Note to self: Recently, the achievements of Charcot and his circle have become the plunder of many social anthropologists and graduate school history students, much of their writing aspersive. Most of this writing is historical revision that is derived from a shallow knowledge of neuropsychiatry.
Catalogued Bezold. Preparations begun for the Charcot & Richer article on catalepsy.
America's fifth woman doctor.
One of Germany's most important anatomists.
Founder of physiomedicalism, Alva Curtis — this is his response to an attack on his character.
In 1883, G. Salomon isolated paraxanthine from the urine of hospital patients. The reprint of his paper for Zeitschrift für klinische Medizin is illustrated with a photograph of crystals.
Began cataloging this treatise on the surgical treatment of strabismus.
This is the third and final work by Stein that is illustrated with photographs.
Stein's monograph on the tapeworm which is extensively illustrated with photographs.
Completed cataloging Stein's book on electrotherapy.
Thomas Eakin's masterpiece The Gross Clinic may be departing from its home at Jefferson University in Philadelphia. The school intends to replenish its coffers by selling the painting to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art located in Bentonville Arkansas. The museum is the legacy landmark built by Alice L. Walton, billionaire daughter and heiress of Sam Walton's empire. more»»
Added a scan of the frontispiece in the Stein.
Began cataloging Sigmund Theodor Stein, a German physiologist who wrote an important manual on scientific photography.
Updated Bourneville. This will conclude the ferreting out of books with photographic interest from Haskell Norman's collection. There are a few more books in his collection that may be added at a later date. One is a Gowers, but the photograph is a reproduction of one of his drawings and I still haven't decided if this type of illustration should be included, or excluded because the definition of a bibliography of photographic medical literature ought to be strictly construed. I will look for a presentation copy of the Gowers with a portrait photo.
Updated Dagonet.
Updated Galton. An online copy of this book can be found through Google Books although apparently without a reproduction of the heliotype plate.
There is at least one on-line version of the Expression of emotions available to the Darwin scholar. Here is the url I used :
Scholars of the history of physiognomy should also become familiar with the current research of Paul Eckman — here is a pdf file of his essay on Darwin :
And finally, there was a wonderful exhibition at the National Library of Medicine in 2005 titled, Emotions and Disease with an on-line catalog that is a rich source of information on the subject of psychosomaticism. here is that url:
Finally decided to include Darwin's The expression of the emotions in man and animals in the Cabinet bibliography. I never felt compelled to add the book to the Cabinet, but finding 5 citations in the Index Medicus supports the decision, although the American imprint is not cited by Cordasco. Here is a description of Haskell Norman's copy.
The following image is published by permission from Sugar Tree Books. All rights reserved. For further information, contact the owner and proprietor.
Finished with the description for Pasteur.
Began work on Pasteur's 2 volume study of the silk-worm. It is perhaps the only work by Pasteur that is illustrated with photographs. Haskell Norman's set sold for $4370.00, a high price notwithstanding the inscription by Pasteur. It is not well known that Pasteur studied art when he was a young man.
Haskell Norman's copy of L’Oeuvre de Claude Bernard is extra-illustrated with an albumen by Simonet.
Father of Tropical medicine.
Work in the Cabinet now turns to selections from the Haskell Norman library, beginning with this presentation copy of Lister's physiology.
An essay on fibroid tumor by a woman physician who was hissed and pelted with mud by the male students at her graduation.
This essay on a new cephalotribe is illustrated with two heliotypes printed by John Carbutt. The author's son was also a physician photographer who translated Vogel.
A reader of the Cabinet contributed this jpeg of a tintype that dates from the 1870's or earlier. The subject probably suffers from a psychosis associated with status epilepticus involving the temporal lobe more»» It is a remarkable find, thankyou James!
Here is an important essay which contributed to the adoption of animal derived vaccine in the United States.
Added a jpeg, an image of curly fiber that is Plate V from Troup. Description is pretty much complete and it is time to move on although the book is one I am going to return to from time to time for a libation of its strange poetry.
Provided links to the plates and 4 parts of the Edgeworth article on Duchenne.
Began writing a description for the Troup.
Still enjoying Troup. Put up a jpeg of Plate XII, a Curschmann spiral.
Began cataloging Troup. Also found a few interesting texts at Oxford.
Took a break from Troup (and carpentry) to update the Christiano Junior portfolio with a photograph.
October 9.
Francis Troup's treatise on sputum arrived in the Cabinet last week, but you will have to wait for a description. The first monograph on sputum titled Die Lehre vom Auswurf by Biermer appeared in 1855 and the only other significant monograph was compiled by Mackenzie. Both the Mackenzie and the Troup published in Edinburgh in 1886 and both men were probably motivated in their research by Koch's discovery of the tubercule bacillus in 1882. Troup writes like a poet:
PLATE XXXII — Cornified epithelial cast of filiform papilla of tongue. A frequent sight in expectoration, and apt, when the component scales are not packed densely together, to be mistaken for elastic fibres. Generally such bodies are brownish in colour, have a dark arborescent axis, and a finely granular cortex, which serves as a matrix for luxuriant growths of Leptothrix buccalis, which, with a power of 300 or 400 diameters, may sometimes be seen growing out of forests of capillary filaments dishevelled like the hair of a Medusa.
The book is a joy to read and the plates are photogravures, 36 precious abstractions from a medusian lexicon that prove that a cosmology can be spun from a droplet.
Piersol's contribution to this monograph may be as the cadaverist and photographer.
Another work by Piersol, but not listed in Cordasco.
There are two more works by UPenn anatomist George A. Piersol that require cataloguing. This first one is on histology with oversized photographic plates, probably made by Piersol himself.
Another Australian work, possibly the first imprint with photomicrographs from that country.
Finished cataloging the Draper report.
Continued cataloging the Draper report.
Began the work of cataloguing a case of facial paralysis photographed by one of my favorite photographers, O.G. Mason of Bellevue.
Last of the Australian texts that I know about.
Clinical report of muscular paralysis in an eight year-old boy by William Smith. Smith served as ship surgeon on the Hougoumont, a prisoner transport ship to Australia. Unflattering accounts of the doctor and his alleged cruelty were written by the Fenian political prisoners.
Clinical case involving the gums of a 29 year-old woman.
September 28.
Much of what is presented here in the cabinet is an anticipation of disease. The mind has the remarkable power to anticipate what it will come to know. For example, none of the nineteenth century photographs in the Cabinet Library are black and white images although they were made before the invention of color processing. Looking at this portrait of a man suffering from a severe basal cell epithelioma the mind anticipates the garnet reds and dental pearls revealed by the abscess. The property of color perception is in place long before the ability, so too the character of a disease is in place long before it bruxes. The silver salts were prepared in the womb.
Article by a brilliant Irish surgeon who emigrated to Australia.
September 26.
"Out of time" is the title of the current exhibition at the MOMA and featured in the show is Andy Warhol's work Empire which is 8 hours of film footage of the Empire State Building. This film can be described as a still life of monumental architecture, and in an excellent review of the show for the New Yorker magazine, Peter Schjeldahl credits Warhol for the collapse of meaning or of a logical imperative in contemporary art. However, this collapse began much earlier, over a century before with the experiments of Niepce and the subsequent invention of photography. It is the camera alone which is responsible for hyphenating the word, "art," and giving it the prosthetic attachments of anything in the name of "modern," thereby stripping it of any conscensual definition.
An incidental intent behind Andy Warhol's film was to make an iconic comparison between the profile of the Empire State and the shape of a giant hypodermic syringe and his film lasts about as long as a shot of heroin. He and Burroughs are not the only artists to riff off the ESB syringe metaphor and the architects themselves may have intended or simply allowed this profile in order to associate the building with the faith Americans had in miracle medical science which was paramount in the 1930's.
Australian texts will be the focus for the next week, beginning with this work by John A. Thompson.
Somehow the new beta search engine of Google Books is running character recognition of bitmap or jpeg images of old book texts. It is a great tool for bibliographical research and the Benedikt presented here today, for example, is now accessible through Google Books. Unfortunately, the reproductions of the plates are so poor, it is impossible to identify the photographic process used by Benedikt.
Here is a set of domestic medicine volumes each illustrated with a frontis portrait of an important London physician of the time. Probably woodburytypes, but I do not own the set so the information is unverified.
Here is a report on an outbreak of yellow fever aboard the U. S. S. Plymouth, Philip S. Wales is the compiler. Wales became surgeon general of the Navy in 1879 but was court martialed for negligent duty after a subordinate was discovered embezzling funds.
Here is a curious memoir published after the death of a 34 year old doctor in Chartres. No copies to be found anywhere, not in Worldcat, no copies in the libraries of France. The photograph is beautiful, very skillfully done.
Added the photo portrait of Dr. John Brown.
After a month of carpentry my bibliographical dig resumes with a biographical sketch of Dr. John Brown that was written by Elizabeth T. McLaren. Dr. Brown was a student of Syme and a much beloved Edinburgh physician and author. He was befriended by Samuel Clemens and endeared himself by "playing bear" with Clemens daughter Susy. Clemens sought out Dr. Brown in 1873 after his wife suffered nervous exhaustion during a stay in London.
Here is a report from the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane with a memorial to Thomas S. Kirkbride. The frontispiece portrait of Kirkbride is by the Philadelphia photographer Frederick Gutekunst. Worldcat lists one copy in circulation with two plates but there are three plates if you include the frontis photo. I am trying to determine if the copy with the photo is a separate issue. Probably not.
This will conclude my work for the month of August. Off on a working vacation.
Here is Johannes Ranke's physiology of nutrition which owes much to his teacher, Justus von Liebig.
Lavater is represented!
Added this paper on reconstructive surgery for oral facial destruction due to syphilis.
Added this book on the Harrogate mineral waters.
Downloaded jpegs of five plates that appear in volume VII of Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens/ by Otis.
July 29.
Two weeks of housecleaning. Simplified menu of the bibliography.
A dissertation on birth defects.
Added a very rare atlas on leprosy. This is also the first Russian photo illustrated medical text I found.
Also associated with Bethlem is this archive of photographs by Henry Hering. His studio is remembered for publishing the scant few photographic images that were captured of Florence Nightingale.
Here is that paper by George Henry Savage which Hammond referenced during his report on myxoedema delivered at the sixth convention of the American Neurological Association in 1880.
Savage was superintendent of Bethlem asylum in the 1880's. Readers of the Cabinet who are interested in the collision of art and medicine should browse the collections of the Bethlem Royal Hospital Museum if and when they come on line. Here is the link»».
Added the image that appears in Hammond's report. While researching Hammond I found a reference he made to a paper on myxoedema written by George H. Savage (1879?) and which is illustrated with two photographs of cretins treated by Dr. Ord. However, it appears that the paper is lost — nothing turns up in World Cat, NLM or in the surgeon general catalog. Possibly it was an extra-illustrated reprint from Guys Hospital Reports. I will keep looking.
Began work on this article by Hammond.
June 14.
Here »» is a fractured tale about Doctor John Ronald Brown who practised transgender plastic surgery in the San Francisco area. He ran amok over the body of established medical procedure and is an example of the medical scientist who transgresses into art and who is blinded by the brilliance and power of the artistic imagination. Kervorkian comes to mind as does Walter Freeman.
Important work by Archdeacon Henry Press Wright which provided moral credence to the movement to forcibly isolate lepers in the British colonies and which led to the Lepers Act of 1898.
Added a jpeg of the stereoview that illustrates James Spence's operation. He removed half of the lower jaw in a 40 year old woman and the procedure was made difficult by an abcess and adhesion of the tumor to the soft tissue of her cheek.
This could be the first medical text to be illustrated by a stereoview. It is an image of a woman who was treated for a tumor of the lower jaw by Edinburgh surgeon and anatomist James Spence. A jpeg will be supplied tomorrow.
This description of Études de physiologie et de pathologie cérébrales will conclude the Luys section for now. He was a prolific photographer and I doubt I found every photographically illustrated work that he published.
This description of Études de physiologie et de pathologie cérébrales will conclude the Luys section for now. He was a prolific photographer and I doubt I found every photographically illustrated work that he published.
One more text on clinical hypnotism by Luys.
I have about 3 more photographically illustrated texts by J. Luys including this work which provides important observations of the effects of lesions on brain function.
Decided to add the entire Luys preface for Iconographie photographique. Although he does not provide details, Luys indicates that he obtained his preparations by innovative methods and used special equipment to obtain photo enlargements. I also added a comment made by the anatomist Bitot in his own atlas of the brain.
Finished work on the Iconographie photographique des centres nerveux.
Continued work on the Iconographie photographique des centres nerveux.
Luys thought that he could transmit a mental image onto a square of sensitized emulsion just by pressing it to his forehead. Who can really say with certainty that the physics of the imagination are less real than the numbers written on a laboratory notepad? Here is the Luys Iconographie photographique des centres nerveux, the first photographically illustrated brain atlas.
May 31.
Began work on a bibliographical description for the Luys Iconographie photographique des centres nerveux.
Here is a bibliographical citation for a portfolio of 24 heliotypes, an abridged second edition of the Luys Iconographie photographique des centres nerveux.
Finished adding the plate descriptions to the Luys Emotions. Cannot add much more to what is available elsewhere on the internet. Will begin work on his other photographically illustrated works.
Still reading the Luys. Started adding plate descriptions.
Back to work on Luys.
Did a lot of work researching this portfolio of albumens with descriptive text by Elias Magnus Fries. It is a little adrift of clinical medical photography, so I do not know how long it will remain in the Cabinet, but Linnaeus has a number of citations in Garrison Morton including the first description of aphasia.
Added an image map with links to enlargements for the Luys plates.
Began the work of writing a description for Luys.
April 23.
Not much for the Cabinet at this year's Antiquarian Book Fair in New York. A spectacular second edition Duchenne offered by Librairie Alain Brieux that was so fresh, it looked like it was printed yesterday. I picked up a nice second edition Luys Emotions which is the first edition to have the photographs — the subjects Esther and Gabrielle under hypnosis and in pantomimes of psychosis.
Here is some good Sunday go to meeting reading»»
April 22.
A treasure from today's photography sale at Sothebys. Lot 73: (St. Petersburg, 1904), a portfolio of 18 photographs of Ivan P. Pavlov's laboratories and experiments with dogs, each mounted on a card with decorative borders, 1904. Oblong folio, gilt-lettered green cloth with flaps and ties. Registration is required to access a description of the portfolio which is a pain (it does not profit you, Sothebys, get a clue)»»
Today's addition to the bibliography.
Coming up at a Christies auction of photo illustrated books is Sir Charles Scott Sherrington's copy of Duchenne's Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine. From the description (Lot Number 53 Sale Number 7228), Sherington was "....founder of modern neurophysiology and joint winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize for Physiology. Sherrington was first to adequately study the synapse, a term which he coined. The book was given to him by R.S. Creed, with whom he co-wrote The Reflex Activity of the Spinal Cord (1932)." This is a second edition copy offered by Christies. Here is the link»»
An 1888 doctoral thesis on the surgical treatment of rachitic deformity in the lower limb. This is unverified, but I presume it is a mounted albumen photograph of a clinical subject.
Found a copy of the Wildberger and added the information to the description.
Another German hospital.
I love finding stuff like this. Click today's link to see a video clip of a flip book made by Étienne Jules Marey showing a group of clinicians and their spouses lining up to shake the hand of Dr. Mosso. Essay is written by Philipp Felsch.
Osler! These may be cheap photoengravings, but it brings an important clinician into the bibliography. The text is available on the internet.
Another obscure German text that is photo illustrated.
Here is a small German book from 1866 on croup. There do not appear to be any copies in OCLC or American libraries. I am having a difficult time finding a bibliographical cross reference.
Wrote a description for the Bitot.
Added to the description of the O. G. Mason photo of transfusion.
Dr. Paul J. Schmidt has graciously sent to me a copy of his article, The first photograph of blood transfusion which appeared in the on-line journal Transfusion in 2001 (volume 41). Paul is doing the important work of writing about historical medical procedures, especially within his specialty of hemotherapy, and publishing it on the internet.
You can see O. G. Mason's historic image and read some of Dr. Schmidt's comments here»»
I am probably going to revise the Gillingham review, but for the next day or so I am diverging with a description for this anatomical treatise on the brain by Bitot.
Finally completed the review of Derrick Warren's monograph on Gillingham.
Rheumatism continues to push me off on tangents. This month it meant frequent visits to the New York Public Library where I researched Scandinavian texts for information on the Swedish botanist Elias Fries, the Linnaeus of mycology. Specifically, I am looking for information about an album of photographs commemorating the life of Linnaeus by the Uppsala photographer Emma Schenson, with a descriptive text written by Fries. Only 20 copies were made, so it is a treasurable artifact in the history of photography. I thought of including the album in the Cabinet bibliography, but even though Linnaeus began his career as a physician and is credited with numerous works in medicine including the first description of aphasia, the work is just not clinical enough to include it in a bibliography of medical texts illustrated by photographs.
Also, I've been researching the Sanitary Commission report on the abuse of prisoners at Belle Island during the Civil War. I value the photographs in the book as important icons in the American narrative and it is about time that a name of a photographer be attached to the images. So far, A. H. Messinger seems to be the best bet, and I have been in correspondence with an emminent Civil War scholar, Bob Zeller, who has provided me with a couple of excellent leads to affirm the Messinger attribution. My gatherings will show up in the description of the book in these coming weeks »»
Swann Galleries has a copy of a second edition Sayre, Spinal disease and spinal curvature in its upcoming sale of medical books. Unfortunately, the second edition does not have the mounted woodburytypes by O. G. Mason and John Jabez Mayall. There is, however, a copy offered by Scientia Books on ABE. Here is the link to the Swann sale »»
Here is a listing for the Gillingham archive of glass plate negatives preserved by the Science Museum London. There are over 400 negatives in the collection! I also finished reading Derrick Warren's fascinating monograph on Gillingham. Although Warren does not provide much information about Gillingham's photographic techniques, he does provide dozens of images and valuable historical information in addition to case histories of the clients who were treated by Gillingham. I recommend the book which can be purchased by contacting the publisher : Somerset Industrial Archeologocial Society
Reading the Gross memoir on Mott. Here is the photo as promised.
With the sinking of the Egyptian ferry Al Salam Boccaccio in the news, my thoughts turn to Susan Dimock»» who also perished at sea and I wonder what brilliant young life was too soon extinguished in the Suez today. There was a copy of her scarce memoir on ABE recently. It may still be floating there.
Still waiting for Derrick Warren's book on James Gillingham to arrive. Until it does, I will put up a few other books that are photographically illustrated. Here is Samuel Gross's Memoir of Valentine Mott. Tomorrow I will put up the photograph of Mott that appears as a frontispiece to the book.
February 1.
Swann has a nice Cindy Sherman lot coming up for auction at their February 16 photography sale. It is a diptych titled "Doctor/Nurse," lot number 94.
Here is the photo of Gillingham.
The Gillingham arrived today and it is being read. I was pleased to find numerous illustrations which should link up to the photographs in the Gillingham archive at the Museum of Science and Industry in England. The little girl is definitely illustrated, but in a pose that differs from the one displayed by the museum. The doll is identical also. I figured it was an accident, not tuberculosis, that led her to suffer amputation above the knees and this turns out to be the case. She was only 5 1/2 years old in the spring of 1879 when her legs were caught between a train car and the platform at Reigate station. It was a sensational story at the time and Gillingham was highly praised for the limbs he crafted for his patient. She is a little older in the photograph, but not by much. The illustrations are engraved from photographs so this is proof that the Gillingham archive probably dates from the early 1880's and not from 1890-1910 which is the date given by the Museum. Thumbnails of the other images can be accessed from the Science and Society Picture Library home page and selecting categories/medicine/orthopedics/prostheses.
I also found a book or essay on Gillingham written by Derrick Warren and published in 2001 which is now on order and I will wait to write my description when I have a chance to read it, hopefully in a week or sooner. Tomorrow though, I will scan the portrait woodburytype of Gillingham that appears in the book and add it to the bibliography.
Got a lot accomplished today. Here is a biography of the great Benjamin Bell written by his grandson »»
Further description of the Gillingham will come when the book arrives. On to other books. Here is a surgical tract by Enrico Albanese titled Clinica chirurgica della R. università di Palermo. Wish I owned a copy.
I located a copy of Artificial limbs, surgical appliances, etc. : with illustrations of remarkable cases, together with a series of articles on psychology written by James Gillingham and published in 1888. The book is illustrated by a portrait frontispiece of the author which the bookseller claims is a photograph. We will see. My expectation is that Gillingham will have something to say about causalgia or phantom limb in his book. Gillingham was a remarkable man who advanced from a humble life as a shoemaker to build an industry in surgical appliances in Chard England. For more information, read this essay written by Marquard Smith, who refers to a set of photographs that Gillingham commissioned, probably for promotional purposes.
The archive of Gillingham photographs is located at the National Museum of Science and Industry in England, but I am still searching for a catalog reference to add to the Cabinet bibliography. The Museum sells reproductions of 38 of the images. I was particularly struck by the unattached artificial limbs that are posed in front of painted scenic backdrops. A pair of legs is not entirely disembodied and seems about to walk off the set, put into motion by a choreal dybbuk.
There is only one child subject in the set, her lower limbs amputated at the knees and fitted with artificial limbs. Here is a link to the image. Notice how the trussing of her legs is a pattern that is repeated at her chest and in the apron of the doll she holds and even in the carving of the sideboard she leans against.
Finished reading Carmona y Valle. Added to the description.
Added this monograph on yellow fever to the Cabinet library.
More work accomplished on the clinical index of surgery and pathology. I also added this ambrotype of Hydrocephalus to the Cabinet :
The latest 4to sized catalog from Hertzmann and Margolis & Moss arrived today and it is a pleasure to read. Titled, Eighty years - eighty volumes, 1854-1934, the books listed in the catalog are all notable for their photographic illustration. Especially of interest for the Cabinet of Art and Medicine is the Ultzmann atlas with 63 mounted photomicrographs of urine cyrstals. The photos are still quite fresh and sharp. Quite beautiful.
As is the custom here in the Cabinet, the date above provides a link to a description of the atlas.
Resumed work on indexing the images in the Cabinet. Added this section for surgery and pathology subjects.
