Staff – Page 9

Repost: “Marvels, Monsters, or (Wo)Men?”

Staff Staff projects June 5, 2019June 3, 2019Folklore, Imperfecta, Medievalisms, Monsters, Otherness

Note: This post originally appeared on Tales after Tolkien: Travels in Genre and Medievalism, the blog of the Tales after Tolkien Society, on 21 May 2019.

What is it about monsters that have fascinated us for centuries? From The Odyssey and Beowulf to Dracula and It, stories featuring the monstrous have always captured our imaginations. We are drawn to them, and yet at the same time fear them. In our modern times, so-called ‘monster-of-the-week’ TV shows seem to air on every channel or streaming service. In similar fashion, the images in prodigy books attracted the general public five hundred years ago. By comparing the two, we can get a glimpse of what monsters embody for us.

Spring Mountain House

Staff #TravelTuesday June 4, 2019December 5, 2019Health resorts, Mountain homes, Vacation

This month we are taking quick trip to Spring Mountain, PA, which lies along the east side of the Perkiomen Creek and is still a popular destination. Spring Mountain covers 401 acres and contains a dense forest which covers 335 of the 401 acres.

Bad Blood: Nineteenth-Century Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric

Staff From our researchers, Out of the stacks May 15, 2019October 7, 2020Anti-vaccination movements, Ephemera, History of medicine, Visual communications

– by Wood Institute Travel Grantee Elena Jarmoskaite*

It was in the scorching heat of summer 2018 that I arrived in Philadelphia, having travelled some three and a half thousand miles separating the Historical Medical Library and my home in London. I came here for the sole purpose of learning more about the phenomenon most of us would happily never hear about again: the anti-vaccinationists, or, colloquially, the anti-vaxxers.

Not that long ago I would have seen vaccination opponents as a merely baffling movement, perhaps not all that distinctly removed from other fringe groups like the infamous flat-earthers or tin foil-hat-wearers; at the point of my visit, however, they had become central to my Master thesis. A lot has been said about the anti-vaccinationists, and it is an increasingly hot topic at the moment, with unfortunate and unignorable outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases happening all over the globe. Vaccination opposition, however, is a difficult subject, both because of its multi-layered nature, and because of the immense amount of emotion surrounding it.

Rock Enon Springs

Staff #TravelTuesday May 7, 2019May 3, 2021Health resorts, Mineral water, Spas

This month we are back to the springs of Virginia as we visit the unincorporated community of Rock Enon Springs in Frederick County, Virginia.

Originally, the name of the resort was “Capper Springs” after one of the settlers, John Caper. In 1856, William Marker bought the property and began to advertise the springs as a health resort, as well as building a hotel that could accommodate visitors.

Oh the Humanity! Processing the Records of the Humanism in Medicine Program

Staff Intern work May 2, 2019May 7, 2019Archives, EAD, Institutional records, Processing

– by Bonnie Small, Archives intern

Segments of Albert Einstein’s brain? A syphilitic face? How about a jar of skin pickings? Where else in the world can so many medical oddities exist under one roof? Growing up in Philadelphia, the Mütter Museum’s impressive collection of the strange and unusual had left its mark on my macabre side from an early age. When I decided to pursue my Masters in Library and Information Science (with an archives concentration) through the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s online program, I knew exactly where I would apply for an internship.

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia (CPP) is the parent organization of both the Mütter Museum and the Historical Medical Library. Prior to my internship, I was unaware that just above the museum’s marble staircase resides the world-renowned research library specializing in the history of medicine. I came to regard the Historical Medical Library as a sanctuary from the noisy crowds entering the museum below and as a hidden gem powering the museum’s exhibits. And more importantly, it became my designated work space during my internship.

Between the Pages: Victorian Women’s Letters to H. Lenox Hodge

Staff From our researchers, Out of the stacks, Voices from our collection April 17, 2019December 16, 2019Doctor-patient, Gynecology, H. Lenox Hodge, Nineteenth century medicine, Women's healthcare

– by Wood Institute travel grantee Annelle Brunson*

Cracking open the accordion-notebook of Dr. Hugh Lenox Hodge (1836-1881), I read from the top, thumb and index finger poised delicately at the faded yellow corners. Each turn of the page wafts the familiar musty odor of the archives. Each page brings another woman in distress. Hodge was one of the leading doctors of female diseases in nineteenth-century Philadelphia. His entries can seem vaguely impersonal, a simple version of the forms we fill out today: name, age, address, family members, symptoms, and physical notations. Unlike today, his diagnoses carry a heavy weight of non-scientific judgment.

Nineteenth-century doctors, almost exclusively male, entertained peculiar ideas about the female body. Hysteria was at its diagnostic climax, reproduction was at the root of all women’s ills, and terminality was still a gift and a punishment from God. But what intrigued me most were the documents inter-leaving the accordion; the correspondence from female patients, who offer a very different view of the patient experience. Their letters appear carefully composed but the ink blots at the ends of sentences and words suggest an occasional hesitation, a desire to get this right—and they tell a deeper story of the women’s lives read in-between the lines.