20th-Century Teeth: Dentistry at the Turn of the Century

Posted on May 26, 2016 by nyamhistorymed

By Johanna Goldberg, Information Services Librarian

This is part of an intermittent series of blogs featuring advertisements from medical journals. You can find the entire series here.

“How did you learn to be a dentist? Did you go to a college?”

“I went along with a fellow who came to the mine once. My mother sent me. We used to go from one camp to another. I sharpened his excavators for him, and put up his notices in the towns–stuck them up in the post-offices and on the doors of the Odd Fellows’ halls. He had a wagon.”

“But didn’t you never go to a college?”

“Huh? What? College? No, I never went. I learned from the fellow.”

Trina rolled down her sleeves. She was a little paler than usual. She fastened the buttons into the cuffs and said:

“But do you know you can’t practise unless you’re graduated from a college? You haven’t the right to call yourself, ‘doctor.'”¹

In Frank Norris’ 1899 novel McTeague: A Story of San Francisco—better known for its depiction of greed than the professionalization of dentistry—the title character loses his 12-year-old dental practice after California requires practitioners to hold a degree in the field. The timing couldn’t be worse for McTeague: he’d only just fulfilled a long-held dream, obtaining and hanging an enormous golden tooth outside his dental parlor.

McTeague’s fictionalized struggle was based in reality: until the mid to late 1800s, dentistry in the United States was not a regulated profession. Alabama became the first state to regulate dentists in 1841, and other states followed suit through the end of the century.² In 1885, California passed a law requiring practicing dentists to register with a board, which could call up registrants for examination. Diplomas from a licensed dentistry school—the University of California College of Dentistry opened in San Francisco in 1882—also qualified registered dentists to practice. In 1901, a new law made practicing dentistry in California even more restrictive, part of a nationwide move to tighter regulation.^3,4 In the novel as it would have been in real life, McTeague’s practice was toast.

Advertisements in dental journals from the era depict the trend toward professionalization, along with other technological advances. In 1840, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery opened its doors as the first dental school in the world; by 1895, it had some local competition, including the Dental Department of the Baltimore Medical College.⁴ This school advertised heavily in journals like the American Journal of Dental Science.

Ad for the Dental Department of the Baltimore Medical College in the American Journal of Dental Science, vol. 33, no. 10, February 1900.

Intriguingly, not only dental schools advertised in dentistry journals: The February 1901 volume of Dental Hints includes an ad encouraging dentists to take up a correspondence course in optometry, “on account of the intimate relationship between the eye and the teeth.” Huh?

Advertisement for the Philadelphia Optical College in Dental Hints, vol. 3, no. 2, February 1901.

Dental journal advertisements also reflect anesthetic advances. William Morton, a dentist, performed the first public demonstration of ether as a surgical anesthetic in 1846.² A similar demonstration of nitrous oxide in 1845 did not go so well: dentist Horace Wells extracted a tooth before administering the proper dosage, and the patient cried out in pain. The drug was tabled for about 20 years; by 1869, it was commonly used either on its own or in conjunction with ether for dental procedures.^2,5 Dental surgeries held less risk than other medical procedures, as they were commonly performed either in the patient’s or dentist’s home, locations less teeming with deadly microbes than operating theaters. After advances in antiseptic surgery by people like Joseph Lister, dental surgery became even safer—and Dr. Joseph Lawrence named an antiseptic mouthwash in his honor.^5,6

Codman & Shurtleff’s Inhaler for Gas or Ether advertisement in Dental and Oral Science Magazine, vol. 1, no. 2, May 1878.

Listerine advertisement in the American Journal of Dental Science, vol. 33, no. 10, February 1900.

Local anesthetics also entered the market around the turn of the century. Some, like Mylocal, contained cocaine—though in the case of Mylocal, that cocaine was to be added by the practitioner prior to use. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the amount of cocaine used in local anesthetics was often poorly controlled, with sometimes dire results.⁵ Another local anesthetic, Eureka, proudly advertised that it “[avoids] that most dangerous drug that is known to the profession as COCAINE.” A third, Wilson’s Local Anaesthetic, notes that it is “non-secret and positively guaranteed.” Unfortunately, its ads don’t state what these non-secret ingredients are.

Advertisement for Mylocal anaesthetic in the American Journal of Dental Science, vol. 39, no. 1, January 1908.

Advertisement for Eureka Local Anaesthetic in Dental Hints, vol. 3, no. 2, February 1901.

Advertisement for Wilson’s Local Anesthetic in Dental Clippings, vol. 3, no. 6, April 1901.

Other turn-of-the-century advances include the development of tube toothpaste in the 1880s (previously, toothpaste had only been available in powdered form); awareness of microbial causes of tooth decay, leading to the promotion of flossing and brushing in the 1890s; and the use of gold foil as a cavity filling in the 1850s.² The ads below reflect these advances and others, and were selected to show the relatively pain-free side of dentistry.

R. S. Williams Toothbrushes advertisement in Dental and Oral Science Magazine, vol. 1, no. 2, May 1878.

Ney’s Gold Plates advertisement in the American Journal of Dental Science, vol. 33, no. 1, May 1899.

Dental Floss Silk advertisement in advertisements in the American Journal of Dental Science, vol. 33, no. 10, February 1900.

McConnell Dental Chair advertisement in Dental Hints, vol. 3, no. 4, April 1901.

Standard Dental Manufacturing Co. advertisement in Dental Hints, vol. 3, no. 5, May 1901.

Dentacura toothpaste advertisement in Dental Hints, vol. 3, no. 11, November 1901.

Munson’s Standard Teeth advertisement in Dental Hints, vol. 3, no. 12, December 1901.

Prophylactic Toothbrush advertisement in Dental Summary, vol. 22, no. 7, July 1902.

Antikamnia and Odontoline advertisements in advertisements in the American Journal of Dental Science, vol. 39, no. 4, April 1908.

Baker Coat Co. and Keeton Gold advertisements in the American Journal of Dental Science, vol. 39, no. 4, April 1908.

Bowl Spittoon advertisement in the American Journal of Dental Science, vol. 39, no. 4, April 1908.

References

1. Norris F. McTeague.; 1899. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/165/165-h/165-h.htm. Accessed May 9, 2016.

2. History of Dentistry Timeline. Available at: http://www.ada.org/en/about-the-ada/ada-history-and-presidents-of-the-ada/ada-history-of-dentistry-timeline. Accessed May 9, 2016.

3. Newkirk G. California. In: Koch CRE, ed. History of dental surgery: Dental laws and legislation, dental societies and dental jurisprudence, Vol. III. Fort Wayne, Ind.: National art publishing Company; 1910:755–756. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?id=9iE-AQAAMAAJ&pgis=1. Accessed May 9, 2016.

4. Schulein TM. A chronology of dental education in the United States. J Hist Dent. 2004;52(3):97–108.

5. Enever G. History of dental anaesthesia. In: Shaw I, Kumar C, Dodds C, eds. Oxford Textbook of Anaesthesia for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/med/9780199564217.001.0001.

6. From Surgery Antiseptic to Modern Mouthwash | LISTERINE®. Available at: http://www.listerine.com/about. Accessed May 10, 2016.

Child Health Around the Maypole

Posted on May 2, 2016 by nyamhistorymed

By Johanna Goldberg, Information Services Librarian

From 1924 through 1960, May 1 marked the celebration of Child Health Day, as described in the pamphlet The Goal of May Day: A Year-Round Program:

May Day as Child Health Day holds within it the power of a great vision. Its goal is to focus the interest of the nation upon perfected childhood—with the hope of a start in life free, sound and richly potential for every child….

This day has been given to the country to become, like the Maypole, a central rallying point for all the diverse activities concerned with the welfare of children….¹

“The summer round-up, with the State Congress of Parents and Teachers and the State Bureau of Maternity and Infancy cooperating in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In The Goal of May Day, 1928.

The American Child Health Association (ACHA)—an organization founded by Herbert Hoover in 1923 with the merging of the American Child Hygiene Association and the Child Health Organization—began Child Health Day in 1924. The ACHA was inspired by the success of National Baby Week, an observance that spread awareness of infant care to millions by 1919 (clearly, awareness days and weeks are not a new phenomenon).^1,2 The ACHA was also motivated by Congressional inaction (also not a new phenomenon); President Wilson had called for a child health program in 1919, to no avail.

Cover of The Goal of May Day, 1928.

Aida de Acosta Breckinridge, wife of President Wilson’s Assistant Secretary of War Henry Breckinridge (and intriguingly, the first woman to pilot an aircraft solo), thought up May Day as Child Health Day and ran with the idea. Through her efforts, three million department stores nationwide handed out booklets on child health. Magazines like Women’s World and Literary Digest promoted the day.² In 1928, President Calvin Coolidge officially declared Child Health Day a national celebration. It remains one today, though in 1960, Child Health Day moved to the first Monday in October.³

By 1928, when the ACHA released The Goal of May Day, the organization viewed May Day-Child Health Day as a time to celebrate the past year’s child welfare successes and plan for the year ahead. As the pamphlet emphasizes, May Day-Child Health Day activities occurred thanks to the efforts of community groups and local governments rather than through centralized ACHA planning, “each [group] coloring [May Day] with its own interpretation and using it according to its needs.”¹ The Goal of May Day provides these organizations tips and lists of further resources to plan events and to improve child health year-round.

“A child health clinic in a church.” In The Goal of May Day, 1928.

The challenge was significant: the pamphlet states that 18,000 mothers died in childbirth in the United States each year. In 1924, cites the pamphlet, “the stillbirth rate was 3.9 per 100 live births.” While infant deaths from diarrhea and enteritis were down by 1928, those from congenital malformation, birth injuries, and premature birth had risen. And between infancy and school age, fifty percent of deaths came from diphtheria, recently preventable by vaccine.¹

“Making them safe from the great menace – diphtheria.” In The Goal of May Day, 1928.

On a larger scale, the pamphlet offers a community health inventory to spur local government to improve child health, with questions ranging from “Have you a safe water supply?” to “Is there a tuberculosis clinic?” to “Is there an organized course of study for the education of the school child in health?”

“The parochial school had its health float on May Day.” In The Goal of May Day, 1928.

For community groups, the pamphlet recommends consulting with national organizations—the Girl Reserves, Boy Scouts, Jewish Welfare Board, National Catholic Welfare Conference, Child Study Association, and more—to plan programs and events like home demonstrations, distribution of health-related literature, community clean ups, health dramatizations, athletics, and exhibits.¹

“4-H girls club learn from the home demonstration agents.” In The Goal of May Day, 1928.

May Day – Child Health Day, on the school playgrounds at Rapid City, South Dakota. In The Goal of May Day, 1928.

The American Child Health Association closed in 1935. During its 12 years of existence, it raised about $5 million for child-focused community services.² And the observance of Child Health Day continues some 92 years after it began, though no longer around a Maypole.

References
1. The Goal of May Day: A Year-round Community Child Health Program. New York: American Child Health Association; 1928.

2. Lee RA. From Snake Oil to Medicine: Pioneering Public Health. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group; 2007.

3. Health Resources and Services Administration. Child Health Day History. Available at: http://mchb.hrsa.gov/childhealthday/history.html. Accessed April 27, 2016.

“Solving Woman’s Oldest Hygienic Problem in a New Way”: A History of Period Products

Posted on March 4, 2016 by nyamhistorymed

By Johanna Goldberg, Information Services Librarian

This is part of an intermittent series of blogs featuring advertisements from medical journals. You can find the entire series here.

For the past few weeks, subway-riding New Yorkers have been surrounded by advertisements for absorbent underwear, the latest in a long history of products designed for use during menstruation.

But what did people use before the era of special undies, tampons, pads, and cups? Very little is known about pre-20^th century methods, but historians believe (and oral history interviews confirm) that many relied on homemade cloth or paper pads or diapers pinned to belts and strings. Some women reused these items, while others disposed of them after one use.^1,2 Other women—even going back to ancient Rome—fashioned their own tampons from absorbent wool, fibers, paper, sponges, and other materials.³

Things began to change in the mid-1800s. Between 1854 and 1921 (the year the Kotex was first marketed), the U.S. Patent Office granted 185 patents for menstrual (or catamenial) devices.¹ In her 1994 doctoral dissertation, Laura Klosterman Kidd breaks these patents into six interconnected categories:

(1) Belts or supporters, from which were suspended (2) a catamenial sack, pouch, shield, menstrual receiver, or napkin-holder, into which was placed (3) an absorbent, consisting of cloths, pads, napkins, sponges, or raw waste fibers. Ancillary categories of menstrual patents were (4) attaching devices used to secure or connect the catamenial sack to the supporter, (5) catamenial garments or appliances that aided in protecting the wearer’s clothing, and (6) vaginally inserted menstrual retentive cups.¹

One of these patented products is advertised in the 1884 American Druggist. Despite claims that it is “the grandest invention for the convenience and cleanliness of ladies,” it certainly gives the modern audience pause. A soft rubber cup gets inserted into the vagina, and fluid flows into a “receptacle” attached to a belt. “At night, before retiring, the fluid can and should be removed [from the receptacle], simply by removing a cap, without removing the instrument.”

“Farr’s Patent Ladies’ Menstrual Receptacle,” advertised in American Druggist, January 1884. Click to enlarge.

There’s a reason these never caught on. But they aren’t such a far cry from today’s (much less cumbersome) menstrual cups.

The real shift in feminine hygiene products came in the 1920s and 1930s. During World War I, nurses at the front lines used absorbent Cellucotton, a Kimberly-Clark product made from wood pulp, both to bandage soldiers (as intended) and to absorb menstrual blood. After the war, Kimberly-Clark developed Cellucotton into Kotex, introducing the product in 1920.⁴ These napkins were held in place using belts; adhesive napkins only became available in the late 20^th century.²

This was not the first commercial sanitary napkin; earlier brands appeared for sale through mail-order catalogs. But it was the first to get a hard-won advertising campaign, which began in 1921. As Lara Freidenfelds relates in her book The Modern Period, advertisements for Kotex appeared in Ladies Home Journal once its editor’s secretary “declared the ads to be in good taste and of great benefit to women.” After Ladies Home Journal agreed to run the ads, other magazines, including the American Medical Association’s Hygeia, followed.²

Below are two early advertisements for Kotex, which appeared in Hygeia in 1924 and are both geared to nurses. We love that the coupon from the September 1924 ad has been clipped and, presumably, mailed in for a free sample.

Kotex ad in Hygeia Magazine, September 1924. Click to enlarge.

Kotex ad in Hygeia Magazine, November 1924. Click to enlarge.

While Hygeia does not appear to have run ads for Kotex prior to 1924, it did advertise an absorbent cotton on the back cover of its volumes in 1923. Bauer & Black Absorbent Cotton touted its many uses in these advertisements, noting that “Women use it to meet personal emergencies.” Even after the advent of commercially available sanitary napkins, some women preferred a more do-it-yourself approach.

Bauer & Black Absorbent Cotton ad in Hygeia Magazine, August 1923. Click to enlarge.

Kotex wasn’t alone in the marketplace for long: Gauzets and other, often cheaper, brands came along soon after, and also advertised heavily.

Gauzets ads from Hygeia Magazine, published in January and November 1933. Click to enlarge.

The first widespread commercial tampon arrived in the 1930s: Physician Earle Cleveland Haas received a patent for his applicator tampon in 1933, which he named Tampax. He distributed his product beginning in 1936.^2,3 Prior to Tampax, tampons had widespread use as medical devices dating as far back as the 18^th century.^2,3 Soon after the development of Tampax, other commercial tampon brands, like Wix and B-ettes, became available and also advertised widely.

These early ads show the hurdles Tampax had to overcome to win wide acceptance from consumers and doctors. In fact, Tampax spent $100,000 on advertising in its first nine months alone; by 1941, the company was “one of the one hundred largest advertisers in the United States.”² The ads worked: a 1944 survey showed that one quarter of women in the United States used tampons, even as doctors debated their safety.^2,3 These ads, spanning the first 10 years of commercial tampon availability, emphasize the safety, comfort, convenience, and invisibility of the products.

Click on an image to view the gallery:

Tampax ad in the Journal of the American Medical, volume 106, number 1, January 4, 1936. Click to enlarge. Association, vol. 106, number 15, April 11, 1936. Click to enlarge.

Wix ad in the Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 106, number 12, March 21, 1936. Click to enlarge.

B-ettes ad in Hygeia Magazine, November 1938. Click to enlarge.

Tampax ad in Hygeia Magazine, July 1943. Click to enlarge.

Tampax ad in Hygeia Magazine, November 1943. Click to enlarge.

Tampax as in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, volume 48, number 6, December 1944. Click to enlarge.

Tampax ad in Hygeia Magazine, March 1946. Click to enlarge.

Tampax ad in Hygeia Magazine, September 1946. Click to enlarge.

Despite the worries of physicians, early tampons were safe. In fact, our main concern with tampon use today, Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS), was only linked to tampon use about 40 years after their debut. In 1978, Procter & Gamble released Rely, a super-absorbent tampon made from synthetic fibers. This new kind of tampon led to 55 cases of TSS from October 1979 through May 1980. But non-synthetic, less absorbent tampons pose little threat, and the bacteria that causes TSS is present and active in only a small percentage of people.^3,5

Other options entered the marketplace in the 1930s: several menstrual cups received patents, including the first commercially available cup in the United States, patented by actress Leona Chalmers as a “catamenial appliance” in 1937.⁶ This cup’s design looks much the same as those on the market today.

Image from Leona Chalmers’ 1937 patent for a “catamenial appliance.” Source: https://www.google.com/patents/US2089113

In less than 100 years, menstrual supplies have moved from mostly homemade affairs to mass-market items available in stores, from products hidden away at the back of mail-order catalogs to some of the most commonly advertised goods in the United States. The advances of the 1920s and 1930s still impact our lives, as sanitary napkins, tampons, and cups remain go-to products, improved upon over time but not abandoned.

References

1.Kidd LK. Menstrual technology in the United States, 1854 to 1921. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Department of Textiles and Clothing; 1994.

2. Freidenfelds L. The modern period: Menstruation in twentieth-century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2009.

3. Fetters A. The tampon: A history. The Atlantic. June 1, 2015. Available at: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/history-of-the-tampon/394334/. Accessed March 1, 2016.

4. World War I centenary: Sanitary products. Available at: http://online.wsj.com/ww1/sanitary-products. Accessed March 1, 2016.

5. Vostral SL. Rely and Toxic Shock Syndrome: a technological health crisis. Yale J Biol Med. 2011;84(4):447–59. Available at: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=3238331&tool=pmcentrez&rendertype=abstract. Accessed March 1, 2016.

6. North BB, Oldham MJ. Preclinical, clinical, and over-the-counter postmarketing experience with a new vaginal cup: menstrual collection. J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2011;20(2):303–11. doi:10.1089/jwh.2009.1929.

The Berg Brothers: Bibliophile Surgeons

Posted on February 26, 2016 by nyamhistorymed

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

New York physicians Henry W. and Albert A. Berg are well-known to students of literature. In 1940, Albert A. Berg founded the New York Public Library’s spectacular Berg Collection, endowed in his older brother Henry’s memory. It is a magical place, nestled on the third floor of NYPL’s Steven A. Schwarzman building, with endlessly deep collections in its vaults (I should know, I was lucky enough to work there). Highlights include a typescript draft of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, annotated by Ezra Pound; the manuscript notebooks containing five of Virginia Woolf’s seven novels; and a map drawn by Jack Kerouac of territory covered on the cross-country trip that inspired On The Road.

Left: Dr. Albert A. Berg, holding Blake’s Europe, in an oil portrait by Jean Spencer hanging in The New York Public Library’s Berg Collection.
Right: Dr. Henry W. Berg in an oil portrait by Ellen Emmett Rand, also in the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection.
In Szladits, Brothers: The Origins of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection,1985. Click to enlarge.

Fourteen years separated the eldest and youngest Berg siblings, but they had much in common, including interests in book collecting and literature, along with an aptitude for real estate investment (a pastime that funded their library interests). The two doctors lived together until Henry’s death in 1939 in a townhouse on East 73^rd Street. The story of Henry and Albert Berg’s establishment of one of the world’s great literary collections is told in Lola Szladits’ excellent book, The Brothers.

The medical legacy of the brothers, both prominent New York doctors, is less widely known. Henry and Albert’s father, Moritz Berg, immigrated to America from Hungary in 1862 with designs to work as a doctor. He found work instead as a tailor to support his family of eight children. Moritz died of cancer when Albert was young, and Henry, already interested in medicine himself, determined that Albert should follow the same career path.¹

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg (seated, second and third from left), most likely in a family portrait (circa 1900). In Szladits, Brothers: The Origins of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection,1985.

Henry earned his medical degree from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1878, specialized in infectious disease, and headed Mount Sinai’s isolation service. He taught both neurology and pediatrics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.² Henry was attending physician at Willard Parker Hospital on East 16^th Street for 40 years, until his death in 1939.³ His active role on Willard Parker’s board is documented in the Academy’s collection of Willard Parker minute books.

It was Henry who mentored Albert, put him through medical school, and showed him he could be a great doctor. All early indications were to the contrary: Albert repeatedly ditched class to play pool. Their mother was skeptical that Henry could ever make a doctor out of him.⁴ But by graduation (also from College of Physicians and Surgeons), Albert was a decorated prizewinner.⁵ And as a surgeon, he proved a brilliant and visionary pioneer, a key player in the development of abdominal surgery in the United States.

Albert A. Berg as a young doctor (seated, second from left). In Szladits, Brothers: The Origins of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection,1985, page 37.

Albert’s exceptional skill as a surgeon is attested in a tribute article by Dr. Leon Ginzberg in a festschrift volume of the Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital devoted to Albert’s career:

[Dr. Berg’s] tremendous capacity for work, his boldness and resolution, his extraordinary operative skill and his refusal to remain on the accepted path, had brought his service to an enviable position in the field of abdominal surgery. The most significant studies from his clinic were in the fields of gastroduodenal and jejunal ulcers. Other important contributions were made to the subjects of colonic, and more particularly rectal and recto-sigmoidal carcinoma….to chronicle adequately all of Dr. Berg’s ‘labors in the vineyard’ would be to write an important chapter in the history of the development of abdominal surgery in the United States.⁶

Title page of Alfred A. Berg’s Surgical Diagnosis, 1905, given by the author to the New York Academy of Medicine Library.

Albert’s skill and personal style made him one of New York’s most recognizable doctors by the 1920s. In physical appearance he was “six feet tall, slender, and forbidding.”⁷ Katie Loucheim’s remembrance in the New Yorker compares his appearance to an “esteemed rabbi…with a Vandyke beard…his manner in speaking and his voice were reassuring.”⁸ He wore a red carnation in his lapel, even during surgery, until the death of his brother in 1939.⁹

Albert—or A.A. as his medical friends called him—observed an almost fanatical devotion to the operating room. Loucheim reports that Albert regularly scheduled surgery for a few minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve, believing that if he began the new year in surgery he could secure for himself a happy year. Berg’s dexterity as a surgeon ensured that he could easily converse about rare books while operating on patients, including his friend, the great book collector Carl Pforzheimer. Seven days a week, the Fifth Avenue bus—“Berg’s green taxi” to his colleagues, dropped him halfway down the block in front of the canopy of Mount Sinai. Other passengers complained because it wasn’t an actual bus stop (in turn, the conductors and bus drivers relied on Berg for any surgical needs).¹⁰

Mount Sinai Hospital, circa 1913. From The Dr. Robert Matz Collection of Medical Postcards.

A stone’s throw away from A.A. Berg’s beloved Guggenheim pavilion at Mount Sinai Hospital, the Berg name lives on. On the third floor of the New York Academy of Medicine in the former periodicals room is a bronze plaque commemorating the gifts of Drs. Henry W. and Albert A. Berg to the Academy. A bequest from Albert endowed the third floor room that bears their name and still supports the acquisition of library periodicals today. Both brothers were Academy Fellows (Henry beginning in 1890, Albert in 1900).

Albert seems to have recognized how vital a good set of tools were to students of surgery. A copy of his last will and testament in the Academy’s archives entrusts his surgical instruments, instrument bags, and laboratory equipment, including two microscopes and examination tables and one portable operating table, to “one or more deserving young surgeons” to be selected at the Academy’s discretion.¹¹ The items are no longer at the Academy; perhaps they were also used by a student whose path to medicine was at first uncertain, but later found his or her way.

New York Times article from July 18, 1950 announcing Albert A. Berg’s bequests, including to the New York Public Library and the New York Academy of Medicine. Click to enlarge.

References

1. Szladits, Lola. Brothers : The Origins of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection. New York: New York Public Library, 1985. pp. 9-10.

2. Szladits, pp. 10-11.

3. Medical Society of the State of New York. Medical Directory of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. New York: 1899-1939.

4. Louchheim, Katie. “Sweeping Formalities and Offstage Flourishes.” The New Yorker 3 Nov. 1975: 40-48. Print.

5. Szladits, pp. 11.

6. Ginzburg, Leon. “Some of the Principles and Methods contributed by the service of Dr. A.A. Berg.” Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital Volume 17.6 (1951): 356-368. The Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital has been digitized and is available online.

7. Szladits, 39.

8. Loucheim, 41.

9. New Yorker and Szladits.

10. Szladits, 42.

11. The New York Academy of Medicine Archives. Library Correspondence, 1927-1974.

Books, Health and History

The New York Academy of Medicine

Tag Archives: 20th-century medicine

20th-Century Teeth: Dentistry at the Turn of the Century

Child Health Around the Maypole

“Solving Woman’s Oldest Hygienic Problem in a New Way”: A History of Period Products

The Berg Brothers: Bibliophile Surgeons