Category Archives: History of Medicine
Events, Featured, From Our Collections, History of Medicine, Manuscripts, News and Features, Readings and Talks
Oct. 7th ONLINE: Creativity and Mental Health
September 28, 2020 Amy McDonald	1 Comment
Date: Wednesday, October 7, 2020
Register: http://bit.ly/rl-styron (Registration required to receive Zoom link)
Please join the staff of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library for a free ONLINE event on creativity and mental health.
This event recognizes the 30th anniversary publication of William Styron's Darkness Visible, a memoir of his depression and recovery. Along with discussing Styron's work, our panelists will speak to the role of creativity, writing, and mental health.
Talks will be provided by:
James L.W. West III, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University, author of William Styron: A Life (1998)
Sneha Mantri, M.D., M.S., neurologist and Director of the Trent Center's Medical Humanities Program
Megha Gupta, M.D. Candidate, Duke University School of Medicine
Sarah Hodges, M.D. Candidate, Duke University School of Medicine
Digital Collections, Featured, From Our Collections, History of Medicine, University Archives
OUCH! : Over a Century of Getting Vaccinated at Duke
September 1, 2020 Amy McDonald	2 Comments
Post contributed by Brooke Guthrie, Research Services Librarian.
You may have noticed (and we really hope that you have) that campus life is a bit different in Fall 2020. We're all wearing masks, washing our hands, and obsessively monitoring our symptoms. We've also spent at least a few minutes speculating on the many unknowns—including the possibility of a coronavirus vaccine and how it might be distributed to the Duke community. The Duke Compact asks students, staff, and faculty to pledge to "Get the flu shot and other required vaccinations by designated deadlines." And that made us wonder about the history of vaccinations at Duke.
You can learn a lot about Duke history from the Duke Chronicle and its predecessor, the Trinity Chronicle. Luckily for us, issues of the newspaper from 1905 to 2000 have been digitized by Duke University Libraries and can be fairly easily searched. Searching the newspaper reveals that campus-wide vaccination efforts are nothing new to Duke. Here are a few of the examples we found.
We'll start by going way, way back to a time before Duke was called Duke. In 1914, during the Trinity College days, a vaccine against typhoid fever was offered to students, faculty, and their families. In addition to announcing the availability of the vaccine, the Trinity Chronicle published information on the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine as well as the number of deaths caused by typhoid in the state (about 1,200 each year). The article ends by noting that the administration "is anxious to see a large number of students avail themselves of the opportunity to obtain immunity from typhoid."
October 7, 1914 front page of the Trinity Chronicle with article discussing typhoid vaccine. Read article.
A little over a decade later, in 1928, students were asked to get a smallpox vaccine. The very short announcement suggests that vaccination is no big deal: "the nurse will give the vaccines in a few minutes, and it will all be over." Although noting that there were no serious cases on campus, the article says that six students were confined and lists their names. (Reporting campus illnesses and including the names of the ill was a fairly common practice back then.)
Polio was perhaps one of the most troubling diseases in the mid-twentieth century and the widespread concern was justified. In 1948, the worst year for polio in North Carolina, 2,516 cases and 143 deaths were reported in the state. In October of 1950, a Duke undergraduate named Daniel Rathbun died after contracting polio and spending two weeks in an iron lung at Duke Hospital. When a polio vaccine became available in 1955, vaccination campaigns were held throughout the country. In October of 1956, the Duke Chronicle announced that student health would offer the vaccine to all under 45 years old. For students, the vaccine cost $3.00. The article discusses what is known about the relatively new vaccine, emphasizes the importance of getting vaccinated, and notes that previously most college students were required to get vaccinated for typhoid fever (as if to say "why should this be any different?").
October 12, 1956 Duke Chronicle article announcing polio vaccinations on campus. Read article.
Efforts to vaccinate campus continued through the rest of the 20th century. In the mid-1970s, an outbreak of swine flu in the United States led to a nationwide vaccination drive. In November of 1976, Duke announced that it had 5,000 shots available to students and staff. In the 1980s, measles was a cause for concern on campus. In March 1985, the Chronicle published a large notice to let unvaccinated students know that "YOU NEED TO BE VACCINATED NOW." A few years later in January 1989, a statewide outbreak spread to campus and Duke quickly "issued more stringent vaccination requirements" for both students and staff. Soon after Duke issued the new requirements, all unvaccinated students and staff were excluded from campus for two weeks. Staff were told to stay home. Students were barred from campus housing and had their Duke cards deactivated.
Notice published in the March 15, 1985 Duke Chronicle directing students to get the measles vaccine.
Concerns around meningitis in 1987 brought similar calls for large scale vaccination after a small number of students were infected. The Chronicle reported that mandatory vaccination was possible and, in March of 1987, thousands of students received a vaccine in a single day as part of the administration's goal to distribute 6,000 doses.
Coverage of the 1987 meningitis vaccine effort of campus. Read article.
There are many other examples of vaccination efforts in Duke's history—the campus-wide distribution of the annual flu vaccine is one we're all familiar with and, in 1999, students were encouraged to get a hepatitis B vaccine with a hip Chronicle advertisement that said "Hepatitis B is a very uncool thing" and the vaccine will keep you from "turning an embarrassing shade of yellow."
If you're interested in exploring this history more, try searching digitized issues of the Duke Chronicle or get in touch with our helpful staff. And, while we have your attention, make sure to get your flu vaccine this year!
coronavirusDuke Studentsdukehistoryhistory of medicinepublic healthvaccines
Featured, From Our Collections, History of Medicine
What's Inside That Thing?: Scarificators and Medical Instrument Design
April 27, 2020 ebg17@duke.edu	2 Comments
Post contributed by Brooke Guthrie, Research Services Librarian
There's no denying it: artifacts are more fun when they come with sharp blades! And, in the History of Medicine Collections, we have a lot of sharp things! From giant amputation saws (for your less precise cutting needs) to more modern surgical kits, it's a wonder we still have all of our fingers!
Large amputation saw dating from the late 16th or early 17th century.
Not all of our blades are for such extreme procedures as amputations. We have many examples of smaller (but no less sharp) cutting tools intended for the once-popular procedure of bloodletting. Intended to balance the body's humors and restore a patient to health, bloodletting was a standard medical procedure for centuries. Used to cure a range of ailments, bloodletting could involve draining a patient of large quantities of blood. Benjamin Rush, prominent physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, recommended bloodletting as a treatment during the 1793 yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia. [The Benjamin and Julia Stockton Rush papers, which document Rush's medical work, have been digitized and are available online.]
If, for some reason, you needed to bleed someone, you could choose from a number of tools in our collection like three-bladed fleams, lancets with tortoiseshell handles, and scarificators with as many as sixteen blades. We even have bleeding bowls to keep all of that blood from dripping onto your carpet. [Disclaimer: As appealing as it may sound, the Rubenstein Library does not recommend bloodletting. We recommend getting your medical advice from a medical professional and not a library blog.]
Bleeding bowl.
The many-bladed scarificator is an interesting device and we have several examples in our collection. Designed to create multiple cuts simultaneously, the narrow and quickly-delivered punctures produced by the scarificator made it a (supposedly) less painful bloodletting technique.
Some scarificator examples from our collection!
To use the scarificator, a doctor would retract the blades and cock them into position using the lever seen in the images above. The device would then be placed blade-side down on a patient's arm and the button used to release the blades into the skin. [For an excellent demonstration, see this video from the Mütter Museum.]
The frustrating thing about the scarificator is that the inner workings are hidden. What's going on in that little brass box? As you might imagine, we prefer that people not pry apart our artifacts to find out. Luckily, other items in the History of Medicine Collections can fill in details about the design of medical instruments as well as the thought process behind the design.
A patent is one way to learn more and we hold a patent granted to George Tiemann in 1834 for a scarificator. The patent is an impressive document: it is signed by President Andrew Jackson and includes several hand drawn images of Tiemann's device along with Tiemann's very detailed description of how the device works and is constructed.
Front page of George Tiemann's patent with Andrew Jackson's signature.
George Tiemann's illustrations and description of his scarificator design.
This is only a quick look at George Tiemann's patent and we encourage further research into scarificators and other medical instruments (we have over 800 and many have been described and photographed). Maybe, if you are handy type of person, you could try to recreate Tiemann's design!
Bingham Center, Featured, Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections, Hartman Center, History of Medicine, Human Rights Archive, Travel Grants
Announcing our 2020-2021 Travel Grant Recipients
April 22, 2020 Kate Collins
The Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2020-2021 travel grants. Our research centers annually award travel grants to students, scholars, and independent researches through a competitive application process. We extend a warm congratulations to this year's awardees. We look forward to meeting and working with you!
Please note that due to widespread travel restrictions, the dates for completing travel during this grant cycle have been extended through December 2021.
Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture (Mary Lily Research Grants):
Dena Aufseeser, Faculty, Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, "Family Labor, Care, and Deservingness in the US."
Elvis Bakaitis, Adjunct Reference Librarian, The Graduate Center, CUNY, "The Queer Legacy of Dyke Zines."
Emily Larned, Faculty, Art and Art History, University of Connecticut, "The Efemmera Reissue Project."
Sarah Heying, Ph.D. candidate, University of Mississippi, "An Examination of the Relationship Between Reproductive Politics and Southern Lesbian Literature Since 1970."
Susana Sepulveda, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Gender and Women's Studies, University of Arizona, "Travesando Chicana Punk", an examination of Chicana punk identity formations through the production of cultural texts.
Tiana Wilson, Ph.D. candidate, University of Texas at Austin, "No Freedom Without All of Us: Recovering the Lasting Legacy of the Third World Women's Alliance."
John Hope Franklin Center for African and African American History and Culture:
Brandon Render, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin, "Color-Blind University: Race and Higher Education in the Twentieth Century."
Erin Runions, Faculty, Department of Religious Studies, Pomona College, "Religious Instruction of Slaves on Fallen Angels and Hell in the Antebellum Period."
Katherine Burns, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, University of Edinburgh, "'Keep this Unwritten History:' Mapping African American Family Histories in 'Information Wanted' Advertisements, 1880-1902."
Leonne Hudson, Faculty, Department of History, Kent State University, "Black American in Mourning: Their Reactions to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln."
Matthew Gordon, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, University of Georgia, "American Memory and Martin Luther King, 1968-1983."
Michael LeMahieu, Faculty, Department of English, "Post '54: The Reconstruction of Civil War Memory in American Literature after Brown v. Board."
Harry H. Harkins T'73 Travel Grants for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History:
Amanda Stafford, Ph.D. candidate, School of History, University of Leeds, "The Radical Press and the New Left in Georgia, 1968-1976."
Caitlyn Parker, Ph.D. candidate, American Studies Department, Purdue University, "Lesbians Politically Organizing Against the Carceral State from 1970-2000."
John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History:
Andrew Wasserman, Independent Scholar, "The Public Art of Public Relations: Creating the New American City."
Austin Porter, Faculty, Department of Art History and American Studies, Kenyon College, "Bankrolling Bombs: How Advertisers Helped Finance World War II."
Elizabeth Zanoni, Faculty, Department of History, Old Dominion University, "Flight Fuel: A History of Airline Cuisine, 1945-1990."
Hossain Shahriar, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Business Administration, School of Economics & Management, Lund University, "Gender Transgressive Advertising: A Multi-Sited Exploration of Fluid Gender Constructions in Market-Mediated Representations."
Jesse Ritner, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin, "Making Snow: Weather, Technology, and the Rise of the American Ski Industry, 1900-Present."
Joseph Larnerd, Faculty, Department of Art History, Drexel University, "Undercut: Rich Cut Glass in Working-Class Life in the Gilded Age."
Katherine Parkin, Faculty, Department of History and Anthropology, Monmouth University, "Asian Automakers in the United States, 1970-1990."
Meg Jones, Faculty, Communication, Culture & Technology, Georgetown University, "Cookies: The Story of Digital Consent, Consumer Privacy, and Transatlantic Computing."
Ricardo Neuner, Ph.D. candidate, University of Konstanz, "Inside the American Consumer: The Psychology of Buying in Behavioral Research, 1950-1980."
Stanley Fonseca, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, University of Southern California, "Cruising: Capitalism, Sexuality, and Environment in Cruise Ship Tourism, 1930-2000."
History of Medicine Collections:
Jackson Davidow, Theory and History of Art and Design, Rhode Island School of Design, "Picturing a Pandemic: South African AIDS Cultural Activism in a Global Context."
Lisa Pruitt, Faculty, Department of History, Middle Tennessee State University, "Crippled: A History of Childhood Disability in America, 1860-1980."
Morgan McCullough, Ph.D. candidate, Lyon G. Tyler Department of History, William and Mary, "Material Bodies: Race, Gender, and Women in the Early American South."
Human Rights Archive:
Andrew Seber, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, University of Chicago, "Neither Factory nor Farm: The Fallout of Late-Industrial Animal Agriculture in America, 1970-2000."
Eugene (Charlie) Fanning, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, University of Maryland, College Park, "Empire of The Everglades: A Global History of Agribusiness, Labor, and the Land in 20th Century South Florida."
Jennifer Leigh, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Sociology, New York University, "Public Health vs. Pro-gun Politics: The Role of Racism in the Silencing of Research on Gun Violence, 1970-1996."
Richard Branscomb, Ph.D. candidate, Department of English, Carnegie Mellon University, "Defending the Self, Preserving Community: Gun Rights, Paramilitarization, and the Radical Right, 1990-2005."
Do Your Research, Featured, From Our Collections, History of Medicine, RL Magazine
Outliving Outbreaks: Exploring Early Efforts to Fight Epidemics
April 3, 2020 ebg17@duke.edu
Post contributed by Brooke Guthrie, Research Services Librarian and Rachel Ingold, Curator, History of Medicine Collections.
Philadelphia in 1793. New York in 1795. Gloucestershire in 1798. London in 1854. Crimean Peninsula in 1855.
This may seem like an unrelated list of places and dates, but each represents a particular moment in the history of our fight against infectious disease. From the earliest days of epidemiology to the experiments that launched our vaccinated world, these moments continue to resonate today. While most of us have more immediate concerns – from job security to our own physical and mental health – it is worth considering the roots of now-common disease maps or the idea of "social distancing" to slow infection rates.
The Rubenstein Library's History of Medicine Collections has material related to the history of epidemics, pandemics, and infectious disease. Below you'll find a sample of sources from us as well as resources from other institutions.
Yellow Fever, 1790s
When yellow fever struck Philadelphia in 1793, nearly a tenth of the city's population perished during the outbreak. Physicians struggled to understand how the disease spread and struggled to effectively treat the growing number of ill Philadelphians. One physician, Benjamin Rush, wrote to his wife throughout the outbreak and their letters offer a look at life during an epidemic.
These letters, part of the Benjamin and Julia Stockton Rush papers, are digitized and available online. A companion digital exhibit, Malignant Fever, curated by Mandy Cooper, provides more information about Rush and includes additional resources for understanding the 1793 outbreak.
Letter from Benjamin Rush to Julia Stockton Rush describing the symptoms of yellow fever and noting that all common remedies have failed. August 29, 1793.
Image of the tongue during different stages of yellow fever, by Etienne Pariset, 1820.
Other American cities were not immune to yellow fever and New York City saw an outbreak in 1795. Local physician Valentine Seamen, trying to locate the source of the disease, collected information about each case and created an early disease map using this data.
Valentine Seaman's yellow fever map where the dots represent known cases of yellow fever and an "S" represents areas with waste or filth.
Seaman, despite his efforts, did not correctly identify the cause of yellow fever. He did note the presence of mosquitoes, but concluded that the accumulated filth near the city's docks were to blame. Seaman's case data, maps, and his analysis were published in The Medical Repository. The Rubenstein Library has a copy and a digitized version can be accessed through HathiTrust.
Cholera, London, 1854
A later attempt to trace the source of a contagion through mapping was more successful. John Snow suspected that contaminated water was to blame for a cholera outbreak in London. Snow investigated each case and noted which water pump the infected individual used. He marked the cases on a map published in the 1855 edition of On the mode of communication of cholera.
John Snow's map showing the spread of cholera in the Soho area of London.
Detail of cholera map showing the concentration of cases around the contaminated Broad Street pump.
Fortunately, Snow was right about the source of cholera. His data was convincing enough to have the water pump at the center of the outbreak disabled. The Rubenstein Library holds a rare copy of On the mode of communication of cholera (shown above).
Smallpox, 1790s
Decades before John Snow's map, Edward Jenner investigated smallpox, a widespread and dangerous disease in the eighteenth century. Jenner created an early vaccine using material taken from a fresh cowpox lesion after observing that cowpox infection prevented subsequent smallpox infection. Jenner shared his discovery in An Inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolae vaccinae (1798). The library holds a copy of this book containing surprisingly lovely illustrations of infected arms. The library also holds a small collection of Edward Jenner's papers that include letters discussing vaccination and a diary containing vaccination records.
Illustration of a cowpox infected arm from Jenner's An inquiry into the causes and effects.
Camp Diseases, Crimean Peninsula, 1854-1855
As a nurse during the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale saw large numbers of soldiers die from diseases like cholera, dysentery, tuberculosis, and typhus. Linking these deaths to poor sanitation, Nightingale worked to clean up military camps while also collecting data about the impact of disease on British soldiers.
In Mortality of the British Army (1858), Nightingale's data is used to create visualizations that illustrate the poor camp conditions and make the case for sanitation reform. One visualization stands out as we practice "social distancing." The image below compares the population densities in various locations and notes the amount of space per person. Densities in military camps, where disease was widespread, were noticeably higher than even places like urban London where people had more distance from their neighbors.
We hold a copy of this work (that is definitely worth seeing in person) and a digital copy is available through Internet Archive.
Diagrams of densities in military camps compared to those in London.
From our colleagues at other institutions, you can find other excellent resources on this topic:
Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics is a digital collection of sources from Harvard libraries. As their site explains, the goal is to provide historical context to current epidemiology and contribute to the understanding of the global, social-history, and public policy implications of disease. Materials include digitized books, manuscripts, pamphlets, and more. The site is organized around momentous historical outbreaks such as the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia and the 1918 Influenza outbreak in North America.
The National Library of Medicine and National Institute of Health also have a number of resources, such as health information guides from past pandemics. The National Library of Medicine hosts the Global Health Events web archive, a resource that has archived selected websites from 2014 around major global health events such as Ebola and Zika. The collection includes both websites and social media with the goal of offering a diverse and global perspective ranging from government and NGOs to healthcare workers and journalists.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of resources related to infectious disease and the attempts to stop its spread. If you want to explore more of these materials in the Rubenstein or find additional online resources, our "Guide to Researching Epidemics in the Rubenstein" is a good place to get started.
We encourage you to visit us when we reopen to the public! In the meantime, get in touch and let us know if you have questions!
Featured, History of Medicine, Just for Fun
Houdini: Magician, Escape Artist, Collector
January 27, 2020 Kate Collins
Post contributed by Steph Crowell, Trent History of Medicine Intern
While searching through Duke's Parapsychology Lab materials, I uncovered some evidence that Houdini himself had at one point contacted J.B. Rhine. As an amateur magician and great fan of the folks over at the Rhine Research Center, I had to know more.
After doing some digging, I found this photo in the Rubenstein's Picture File:
Houdini, Harry, 1900s, Picture File, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Front and back.
The writing on the back of the photo may be difficult to read, but it says, "J.B. Rhine Best wishes, Houdini." Armed with proof, I scoured the guide to the Parapsychology Lab Records for the letter that I was sure accompanied this photo.
I soon found this to be much more difficult than anticipated. Although the correspondence folders have been kindly indexed, I saw no entry under Harry Houdini or under his other names (Erik Weisz, Ehrich Weiss, or Harry Weiss). It seemed that The Handcuff King had found his way out of our records.
This is an item that I immediately wanted to share, but I wanted to share it with some context so I expanded my search. As it turns out, Houdini was a great admirer of President Lincoln (you can read more about the quirks of his personality here) and the Harry Ransom Center in Texas has some proof of this in their collection of Houdini's personal papers. Wondering if perhaps staff had some answers to my question of how this photo came to be at Duke, I sent an email to what I thought was the reference librarian for this collection.
That email address was no longer operational. I then tried to email someone in an admin position in the center to ask them to refer me to the right person, and I await a response.
Even though I didn't find exactly what I was looking for in time to write this post, I think the things I found during my search are just as valuable. As a long-time fan of Houdini, I had heard stories of his passion for debunking fraudulent soothsayers and mystics but I didn't realize just how deep his fascination went.
In addition to the collection of personal papers at the Ransom Center, I discovered that throughout his life, Houdini had also been an avid collector of books- to the point that his collection is considered to be one of the largest in the world on the topics of magic, witchcraft, demonology, psychic phenomena, and spiritualism (this post has some great links to see what some of those are).
It's the biggest collection I've never heard of, and it's remarkable to think that someone who lived on the road like Houdini did had the time, space, and motivation to hunt all of these down- I can only imagine the shock on librarians' faces when, after his death, the collection was delivered to the Library of Congress.
While I was digging through the Library of Congress' holdings, I found a digital copy of the photo that started this whole adventure: Houdini and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. As it turns out, the photo was a result of one of Houdini's many efforts to debunk a mystical fraud. As the Library of Congress describes, the photograph was created to illustrate "how a photographer could produce fraudulent 'spirit photographs' that purportedly documented the apparition and social interaction of figures from beyond. Demonstrating the company he could keep if the right technique were employed, Houdini had himself photographed with the ghost of Abraham Lincoln."
To tie this back to J.B. Rhine, Houdini's efforts with the Lincoln photo were published in the read Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, a publication that later declined to publish one of J.B. Rhine's own papers debunking a medium named Mina Crandon.
Thank you for reading this long post about the beginning of my journey down this rabbit hole, and I hope you've found something in it that piques your interest. Houdini and J.B. Rhine were pioneers in the study of psychic phenomena and we're very fortunate in the Rubenstein to have a wealth of materials on the topic because of the Rhine Center- who knows what might still be waiting to be found in one of those boxes?
Correction: An earlier version of this post had the incorrect name for the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Reserach. Thanks to an astute reader for alerting us.
Events, Featured, History of Medicine, Readings and Talks
Trent History of Medicine Lecture Series Event, Nov. 19: Education of American Surgeons, 1900-1960
November 14, 2019 Amy McDonald
Post contributed by Rachel Ingold, Curator, History of Medicine Collections.
Time: Noon (12 p.m.)
Location: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room (Room 153), Rubenstein Library
Contact: Rachel Ingold, rachel.ingold@duke.edu, (919)684-8549
Please join us Tuesday, November 19 at noon for our next Trent History of Medicine Lecture Series. Justin Barr, M.D., Ph.D., will present Creating a Profession: The Education of American Surgeons, 1900-1960.
In 1900, anyone with a medical degree could declare themselves a surgeon and operate on patients. By 1960, American surgeons had to complete rigorous, uniform, and regulated training called residency. Influenced by war, supported by the federal government, and driven by professional organizations, the transformation of residencies over these decades from extraordinary, unique experiences to mandated, standardized education helped create a unified profession of surgery that continues to influence health care in this country.
Dr. Barr is currently a general surgery resident and an instructor in the Department of History at Duke University.
All are welcome to attend. Light lunch will be served.
Sponsored by the History of Medicine Collections in the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
history of medicinesurgerytrentlecture