Many Anatomy Lessons at the New York Academy of Medicine

Posted on May 24, 2016 by nyamhistorymed

Kriota Willberg, the author of today’s guest post, explores the intersection of body sciences with creative practice through drawing, writing, performance, and needlework. She is offering the workshop “Visualizing and Drawing Anatomy” beginning June 6 at the Academy. Register online.

Cheselden’s Osteographia, 1733, opened to the title page and frontispiece.

Different Disciplines, Same Body

I teach musculoskeletal anatomy to artists, dancers, and massage therapists. In my classes the students study the same raw material, and the set of skills each group acquires can be roughly organized around three distinct areas: representation of the body, kinesiology (the study of movement), and palpation (feeling the body).

As an anatomy teacher I am constantly on the prowl for images of the body that visually reinforce the information my students are learning. The Internet has become my most utilized source for visual teaching tools. It is full of anatomy virtual galleries, e-books, and apps. 3D media make it ever easier to understand muscle layering, attachment sites, fiber direction, and more.

In spite of the overwhelming volume of quality online cutting-edge anatomical imagery, I find myself drawn to historical 2D printed representations of the body and its components, once the cutting-edge educational technology of their respective centuries. Their precision, character, size, and even smell enhance my engagement with anatomical study. Many of these images emphasize the same principles as the apps replacing them centuries later.

The Essential Structure Of The Body

Different artists prefer different methods of rendering bodies in sketches. One method is to organize the body by its masses, outlining its surface to depict its bulk. Another method is to draw a stick figure, organizing body volume around inner scaffolding.

Plate XXXIII in Cheselden, Osteographia, 1733.

And what is a skeleton but an elaborate stick figure? William Cheselden’s Osteographia (1733) presents elegant representations of human and animal skeletons in action. These images remind us that bones are rigid and their joints are shaped to perform very specific actions. The cumulative position of the bones and joints gives the figure motion. In Cheselden’s world of skeletons, dogs and cats fight, a bird eats a fish, a man kneels in prayer, and a child holds up an adult’s humerus (upper arm bone) to give us a sense of scale while creating a rather creepy theatrical moment.

Muscle Layering

3D apps and other imaging programs facilitate the exploration of the body’s depth. One of the challenges of artists and massage therapists studying anatomy is transitioning information from the 2D image of the page into the 3D body of a sculpture or patient.

Planche 11 in Salvage, Anatomie du gladiateur combattant, 1812.

Salvage’s Anatomie du gladiateur combattant: applicable aux beaux artes… (1812) is a 2D examination of the 3D Borghese Gladiator. Salvage, an artist and military doctor, dissected cadavers and positioned them to mimic the action depicted in the statue. His highly detailed images depict muscle layering of a body in motion. The viewer can examine many layers of the anatomized body in action from multiple directions, rendered in exquisite detail. Salvage retains the outline of the body in its pose to keep the viewer oriented as he works from superficial to deeper structures.

Tab. VIII in Albinus, Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani, 1749.

Tabula VIII in Albinus, Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani, 1749 edition.

Bernhard Siegried Albinus worked with artist Jan Wandelaar to publish Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani (1749). Over their 20-year collaboration, they devised new methods for rendering the dissected body more accurately. The finely detailed illustrations and large size of the book invite the reader to scrutinize the dissected layers of the body in all their detail. Although there is no superficial body outline, the cadaver’s consistent position helps to keep the reader oriented. On the other hand, cherubs and a rhinoceros in the backgrounds are incredibly distracting!

Fiber Direction

Familiarity with a muscle’s fiber direction can make it easier to palpate and can indicate the muscle’s line of pull (direction of action).

Figure in Berengario, Anatomia Carpi Isagoge breves, 1535.

The images of Jacopo Berengario da Carpi’s Anatomia Carpi Isagoge breves, perlucide ac uberime, in anatomiam humani corporis… (1535) powerfully emphasize the fiber direction of the muscles of the waist. This picture in particular radiates the significance of our “core muscles.” Here, the external oblique muscles have been peeled away to show the lines of the internal obliques running from low lateral to high medial attachments. The continuance of this line is indicated in the central area of the abdomen. It perfectly illustrates the muscle’s direction of pull on its flattened tendon inserting at the midline of the trunk.

The Internal Body Interacting with the External World

One of the most important lessons of anatomy is that it is always with us. Gluteus maximus and quadriceps muscles climb the stairs when the elevator is broken. Trapezius burns with the effort of carrying a heavy shoulder bag. Heck, that drumstick you had for lunch was a chicken’s gastrocnemius (calf) muscle.

Tab. XII in Speigel, De humani corporis fabrica libri decem, 1627.

Anatomists from Albinus to Vesalius depict the anatomized body in a non-clinical environment. One of my favorites is Adriaan van de Spiegel and Giulio Casseri’s De humani corporis fabrica libri decem (1627). In this book, dissected cadavers are depicted out of doors and clearly having a good time. They demurely hold their skin or superficial musculature aside to reveal deeper structures. Some of them are downright flirtatious, reminding us that these anatomized bodies are and were people.

Kriota Willberg’s self portrait. Courtesy of the artist.

I am so enamored of van de Spiegel and Casseri that I recreated page 24 of their book as a self-portrait. After my abdominal surgery, the image of this cadaver revealing his trunk musculature resonated with me. In my portrait I assume the same pose, but if you look closely you will see stitch marks tracing up my midline. I situate myself in a “field” of women performing a Pilates exercise that challenges abdominal musculature. And of course, I drew it in Photoshop.

Counterfeiting Bodies: Examining the Work of Walther Ryff

Posted on December 23, 2015 by nyamhistorymed

By Anne Garner, Curator, Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health

The surgeon Walther Hermann Ryff worked in Strasbourg in the early 16^th century. A prolific author, he wrote as many as 65 works on diverse subjects, including architecture, poisons, cookbooks, herbal remedies, obstetrics and mathematics.¹ The author’s best known work, Des aller furtrefflichsten, hoechsten und adelichsten Gschoepffs aller Creaturen, was published in Strasbourg in 1541, just two years before the publication of Vesalius’ ground-breaking Fabrica.

Plate 1 of Ryff’s Des aller furtrefflichsten, hoechsten und adelichsten Gschoepffs aller Creaturen (1541). Click to enlarge.

The text compiles Ryff’s lectures in anatomy and physiology and 42 beautifully hand-colored woodcuts, compiled from a number of Renaissance sources. These images, mostly of bodies or partially dissected bodies, offer what scholar Alexander Marr describes as an immediate “rhetoric of authenticity.”² Depicted in the counterfeit style, a type of representation common in the 16^th century in Northern Europe, the illustrations in this book would have implied first-hand knowledge and discovery. The captions for plates produced in this style used the word “counterfeit” (above, contrafactur) to assert their accuracy as true representations. In this way, Ryff’s book positioned itself as a credible description of anatomy (though its illustrations were far from anatomically precise).

Little is known about Ryff’s training. He seems to have studied pharmacy in Basel, and absorbed much of his considerable medical knowledge by travelling through Europe. He was a successful author, frequently sought after by publishers. Among his peer group of writers, however, he would not have won any popularity contests. To the Swiss scientist Albrecht von Haller, he was a “compiler and polygraph of dubious morals,” and to Vesalius, simply, “the Strasbourg plagiarist.” Leonard Fuchs, the great botanist, whose work was reprinted in Ryff’s name twice, called him an “extremely outrageous, reckless, fraudulent writer.”³ The grounds for their complaints are easily recognizable by examining this volume, which lifts images from Vesalius’s Tabulae Sex (1538), from Eucharius Rösslin’s Der Rosengarten (1513), and from the anatomies of Johannes Dryander (1536), Jacapo Berengario da Carpi (1522), and Lorenz Fries (1518).

Plate 2 Ryff’s Des aller furtrefflichsten, hoechsten und adelichsten Gschoepffs aller Creaturen (1541). Images originally from Rösslin’s Der Rosengarten (1513). Click to enlarge.

Plate 3 Ryff’s Des aller furtrefflichsten, hoechsten und adelichsten Gschoepffs aller Creaturen (1541). Image originally from Dryander (1536). Click to enlarge.

Ryff’s defenders have argued that what today would be regarded as blatant plagiarism was more in keeping with Enlightenment practices of recycling intellectual property. Even so, his appropriations seem to have gone too far in the minds of his peers. In some cases, he modified the images, improving them. The Fries figures were repositioned, and seated on a bench. The Vesalian plates showing the arteries and veins, now beautifully hand-colored, were superimposed on seated outlines of figures, which clarified the position of the vessels in the body.

Plate 4 of Ryff’s Des aller furtrefflichsten, hoechsten und adelichsten Gschoepffs aller Creaturen (1541). Click to enlarge.

Vesalius’ skeletons fared less well in Ryff’s possession. These were copied directly onto the wood-cut, so that the lettering and the skeletons themselves appear in reverse. The skeletons are depicted with an inadequate number of vertebrate and ribs, and are shown in inferior proportions.

Modified Vesalian skeleton in Ryff’s Des aller furtrefflichsten, hoechsten und adelichsten Gschoepffs aller Creaturen (1541). Click to enlarge.

Ryff directed his 1541 book at the ‘gemeine,’ or common man; it’s composition in vernacular German instead of Latin ensured it would have a wider readership. In this way, it would have been indispensable to new readers as a compilation of Renaissance knowledge about the body.

The book also offers some tantalizing evidence about early printing history. The wood-blocks for this edition were reused for a set of broadsides, issued in both German and Latin editions the same year. They then went to a Parisian printer for new editions of Ryff’s work and for a popular work on surgery.⁴ The reappearance of the Ryff woodcuts illustrates the practice of passing woodblocks from publisher to publisher, and shows how work published in one city continued to be published and disseminated in others.

References

1. Di Matteo, Berardo. “Art and Science in the Renaissance: The Case of Walther Hermann Ryff.” Clinical Orthopeadics and Related Research 472: 1689-1696. 2014 and Russell, K.F. Walter Hermann Ryff and His Anatomy.” The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery. v.22 no. 1. 1952. pp. 66-69.

2. Marr, Alexander. “Walther Ryff, Plagiarism and Imitation in Sixteenth-Century Germany.” Print Quarterly, 31, 2014. pp 131-143.

3. Roberts, K.B. and J.D.W. Tomlinson. The Fabric of the Body. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992; Marr, Alexander. “Walther Ryff, Plagiarism and Imitation in Sixteenth-Century Germany.” Print Quarterly, 31, 2014. pp 131-143; Di Matteo, Berardo. “Art and Science in the Renaissance: The Case of Walther Hermann Ryff.” Clinical Orthopeadics and Related Research 472: 1691.

4. K.B. Roberts and J.D.W. Tomlinson. The Fabric of the Body. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Adventures in Rare Book Cataloging

Posted on August 5, 2015 by nyamhistorymed

By Tatyana Pakhladzhyan, Rare Book Cataloguer

At the October festival celebrating the 500^th birthday of anatomist Andreas Vesalius, The Drs. Barry and Bobbi Coller Rare Book Reading Room exhibited seven anatomical works drawn from the library’s extensive rare book holdings. Anatomy is one of the library’s major collecting strengths, including works by and related to Andreas Vesalius.

Visitors looking at books on display at 2014’s Vesalius 500 festival. Photograph by Charles Manley.

Since the exhibited materials have been in the library’s collection for decades, I was curious to see how their online bibliographic records looked. As card catalogs turned into online catalogs at the end of last century, collection holdings became increasingly findable from far away. But in the process of converting card catalog records into online records, some items ended up with incomplete or incorrect information reflected in the online catalog. I found that the records of the seven anatomical holdings required some attention.

The purpose of rare book cataloging is to create elaborate catalog records for books printed during the hand-press period (c.1455–c.1830) and to describe and record copy-specific information that would uniquely identify the library’s holding from other copies of the same title. Descriptive cataloging should be sufficiently detailed to represent the work.

Female flap anatomy from The Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Rare book cataloging requires complete and faithful transcription of the title page in its original language, greater detail in the physical description area, and careful and thorough recording of various distinguishing points in the note area, including signature statements, identification of bibliographic format, annotations, pagination errors, illustration techniques and creators, printing method, binding style, and provenance. Full and accurate descriptions allow researchers to find materials in online catalogs. Adding images or links to digital copies is another catalog feature that allows for more sophisticated experience for rare material users.

I was particularly delighted to update the catalog record for the 1559 edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa totius anatomiae delineatio, aere exarata (A complete delineation of the entire anatomy engraved on copper). This beautiful folio is simply a work of art! Read more about the work in a recent blog post.

Male flap anatomy from The Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

The title page is an engraved plate, with a hand-colored portrait of Queen Elizabeth at center and the royal motto “Dieu et mon droit” under the portrait. Facing the title is the leaf with arms of the Order of the Garter “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” decorated with jewels. (Thanks to my library colleagues for helping me prove that “Honi soit qui mal y pense” motto is, in fact, the motto of the Order of the Garter.)

The coat of arms, left, and title page, right, of the Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Checking standard bibliographies for corresponding period and making identifying references is an essential step to rare book cataloging. While consulting A Bio-Bibliography of Andreas Vesalius by Harvey Cushing, (1943, no. VI.C-4, p. 128), I found his comment about known copies at that time, stating that the “leaf before title bearing royal arms and ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense,’ is missing in all copies but London (BM [British Museum]).” Our copy has this leaf, seen above left.

Rare book cataloging also requires pointing out differences between printings, or manifestations, of a particular work. While consulting the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) that lists more than 480,000 items published between 1473 and 1800, I found that the entry for this work has a note, “a variant state has B7 unsigned.” In the hand-press era, books were printed as sheets with varying numbers of pages per side, with signature marks as letters, numbers, or symbols at the bottom of each leaf to help binders assemble the sheets of a book into the right order. I was curious to find out if the NYAM copy was a variation with signature B7 unsigned, but it is signed, although not on the bottom of the page.

Note "B.vii" hiding at the bottom right of the page. The Academy's copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Note “B.vii” hiding under the text at the right of the page. The Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

The library’s 1559 edition, the English translation by Nicholas Udall, is a reissue of the 1553 edition, with a slightly different title page, a dedication, and a colophon leaf. Bookseller information from the colophon at foot of last leaf reads: “Imprinted at London within the blacke fryars: by Thomas Gemini. Anno Salutis. 1559. Mense Septemb.”

Final leaf with colophon. The Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Cataloging rare books is an exciting process and sometimes even an adventure, as older books are unique and carry impressions of their formal owners. Our copy’s provenance includes bookplate of bibliophile George Dunn, “From the Library of George Dunn of Woolley Hall near Maidenhead.” It was a generous gift to the Academy library from Mrs. George S. Huntington, the wife of a prominent anatomist.

Revisiting the Fabrica Frontispiece

Posted on September 26, 2014 by nyamhistorymed

Jeffrey M. Levine, MD, AGSF, author of today’s guest post, will present “Revisiting the Frontispiece: Vesalius’s Jewish Friend and the Impact of the Inquisition” with Michael Nevins, MD, at our October 18th festival, Art, Anatomy, and the Body: Vesalius 500.

Between the first edition in 1543 and the second edition in 1555, the frontispiece of Andreas Vesalius’ classic masterpiece, De humani corporis fabrica, was recut with many subtle variations in both style and content. I am thrilled to be presenting “Revisiting the Frontispiece: Vesalius’s Jewish Friend and the Impact of the Inquisition” at Art, Anatomy, and the Body: Vesalius 500 with my colleague and mentor, Dr. Michael Nevins. Together we will examine and compare the frontispieces and offer theories as to why differences appear. We propose, for example, that some changes to the second edition were in reaction to the Inquisition, which was revived by Pope Paul III.¹

Today’s guest post introduces selected features of the frontispiece of the Fabrica’s first edition. This intricate and multilayered composition features the master Vesalius dissecting a young female corpse, her abdomen flayed open. They are surrounded by a multitude of spectators crowded into a three-tiered wooden scaffold built into a semicircular amphitheater of Corinthian columns. At top-center is the decorative escutcheon that bears the name of the book and the author. Above is the family coat-of-arms of Andreas Vesalius flanked by two putti, the chubby male children who were often a feature of Renaissance art, and two gargoyles. Below is the face of Jupiter, the Roman king of gods.

The frontispiece to the 1543 Fabrica in our collection. Click to enlarge.

The frieze sitting atop the columns contains symbols including a bucranium, or ox skull with garlands hanging from its horns, which was the symbol of the University at Padua,² and a winged lion representing the evangelist St. Mark, the symbol of neighboring Venice.³ The columns are flanked by two men, one naked with tense muscles and a worried look, the other relaxed and smartly dressed.

To the right of the skeleton bearing a risus sardonicas, a man in a truncated conical hat recoils as if in terror, squinting and raising his left hand in a defensive gesture. In his 1964 biography of Vesalius, Charles O’Malley identifies this figure as Vesalius’s Jewish friend, Lazaro de Fregeis, who assisted with the Hebrew nomenclature in the Fabrica.⁴ The only woman other than the corpse appears as a mysterious figure peeking between the columns. There are two Franciscan Monks among the spectators, neither exhibiting much interest in the dissection. Below right is a pickpocket caught in the act. On the opposite side, a leashed monkey screams in protest, and under the table two men fight over the dissecting tools.

There is much more to learn about the frontispiece of the first edition of the Fabrica, and even more when compared to the second edition. To find out more about the changes to the second edition frontispiece, and how they may have contained coded messages reflecting tensions of 16^th-century Italian society, particularly in the context of the situation of European Jewry, come to our presentation at the New York Academy of Medicine’s Vesalius 500 celebration on October 18.

References

1. Historical overview of the Inquisition. 2001. Available at: http://galileo.rice.edu/lib/student_work/trial96/loftis/overview.html. Accessed September 23, 2014.

2. Padova Terme Euganee. University of Padua – Palazzo Bo. Available at: http://www.turismopadova.it/en/university-padua-palazzo-bo. Accessed September 23, 2014.

3. Imboden D. Winged Lion of St. Mark. Durant Cheryl Imboden’s Venice Visit. Available at: http://europeforvisitors.com/venice/articles/winged_lion_of_st_mark.htm. Accessed September 23, 2014.

4. O’Malley C. Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press; 1964.

The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: Object of the Month

Posted on August 22, 2014 by nyamhistorymed

By Lisa O’Sullivan, Director, Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health

This year we are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the birth of Andreas Vesalius with our fall festival, “Art, Anatomy, and the Body: Vesalius 500” on October 18. So much has been written on the Fabrica and its importance that it can be difficult to know where to begin. Why do Vesalius and his work remain so important to contemporary scholarship and anatomical study? The answer lies in his first and most famous book, De humani corporis fabrica. The title is translated as On the Fabric of the Human Body, although the “fabrica” in the original title can be best understood in terms of “craft”, “workings,” or “fabrication.”¹ In other words, in this book Vesalius is interested in the functions of the body as a living system. Seven “books,” or sections, lay out the different systems and functions of the body, beginning with bones and ligaments and ending with the brain and sensory organs.

The frontispiece to the 1543 Fabrica in our collection. Click to enlarge.

As the frontispiece makes clear, Vesalius wanted the Fabrica to demonstrate the importance of reviving hands-on anatomy as central to medical knowledge and practice. The Fabrica was a landmark publication, representing a turning point in the European understanding of the body and a new level of beauty and accuracy in its depiction in anatomical texts. At the time of its publication in 1543, Vesalius was a professor at the University of Padua, one of Europe’s best known medical schools. Only 28, Vesalius came from a long line of physicians. Like many of his forebears, he subsequently entered the service of the Imperial Court of Charles V, to whom he dedicated the Fabrica. He worked closely with his printers, wood carvers, and artists to ensure the accuracy and beauty of the over 300 woodblock images in the book.² The Fabrica was exceptional in terms of both production and content, and its iconography, principles, and pedagogical approach were rapidly incorporated into medical thinking and teaching.

While the Fabrica is now remembered as the point at which a new, “modern” emphasis on direct observation and experimentation replaced deference to ancient authorities, Vesalius was careful to ensure that his erudition in the classical tradition was on display. Quotations of Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew texts point both to his determination to show the breadth of his knowledge and to the expertise of his typesetters. Vesalius used such authorities to place himself in an established tradition, even as he questioned aspects of accepted Galenic thought.

The frontispiece to the 1555 Fabrica in our collection. Click to enlarge.

Along with his systematic exploration of all aspects of human anatomy, Vesalius’s demonstration that authorities such as Galen had made errors in their claims about human anatomy (in part due to reliance on animal dissection) was one reason the book rapidly assumed such extraordinary significance (although not universal acceptance). Despite its detractors, the Fabrica had an immediate impact; even with Vesalius’ best efforts, it was plagiarized and copied throughout Europe.³

Covers of the two Fabricas in our collection. The 1543 volume, left, has alum-tawed pigskin over wooden boards with elaborate decorative tooling and stamped designs and two brass fore-edge clasps. The 1555 edition, right, is bound in a contemporary parchment binding over stiff pasteboards with a single panel stamp. Click to enlarge.

Covers of two Fabricas in our collection. The 1543 volume, left, has alum-tawed pigskin over wooden boards with elaborate decorative tooling and stamped designs and two brass fore-edge clasps. The 1555 edition, right, is bound in a contemporary parchment binding over stiff pasteboards with a single panel stamp. Click to enlarge.

We are in the enviable position of owning multiple copies of the Fabrica as well as its companion piece the Epitome, a briefer volume designed for students with enlarged illustrations to aid the identification of individual features. In addition, we also hold multiple copies of the Icones Anatomicae, an extraordinary 20th-century artifact created in 1934 by The New York Academy of Medicine and the University of Munich, using the original 1543 wood blocks to reproduce illustrations from the Fabrica and Epitome (this was the last time images were taken from the woodblocks; returned to Munich, they were subsequently destroyed by Allied bombing during WWII). All of these volumes will be available to view at the festival on October 18. You will also be able to learn more about Vesalius and his work: Daniel Garrison will discuss translating the Fabrica for the new English-language edition, Arlene Shaner will explore the story of the Icones Anatomicae, and Drs. Jeff Levine and Michael Nevins will provide a guide to the possible stories hidden in the changes made to the Fabrica frontispiece between the first and second editions.

References

1. Harvey Cushing, A Bio-Bibliography of Andreas Vesalius (New York, Schuman’s, 1943), p73; Daniel Garrison, “Why Did Vesalius Title His Anatomical Atlas “The Fabric of the Human Body”?” http://www.vesaliusfabrica.com/en/original-fabrica/inside-the-fabrica/the-name-fabrica.html

2. The identity of the artist responsible for the wood blocks remains unclear, although many have argued that Jan Stephan Calcar, a student of Titian, was responsible. See Vivian Nutton’s introduction at http://vesalius.northwestern.edu/.

3. More details about the life and impact of Vesalius can be found online in Vivian Nutton’s introduction and other essays at Northwestern’s Annotated Vesalius project: http://vesalius.northwestern.edu/ and in C. O’Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964).

2014–2015 Helfand and Klemperer Research Fellows

Posted on June 3, 2014 by losnyam

By Lisa O’Sullivan, Director, Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health

We are pleased to announce the 2014–2015 Helfand and Klemperer Research Fellows: Laura Robson (University of Reading) and Heidi Knoblauch (Yale University).

Rösslin, Eucharius. The byrth of mankynde, otherwyse named the womans booke. [London : Tho. Ray[nalde]], 1545.

The Audrey and William H. Helfand Fellowship in the History of Medicine and Public Health focuses on the use of visual materials. Laura Robson will explore how medical works in the sixteenth century used images and texts from Andreas Vesalius’ anatomical treatise, the Fabrica. She will use Geminus’s Compendiosa (1545) and Raynalde’s translation of The byrth of mankynde (1545) to demonstrate the complex relationship between anatomical image and text and to unite the history of the book with the history of the representation of the body.

Louis A. Sayre Personal Casebook with multiple photographs, drawings, and ephemera of his patient, Aldoph Roussell ca. 1867

Our Paul Klemperer Fellow in the History of Medicine, Heidi Knoblauch, will use Lewis Sayre’s casebooks, the Photographic Review of Medicine and Surgery, and Bellevue Hospital Records. Looking especially at images and records from the Photographic Department at Bellevue Hospital (1868−1906), the first such department in a civil hospital in the United States, she will explore how 19th- and early 20th-century medical professionals in the U.S. used photographs of patients. What did physicians intend to do with photographs? What role did patients play in the collection of photographs? Her research will track how patients and physicians conceived the confidential nature of recording, collecting, and disseminating medical information (an ongoing question for medical archivists and historians).

Keep an eye out for guest posts from our fellows, who will also present their work at the end of their fellowships.

Books, Health and History

The New York Academy of Medicine

Tag Archives: 16th Century anatomy

Many Anatomy Lessons at the New York Academy of Medicine

Counterfeiting Bodies: Examining the Work of Walther Ryff

Adventures in Rare Book Cataloging

Revisiting the Fabrica Frontispiece

The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: Object of the Month

2014–2015 Helfand and Klemperer Research Fellows