Academy of Medicine
Chromolithograph, 5.8 x 7.8 cm

On the other hand, Cas-car-ria’s trade card (Image 2) depicts a young girl holding a switch and a dog together, fending off miniature demons labeled with ailments. Cas-car-ria’s ad evokes notions of animal protection and self-protection, implying that when patients take Cas-car-ria, they harness the animal within, unleashing the strength required to fight off external demons.

The explosion of ads promoting proprietary medicines and their incessant hyperbole and mistruths eventually provoked strong public reactions that demanded transparency and regulation. There were always calls to rein in the quackery, but the inundation of promotion drove the regulation of patent medicine to become a public priority.

Image 3: “What is in your medicine cabinet?”
Ladies’ Home Journal, February 1924, p. 144
Manufacturer: E. R. Squibb and Sons
From Ohio State University

Examining Ladies’ Home Journal during the 1920s illustrates these changes in advertising.  At this point, advertisements offered a different portrayal of scientific medicine and appealed to a more docile public regarding medical professionals. A Squibb pharmaceutical ad depicts a well-organized medicine cabinet (Image 3). The caption asks, “What is in your medicine cabinet? Are they products your physician would approve?” This approval seeking from medical authority plays into the new values of placing faith in the trained judgment of scientific and medical authority. 

Image 4: “Zonite: the World War Antiseptic”
Ladies’ Home Journal, March 1924, p. 192
Manufacturer: Zonite
From Ohio State University

Ads for Zonite (Image 4) ran images of scientists wearing lab coats and examining test tubes, drawing a scientific aura into its products. Zonite also associated its product with scientific discoveries, like the Carrel-Dakin fluid (i.e., diluted bleach), a critical antiseptic used in World War I.

Image 5: “Why the familiar cake of Yeast Foam is now eaten as well as used in bread”
Ladies’ Home Journal, May 1921, p. 49
Manufacturer: Northwestern Yeast Co. (Chicago, IL)
From the University of Michigan

The ad for “Yeast Foam” (Image 5) also appeals to scientific and medical authority, depicting a man wearing a medical coat and peering into a microscope. In the foreground are two circular illustrations of microscopic specimens—one containing germs and the other germ-free. The ad portrays a professional man immersed in scientific work, suggesting that the product has been carefully vetted through scientific scrutiny for quality assurance.

Similarly, the Fleischmann advertisement (Image 6) depicts two men in lab coats working at a table equipped with flasks, a beaker, a microscope, and other scientific instruments. The caption below the image states, “Messages of startling importance from the laboratory of the scientist.” Text within the ad notes how Fleischmann’s Yeast cures various diseases. In the case of skin diseases, the ad relies on a general sense of medical authority: “Many physicians and hospitals are prescribing Fleischmann’s Yeast for impurities of the skin. It has yielded remarkable results.”

Image 6: “Ten or fifteen years of life”
Ladies’ Home Journal, September 1921, p. 45
Manufacturer: The Fleischmann Company (New York, NY)
From the University of Michigan

The values of corporate ad agencies following the patent medicine era are not only a reaction to muckraking journalism and reform movements. The use of scientific medical imagery conveying authority and professional judgment was also largely about revamping the medical credibility of US drug companies and corporate ad agencies; they benefited handsomely during the patent medicine era but later needed to diminish their connections to these fraudulent products. Ad agencies traced the American public’s anxieties and aspirations as they shifted from loose whimsy about panaceas in the late nineteenth century to a reverence for qualified scientific and medical experts and institutions at the beginning of the twentieth century. By tracing this transition in medical imagery, we can glean how drug companies and ad agencies shaped products to elevate their professional clout.