What’s Your Job? Interview with Book Conservator Christina Amato

Posted on December 15, 2015 by nyamhistorymed

By Christina Amato, Book and Paper Conservator, with Emily Moyer, Collections Care Assistant

The New York Academy of Medicine Library is well known for its world-class collections and serves patrons from all over the world. We strive to make our collections as visible and accessible as possible, and a lot of work goes on behind the scenes towards this end. The Gladys Brooks Book and Paper Conservation Laboratory fulfills one component of this equation, attending to the physical well-being of collections materials.

Christina Amato, cleaning old glue from the spine of a book.

The Gladys Brooks Book and Paper Conservation Laboratory was created in 1982, and occupies a bright, well-equipped space overlooking Central Park. Currently, one full-time conservator and two part-time collections care assistants work to preserve the collection of over 550,000 volumes. Christina Amato has worked as a book conservator here for approximately three years. Recently, she sat down with Collections Care Assistant Emily Moyer to discuss her work.

EM: How did you get into the field of conservation?

CA: People come to the field from a variety of backgrounds, in part because conservation crosses many disciplines, including science, art history, and studio art. I come from an art background, having received my BA in studio art from Bard College. It was really through an interest in materials (specifically paper, leather, and vellum) that I became involved in bookbinding. I received a diploma in bookbinding from the North Bennet Street School in Boston, which led me to many wonderful internships in book conservation.

There are actually many different possible paths to a career in conservation. The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) has compiled a guide to education and training in conservation.

E.M.: Why is conservation important?

Many books that come up to the conservation lab are too fragile to be handled by readers; our work makes these materials accessible. This is important not just for readers that come and use our collection in person, but also for preparation for digitization projects and exhibitions. Much of our work focuses on preventative care, which ensures that materials remain in good condition for current and future use. This can include rehousing (creating enclosures for materials), regulating and monitoring environmental conditions, and disaster planning and response.

E.M.: What are you working on now?

Currently I am working on a copy of The byrth of mankynde, otherwise named The womans booke, by Eucharius Rösslin, London, 1545. The book arrived in the lab broken in half:

The byrth of mankynde, otherwise named The womans booke, before treatment.

It had been subjected to several unsuccessful attempts to repair the damage over the years. Several layers of Japanese paper had been glued over the spine, and only a few small fragments of the original spine piece were left.

The byrth of mankynde, otherwise named The womans booke, before treatment.

After disbanding, and mending paper tears and fragile edges throughout the text block, I carefully documented the original sewing pattern, so that I could resew it in the same way.

Next, I dyed leather to match the original binding, which I will use to recreate the spine. After it is complete, the book will receive a new, custom enclosure, and will be ready to be used again.

Leather dying in progress.

E.M.: What are some interesting things you’ve worked on at the Academy?

A favorite book that I worked on was a copy of The Physiology of Digestion by William Beaumont, published in Vermont in 1847. Very shortly after I finished working on it, I listened to an archived episode of the Radiolab program called Guts. Our historical collections librarian, Arlene Shaner, spoke of a small, purple, cloth-bound book about digestion; it only very slowly dawned on me that it was the very same book that was on my bench.

Before and after, The Physiology of Digestion, Beaumont, William. Vermont, 1847.

Before and after, William Beaumont’s The Physiology of Digestion, Vermont, 1847. Click to enlarge.

Another favorite was a small volume entitled Geburtshulfliche Taschen-Phantome by Koichi Shibata, published in Munchen in 1892. We were so charmed by this little obstetrics text that we recreated the movable paper baby for a public workshop.

Koichi Shibata, Geburtshulfliche Taschen-Phantome, after treatment (left). The moveable paper baby (right).

E.M.: Why do you like working in conservation?

Working in conservation can be very satisfying; the outcome of our work is unusually tangible. Working to preserve materials for (and from!) future readers can be creatively challenging, and requires flexible thinking. I like that it is a profession that combines working with your hands with an intellectual component. And of course, it is very rewarding to take a book that is too fragile to be handled and render it usable again.

Making Collections Accessible: The New York Academy of Medicine Library’s Health Pamphlet Collection

Posted on July 14, 2015 by nyamhistorymed

By Katarzyna Bator, Collections Care Assistant, Gladys Brooks Book & Paper Conservation Laboratory

Every library is likely to find parts of its collection in need of protective enclosures and unique storage solutions. As part of our responsibility for the physical care of the collections at The New York Academy of Medicine, staff in the Gladys Brooks Book & Paper Conservation Laboratory routinely engages in large-scale rehousing projects. One such project currently underway is rehousing the library’s Health Pamphlet Collection. We estimate the project will take up to three years to complete.

The Health Pamphlet Collection consists of 19^th– and early 20^th-century health-related publications in many languages. It covers a wide range of topics, such as nutrition, proper hygiene, exercise, as well as medical innovations and research.

A damaged document box housing health pamphlets.

Approximately 50,000 health pamphlets are currently housed in acidic envelopes or plastic bags. These are in oversized boxes too big for the compact shelving unit on which they are stored. This limits accessibility, as the compact shelving cannot move properly, leaving little room for a librarian to retrieve each box from the shelf. In addition, each box is heavy and overstuffed with materials. This puts the pamphlets at risk of damage during storage and retrieval, and is problematic for staff who have to move and transport heavy boxes for patron use.

Previous storage space, with overstuffed document boxes.

As part of the rehousing efforts for this collection, staff members place each pamphlet in an archival envelope with a 10-point folder stock insert for additional support, and then into a custom-made enclosure. The design of the enclosure is borrowed from the New-York Historical Society Library’s conservation laboratory. It is economic, sturdy, easy to make, and most importantly allows for safe and easy access to the collection.

Storage space with rehoused pamphlets

The process of rehousing a collection involves more than simply making new enclosures and moving items to a new space. In order to make the Health Pamphlet Collection more accessible, staff members also dry clean each item with soot sponges—absorbent vulcanized rubber dirt erasers— and assess them for other conservation treatment needs, which they record in a spreadsheet to address as needed over time. In addition, a volunteer is creating an accurate inventory of all of the pamphlets to aid in future cataloging updates.

The Health Pamphlet Collection contains a wealth of information for researchers; through this project, conservation staff hopes to guarantee its accessibility to patrons both today and for generations to come.

The Bookplates of Medical Men (Item of the Month)

Posted on November 13, 2014 by nyamhistorymed

By Erin Albritton, Head of Conservation, Gladys Brooks Book & Paper Conservation Laboratory

Book owners have forever endeavored to find ways to identify volumes as their own. With the invention of the printing press, however, books became more plentiful and an owner’s need to identify his or her own copy even more pressing. The earliest examples of printed bookplates (also known as ex-libris) come from Germany and date to the 15^th century, just as printing began to take off in Europe. Over the following centuries, the use of bookplates became widespread throughout Europe and eventually followed colonists to America.¹

In the summer of 2014, conservators in the Gladys Brooks Book & Paper Conservation Laboratory began treating three scrapbooks containing 184 bookplates.² Frank Place, Jr., NYAM’s reference librarian from 1905 to 1945, collected them and donated the books to the library sometime in the mid-20^th century. In compiling his collection, Mr. Place mounted the bookplates onto recycled paper pamphlet covers (measuring approximately 5.25” x 8”) and stored them alphabetically in two-ring binders,³ which were actively damaging the plates’ fragile paper supports and making it difficult to use the collection.

Binder showing ring mechanism and resulting damage to paper supports.

Example of pamphlet cover Mr. Place reused as a support for his bookplates.

To remedy these issues and minimize the risk of future damage, conservators modified the binders while retaining as much of the original binding structure as possible, replacing the ring mechanisms with fixed posts and hinging the paper supports onto stubs.

Top: Volume 3, before treatment, in its original ring binder. Bottom: Volume 1, after treatment, in a modified post binding with hinged plates.

Before and after binder modification.

Because the original binder spine pieces were too big for the modified structures, conservators encapsulated the pieces in Mylar and affixed them to protective four-flap enclosures.

Mylar-spine wrappers with encapsulated original spine pieces.

Mr. Place’s charming collection in NYAM’s library offers a window into what some scholars have referred to as the “golden age of bookplate enthusiasm,”⁴ which spanned from the end of the 19^th century through the first decades of the 20^th century. During this time, societies for the collection and exchange of ex-libris sprang up across Europe and the United States. Collectors prized plates for their aesthetic value as miniature pieces of art and often acquired them, not for use in identifying their books, but for the sole purpose of organizing, exhibiting, and exchanging them with others. Many collectors limited their acquisitions to bookplates representing a particular theme and, here, it is no surprise that Mr. Place specialized in the plates of medical practitioners and institutions. Correspondence (included in the scrapbooks) between Mr. Place and other collectors (specifically H. M. Barlow, secretary at the Royal College of Physicians, and Dr. Henry de Forest, a prominent New York physician⁵) indicates that he was not only interested in growing NYAM’s collection but, in the spirit of the times, was also an active contributor to the collections of others.

While small by comparison to other collections, Mr. Place’s scrapbooks offer some wonderful examples of the broad ranging sizes and styles of bookplates—from modest ornamental name labels:

Ornamental name labels of (left) Samuel Smith Purple, MD and (right) Robert Latou Dickinson, MD.

to elaborately illustrated panels, depicting anything from coats of arms to the owner’s occupation and hobbies. Not surprisingly, in the case of medical bookplates, images such as Hippocrates, microscopes, and the caduceus, along with skeletons, skulls, and beakers tend to figure prominently.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It is a pity we do not know whether, in addition to collecting, Mr. Place ever commissioned his own miniature work of art to grace the inside covers of his personal volumes. Thanks to a bookplate, however, we are forever reminded of his contribution of this delightful little collection to NYAM’s library.

Treatment of the third and final scrapbook is in process and the entire collection will be available for use in early 2015. In the meantime, a list of all 184 bookplates can be obtained by contacting history@nyam.org or calling 212-822-7313.

Notes

1. The oldest known American bookplate dates to 1679 and takes the form of a simple label indicating the owner’s name. Curtin, R. G. (1910). “The Book-Plates of Physicians, with Remarks on the Physician’s Leisure-Hour ‘Hobbies’.” Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co. (Reprinted from International Clinics, Vol. II, 20^th Series), p. 239.

2. Thanks to Saira Haqqi, 2014 Gladys Brooks Book Conservation Intern, for her work conserving volume 2 of this collection.

3. In an address to the Historical Section of the Philadelphia College of Physicians on November 22, 1907, physician and bookplate collector Roland G. Curtin advises collectors to hinge their plates onto paper cards (measuring 7.5” x 9.5”) and to keep the cards loose, thus enabling the inspection of the backside of plates as well as the display of single plates without endangering the entire collection. Ibid. 253. It seems likely that Mr. Place read Dr. Curtin’s address (a reprint, cited above, was accessioned into NYAM’s collection in 1910) and was endeavoring to follow this advice when arranging his own collection.

4. Pincott, A. “American Bookplates.” Rev. of American Bookplates by W.E. Butler. Print Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Sept. 2001), p. 351. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41826267.

5. See blog post by Arlene Shaner, Reference Librarian for NYAM’s Historical Collections, discussing a bookplate and correspondence from Dr. Henry de Forest: https://nyamcenterforhistory.org/2013/03/06/biblioclasts-bibliosnitches-beware/.

Rehousing the Diploma Collection

Posted on December 5, 2013 by nyamhistofmed

Today’s post was written by the 2013 Gladys Brooks Conservation Intern, Caroline Evans.

The diploma collection at The New York Academy of Medicine contains over eight hundred certificates, diplomas, seals and proclamations granted by universities, professional societies and institutions across a wide geographical span. The items in the collection range from the mid-eighteenth century up to the late twentieth century. The diplomas were the subjects of a major collections care project carried out in the Gladys Brooks Book and Paper Conservation Lab by Caroline Evans (summer intern), with the assistance of Emily Moyer (Collections Care Assistant) and Allie Rosenthal (volunteer).

Piles of diplomas to be sorted, cleaned, and housed.

While most of the earlier diplomas are printed or written on parchment and display elaborate calligraphy, many of the later items in the collection are printed on paper. The diplomas can provide a glimpse into the changing methods of printing during this period, as well as into the preservation needs of flat paper—in some cases, for instance, some of the ink in the signatures had begun to flake, and seals on parchment were cracked. In addition to dry cleaning the diplomas and making the appropriate efforts to stabilize each of these items, we constructed folders and housing for each diploma or seal before sorting them by size, date, and granting institution.

Over the course of this undertaking, some gems emerged—documents significant to the history of the Academy and to the history of medicine. Among these are certificates nominating and appointing military ranks to fellows of the Academy and other doctors serving in wartime. In addition to signatures from the “Secretary of War”, many of these documents boast signatures from various Presidents of the United States. Indeed, while sorting through the collection, we encountered wartime documents—appointments or commendations thanking military doctors for their service—with signatures from Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Herbert Hoover, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and Warren G. Harding, to name a few.

Certificate signed by Woodrow Wilson.

Certificate signed by Andrew Johnson.

Certificate signed by Abraham Lincoln.

Occasionally found tacked onto the back of certificates and acknowledgments of service were documents indicating the intersection of military service and medical research—for example, a letter from Walter Reed Hospital to a soldier encouraging him to participate in a study on the effect of injections of yellow fever. There are also a significant number of female medical professionals whose successes and contributions to the field of medicine and women’s health are commemorated in the collection. Some of these awards and diplomas are dated as early as the nineteenth century.

Photographs of Howard and Edith Lilienthal attached to a certificate

Photographs of Howard and Edith Lilienthal attached to a passport.

The diploma collection contains items printed in French, Portuguese, Hungarian, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic that display a variety of design styles. One particularly beautiful certificate from 1945 was granted by the Société Impériale de Médecine de Constantinople, written in Arabic on thin paper with gold leaf.

Certificate in Arabic with gold ornament

Key to the City of San Juan Batista, granted to Isidor Rubin.

Some more recent certificates are printed in color, with hand-colored borders and modern, stylized type. The diplomas on paper were a special challenge to clean and house, as many of the papers had become brittle or were adhered to acidic backings. This allowed the aspiring conservators interning and volunteering in the lab ample practice with paper repair. Diplomas printed on vellum provided their own challenges, however, as humidity fluctuations over time caused some of the works to curl and stretch, obscuring and fading labels and printed text.

Repairing paper certificates in the conservation lab.

These challenges, in addition to the diverse languages present in the collection, necessitated some additional investigation for the creation of new labels for each item. In the end, though, the lab was able to create a location guide with the identifying information for each sorted, cleaned, and re-housed object, so that the diploma collection will be accessible well into the future.

A certificate and seal, re-housed.

Item of the month: Scrapbook of Doctor John T. Nagle, One Album, Three Perspectives

Posted on July 19, 2013 by nyamhistofmed

By Christina Amato, Book Conservator

Our item of the month is a scrapbook compiled by Dr. John Nagle from the years 1868-1900. Dr. Nagle was an employee of the New York City Bureau of Vital Statistics, and the album mostly consists of newspaper clippings concerning births and deaths, diseases, methods of disposing of bodies, etc. It is an interesting item on many different levels. When an item comes into the conservation lab, the first thing we naturally see is damage. The album’s spine had fallen off, many of the newspaper clippings inside were crumpled and broken, and the front cover had warped in a particularly exuberant fashion:

Foredge before treatment.

Most visitors to the lab who encounter the album, however, just see the charming artwork on the cover:

A student of book history might be more inclined to see it as a typical example of a publisher’s cloth binding. Starched bookcloth, which was invented in the 1820s, allowed for the mass production of embossed covers such as the one above. A heated brass die would be used to stamp the cover, and even as late as the 1870s, when Dr. Nagle started compiling his scrapbook, each detail of the die would have been hand carved.

A researcher might have a different take on this item altogether. Though mostly consisting of statistics, which are fascinating in their own right, there are several small clippings that provide intriguing clues into the nature of Dr. Nagle himself:

In addition to sunny afternoon promenades, Dr. Nagle was known to engage in daring, maritime rescues, and heated competition over the title of “handsomest man”:

Depending on who you ask, the most interesting thing about this album could be its physical structure, the details of the cover design, or the content. Regardless of where your interest may lie, conservation treatment has rendered the book accessible to all. If you are interested in seeing this item, contact us at (212) 822-7313 or history@nyam.org.

Scrapbook after conservation treatment.

Preservation Week Quiz

Posted on April 25, 2013 by nyamhistofmed

By Christina Amato, Book Conservator

In recognition of Preservation Week, NYAM conservators have prepared a quiz. The following mystery objects are used in the NYAM Gladys Brooks Book and Paper Conservation Lab. Prove your preservation moxie by choosing which description best matches each item.

Image 1:
a. Pest remediation instrument. The small nozzle can reach into the gutters of books, and capture crawling insects and larva via suction. They are whisked into the clear chamber, where they will peacefully expire in the oxygen deprived environment.

b. Nebulizer. The clear chamber is used to heat water, and the resulting steam can be directed very precisely with the small nozzle onto areas that require humidification (such as crumpled paper or vellum.) The chamber can also be filled with a dilute adhesive, which can be used to consolidate flaking media.

c. Airbrush. The clear chamber is filled with dilute paint, usually watercolor or acrylic, and is used to tone cloth or Japanese paper for repairing books. It is also frequently used with leather dye to tone calf or goatskin.

Image 2:

a. Sewing frame. Books are occasionally completely disbound and resewn in the lab. Cord, or linen “tape”, is pulled taut from the horizontal bar to the base, and books are sewn onto the cords.

b. Parchment stretching frame. Crumpled parchment is humidified, and attached to the frame using specialized clips. The horizontal bar is slowly raised until the parchment is taut, where it is left to dry.

c. Traction device. Long hours spent stooped over a bench can lead to a host of orthopedic insults. Conservators are wise to take a few minutes every day to “stretch out on the rack.”

Image 3:

a. Pamphlet binder. Pamphlets are passed between the jaws of this device, which affixes the pages together with stainless steel tackets. The jaws can be adjusted to accommodate pamphlets of varying thicknesses.

b. Tape dispenser. Specialized mending tape is applied to torn pages when fed through the jaws. Can also be used with duct tape.

c. Leather paring device. A two-sided razor blade is attached to the top jaw; pieces of leather are passed through the jaws, until the desired thickness is reached. It is often necessary to thin out leather quite a bit before using it to repair a book.

Image 4:

a. Pest Remediation Dome. Books that have been infected with insects can be placed inside the dome. Oxygen is gradually pumped out of the dome, gently suffocating any insects within.

b. Incubator. Conservators in the Gladys Brooks Book and Paper Conservation lab are world renowned for their hand processed silk thread, which is used in a variety of conservation applications. Silk worms are lovingly and painstakingly raised in the dome from larva, until they are ready to be harvested.

c. Humidity dome and suction table. Paper or vellum that requires humidification, for flattening, for example, can be placed inside the dome, where the humidity is gradually increased until the desired level is reached. Beneath the dome is a suction table; it can be used to force solvents through a piece of paper, for stain reduction and other applications.

Image 5:

a. We don’t actually know. We saw it at Restoration Hardware, and thought it looked cool.

b. Book Press. This is used to apply pressure to books, after treatment, to prevent warping during drying. It can also be used to flatten single sheets of paper.

c. Book truck. Books are held in place underneath the platen; the truck can then be safely driven around the lab. The large wheel at the top is used for steering.

Answers:

1. b 2. a 3. c 4. c 5. b

Scoring:

5 out of 5: Preservation Superstar! Congratulations! You are tapped into the pulse of preservation!

4 out of 5: Preservation B Lister: Not bad! You have a generally solid understanding of preservation!

3 out of 5: Preservation Dilettante: You know a little about preservation, but could stand to step it up.

2 out of 5: Preservation Novice: It sounds like preservation isn’t your strongest suit but there’s hope yet.

1 out of 5: Preservation Rookie: Things are not looking so good for you, preservation-wise.

0 out of 5: Preservation Lightweight: At least there’s nowhere to go but up.

Modeling History: Making a Stiff-Board Parchment Binding with a Slotted Spine

Posted on April 4, 2013 by nyamhistofmed

This post comes from the 2012 Gladys Brooks conservation intern, Morgan Adams. Morgan is currently interning in the Thaw Conservation Center at the Morgan Library & Museum

As the 2012 Gladys Brooks intern I had the pleasure of working with Senior Book Conservator Anne Hillam on a model of a stiff-boards parchment binding with a slotted spine, a style seen commonly in Italian bindings of the 16th-17th centuries.

An example of a stiff-boards parchment binding with a slotted spine from the NYAM collection: Trincavello, De differentiis febrium, Venice, 1585. Left: Back cover and spine. Right: Front cover.

A unique feature of this binding is the juxtaposition of the parchment and alum-tawed skin used to cover the book’s spine. Slots cut in the parchment across the spine reveal the alum-tawed skin patches covering the sewing supports. It is a combination with structural as well aesthetic advantages: The alum-tawed skin provides the flexibility necessary to conform to the raised sewing supports, while the parchment provides a more durable surface to protect the bulk of the spine.

Trincavello (1585): Detail of spine showing the alum-tawed skin patch adhered over sewing support. The original color of the patch can be seen where the parchment is split along the shoulder of the spine.

To prepare for this binding, we made detailed examinations of six books printed in Venice between 1508 and 1585 in the NYAM special collections. In conjunction with Sylvia Pugliese’s study of this binding style at the National Library Marciana in Venice, we selected material and structural features that exemplified the binding style. These features are highlighted in the images below, which show the steps of the binding process and the finished model.

The text block is sewn on three laminated alum-tawed supports.

Left: The text block is rounded and backed and the spine is lined with parchment. Endbands are sewn through the spine lining on twisted alum-tawed skin supports. Right: Galen, Omnia quae extant in Latinum sermonem convsera, Venice, 1556, detail of the spine showing an endband, parchment spine lining, and one sewing station.

Left: Endbands seen from above. Right: Galen (1556) detail of the front bead endband sewn in red and white thread.

Left: The sewing supports are laced into the boards and then covered in alum-tawed skin patches. The endband cores are also laced into the boards. Right: Trincavello (1585), detail showing the “arrow-point” shaping of the alum-tawed skin patch underneath the parchment and the endband core that has been laced through the board and trimmed off flush with the board.

A template is prepared for cutting the slots in the parchment. The binding is now ready to be covered.

After the parchment cover is adhered, ties are laced through the boards at the fore-edge, head and tail. The parchment spine linings are adhered to the interior face of the board and the endsheet is pasted down.

Trincavello (1585), The surface of the pastedown reveals the ends of ties formerly laced through the board.

Finished model, complete with ties on fore-edge, head, and tail.

[1] Sylvia Pugliese, “Stiff-Board Vellum Binding with Slotted Spine: Survey of a Historical Bookbinding Structure,” in Papier Restaurierung – Mitteilungen der IADA, Vol. 2 (2001), Suppl., S. 93-101.

On Teeth, Tools, and Boxes

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Allison Piazza

By Anne Hillam, Conservator

Following a recent upgrade of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system in the special collections storage facilities at NYAM, the Gladys Brooks Book & Paper Conservation Laboratory received a group of artifacts associated with George Washington for stabilization: (1) a plaster-cast facsimile of George Washington’s lower denture (the original, which is made of hippopotamus ivory, is currently on loan to Mount Vernon through June of 2013), and (2) a collection of dental tools (constructed out of hand-forged metal and bone and/or ivory) made and used by Washington’s dentist, Dr. John Greenwood (1760 – 1819).

plaster-cast facsimile of George Washington’s lower denture

Facsimile of Washington’s lower denture

9 ivory-handled dental instruments in custom fit tray

Greenwood’s ivory tools

Proper housing is an important element in the overall preservation of any artifact. By protecting objects from improper handling and adverse environmental conditions (including light, water, dust, and pollutants), boxes and other types of protective enclosures — especially when made using pH neutral and chemically inert materials – can add decades to the life of an artifact.

In this case, the conservator’s custom-made boxes allow for easy access and display of the objects during tours and exhibitions. Interior trays easily lift out of the structural exterior boxes, preventing the need to touch the objects themselves.

Facsimile denture in custom-made clamshell box

Custom-made box housing facsimile denture

If you take a close look at the denture, you will see engravings. They were made by Dr. Greenwood and read: “This was Great Washingtons Teeth” and “First one made by J. Greenwood,” accompanied by the date 1789. Several of the tools also carry an engraved message (albeit a slightly more ominous one): ”[D]on’t touch these instruments.” Thanks to their new box, it is now easy to honor Dr. Greenwood’s wish!

Close up of Washington's lower denture showing engraving saying "This was Great Washingtons teeth"

Original denture with engraving

The tools and the denture facsimile are all beautifully made and are now securely housed and preserved among NYAM’s special collections. You can arrange for a tour to see the Drs. Barry and Bobbi Coller Rare Book Reading Room and some of NYAM’s many treasures by contacting history@nyam.org.

– The Gladys Brooks Book & Paper Conservation Laboratory

Books, Health and History

The New York Academy of Medicine

Tag Archives: conservation and preservation