The year 2017 marks the centennial of the United States’ entry into World War I. In memory of those Fellows of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia who served in times of war, the Historical Medical Library will be creating a geo-referenced digital timeline using the letters and photographs of College Fellow and World War I surgeon George Outerbridge (1881-1967). The collection was donated to the Library in 1972 after they were found by the residents of George Outerbridge’s former home.
Edouard Seguin and educating the “feeble-minded” in the 19th century
Note: Many medical terms used in the past – even through the first half of the 20th century – are words that we find insensitive or cruel today. Like any field of history, it is important to keep in mind the time period in which the texts were written and to not pin our 21st-century beliefs on those of the past. As historians, it is up to us to observe, not to judge.
Students at the Elm Hill Private School and Home for the Education of Feeble-Minded Youth, circa 1893. From Records of the Elm Hill Private School and Home for the Education of Feeble-Minded Youth (MSS 6/013-01), Series 8.6, number 22 (box 61).
What is feeble-minded and what or who classifies an “idiot”? The word “idiot” was originally used as a medical term to describe people with intellectual disabilities, although it is used differently today. Other words that were used to describe people with intellectual disabilities were “imbecile” and “moron.” Doctors used these terms to describe the degrees of idiocy with “idiot” as the most disabled, followed by imbecile, and then moron as least disabled.
How was idiocy classified? Idiocy was classified in many different ways, and there were different types of idiocy. The different types of idiocies included Genetous idiocy, Microcephalic idiocy, Eclampsic idiocy, and more. Many people classified as “idiots” lacked certain brain functions, which could cause loss of hearing, smell, taste, sight, perception, and imitation. Some diseases could also change the size of a person’s head, such as Microcephalus, which causes shrinkage of the head, and Hydrocephalus, which causes the enlargement of the head.
Edouard Seguin was a doctor who stepped out of the box and did something others thought was hopeless: educating the intellectually disabled. Seguin was a 19th-century French-born American neurologist, and the first who founded a school for “idiots” called Seguin Physiological School. His schools were seen in many cities all over the United States, but his first school was founded in 1840 in Paris. He did this because he saw potential in the intellectually disabled and he had a great interest in mental diseases. Seguin’s work taught his students how to feel, smell, and hear different things, and taught them to talk or sign. Seguin founding the first physiological school inspired many doctors in the United States and Britain in the 19th-century to create schools for the “feeble-minded,” too.
Another school for the “feeble-minded” was Elm Hill Private School and Home for the Education of Feeble-Minded Youth, founded by physician Hervey Backus Wilbur in 1848 in Barre, Massachusetts. This school provided many things for the patients, including treatments and company. Different and interesting prescriptions were given to the patients, such as Fluid Extract of fucus vesiculosus, which was used for many things from weight loss to treatments for diabetes. This school didn’t only treat the patients, but also taught creativity in arts and crafts or dancing. Educational schooling was also provided, in the subjects of literature, geography, and arithmetic.
In the 19th century, one could be diagnosed as intellectually disabled as early as birth or due to gradual loss of intelligence. It was believed idiocy could be inherited, and although “idiotic” men and women rarely got married or had children, nearly 20 to 50 percent of “idiots” during the 19th-century were were thought to have inherited their disabilities. Marriages between relatives could create a defected baby even if both parents were healthy. Doctors believed some causes of intellectual disability included the mother going through trauma during delivery, and the mother drinking during the pregnancy. Doctors felt for a mother to prevent an “idiot” child, she needed to be at her best health and relax. The “feeble-minded” could be helped by seeking help from professionals, who would perform a variety of tests or surgeries to diagnose the disability and provide treatment.
The Historical Medical Library holds a variety of resources on the education of the “feeble-minded,” such as the Daniel Joseph McCarthy Papers (MSS 2/348). McCarthy was a doctor who believed that with proper exercise and diet that all “mental deficiency” would eventually go away. Another resource on the education of the “feeble-minded” is the book Leading and Select Cases on the Disabilities Incident to Infancy, Coverture, Idiocy by Marshall Davis Ewell. This book contains many different patient’s medical papers and their diagnoses when they were in school. More resources include other types of discoveries of the mind and mental diseases with pictures and personal diaries.
The links below will direct you to the catalog record or finding aid of the resource listed. Remember to check our library catalog and finding aids – these are only some of the great sources we have about the education of the “feeble-minded”!
OUR FIRST ADVENTURE TAKES US DEEP INTO AN INTERN’S FIRST EXPERIENCE IN ORIGINAL CATALOGING, MEDICAL SUBJECT HEADINGS, AND THE WONDROUS HISTORY FOUND IN MEDICAL TRADE EPHEMERA.
– by Hend El-Santaricy, Library intern
In my quest to become a more experienced cataloger, I found the internship opportunity at the Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia (HML) to be a perfect way to achieve my goal. My project was to catalog the medical reprints and pamphlets described in this blog. I started the cataloging process after the collection was initially sorted by another librarian. This allowed me the privilege of spending all my time cataloging.
I started this internship wanting nothing more than a cataloging experience. I have had opportunities to work on different collections before. In every previous experience, I was able to delve into a special relationship with the collection, its history, its use, and its potential. I knew I could perform my assignment at the HML well but I was not certain, though, if I could build a relationship with a collection about the history of medicine. I was a stranger to the medical field.
The records generated by organizations provide important evidence about the organization’s history and function. In January of 2016, I started to process the College of Physicians of Philadelphia Office of the Executive Director records. The Director oversees the everyday governance and administration of the College. This includes overseeing the budget, strategic planning, special projects, and creating and maintaining relationships with other institutions. With so many responsibilities, the office generates a considerable amount of documentation, from correspondence to meeting minutes. The scope of my project includes processing boxes the Library received from the Office of the Executive Director and arranging them to better document the office’s administrative activities and governance duties.
Because the Executive Director’s Office produces so many files, the office keeps active records and sends the inactive files in boxes to the Library. Boxes arrive with varying levels of organization. Recently, the executive assistant to the current CEO requested minutes from a specific committee meeting. Although the material was located, it became clear that the collection needed processing to make it more accessible for current staff and future external researchers.
Pennsylvania Council of National Defense Department of Medicine, Sanitation and Hospitals. Emergency Service of the Pennsylvania Council of National Defense in the Influenza Crisis. Harrisburg, PA. 1918. Call number: Pam 173
The 1918 influenza pandemic did not hit the world all at once, but rather in three waves throughout 1918 and into 1919. Though it is unclear how the influenza pandemic influenced the outcome of World War I, what is undeniable is the pandemic’s connection to the war itself.
The first wave was in early 1918, and may have originated in Haskell County, Kansas, where “18 cases of influenza of a severe type” were reported in January and February. From Camp Funston in Fort Riley, Kansas, influenza travelled to Europe with soldiers going to the battlefront of World War I. The general population picked the disease up from the military, and by June, it was epidemic among the German troops and appearing among civilians in mainland Britain. While this first wave did substantial damage, it was milder than and not nearly as lethal as the second wave, which appeared as the first wave was fading in late August.
The second wave began when three cities on three separate continents experienced outbreaks of influenza almost simultaneously. Boston, Massachusetts in North America; Brest, France in Europe; and Freetown, Sierra Leone in Africa all had influenza appear in their naval yards between August 22 and August 27, 1918. The first cases of influenza in Philadelphia appeared on September 7, when sailors from Boston arrived in the naval yard. By early October, hospital beds in Philadelphia were full, public meetings and church services were banned, schools were closed, and there was a severe shortage of coffins. Beginning in September 1918 and until spring of 1919, the weekly number of influenza-related deaths in Philadelphia dropped below three figures only once. In October alone, over 11,000 Philadelphians died from influenza.
By the end of October, public services and meetings, including school and church, were re-opened. In early November, influenza in Philadelphia had reached its peak and the number of deaths slowly declined. A reported 12,162 people had died by November 2, 1918. The end of the second wave for most American cities, including Philadelphia, came in mid-November. Philadelphia had a small resurgence during the third and final wave during February 1919. By the end of the pandemic, a huge number of people had died. A general estimate for the total number of deaths is 50 million, though estimates range from as low as 25 million to as high as 100 million deaths worldwide. Over 1.5 million of these deaths were in the United States. Whichever way the true numbers run, the loss of life is truly astounding.
The links below will direct you to the catalog record or finding aid of the resource listed. Remember to check our library catalog and finding aids – these are only some of the great sources we have about the influenza pandemic!
Primary sources
Note: Some of these materials are uncatalogued and are not linked to a catalogue record. When requesting the uncatalogued materials, please be sure to include all of the information shown here.
Marie Curie and her husband and lab partner, Pierre. From the Frank Hartman papers, MSS 2/340.
Early in the 20th century there was a medical practice that revolved around a new treatment involving the radioactive material called radium. After the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 by French physicist and Nobel Prize winner, Antoine Henri Becquerel, many other scientists began to search for uses of radioactivity. Becquerel would take Marie Curie under his tutelage as a doctoral student where they pursued the discovery of radium and other radioactive minerals. Only two years after Becquerel’s breakthrough, Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, discovered radium.
Marie Curie was a Polish-born and French-naturalized physicist and chemist, as well as the first woman in history to win the Nobel Prize, and the only woman to win twice. Marie would marry Pierre Curie, also a French Physicist and Nobel Prize winner. Marie and Pierre Curie found radium in a sample of uraninite in 1898. After the discovery, radium was used to cure many ailments.
With little to no regulation of radium and other treatments in the early 20th century, ambitious medical doctors and salesmen looked to make products using radium to cure many ailments. These products ranged from additives in toothpaste to “Revigator,” which was water with radium dissolved into it. Patients would drink from the container throughout the day to cure their ailments. By the 1940s and 50s, however, the practice of using radium as a medical treatment had been reduced to very few applications due to its high price, small quantity, and the dangers of handling radium.
The Historical Medical Library holds a variety of resources on radium, including the Frank Hartman papers. Hartman, a radium specialist and consultant, spent most of his life inspecting, selling, consulting, or hunting down and returning radium. As a “radium hound,” Hartman had firsthand experiences of dealing with and careful handling of radium in the early 20th century. Other resources include photographs, a scrapbook on Marie Curie, medical trade ephemera, and numerous books dealing with radium treatments and the development of radium-related cancer.
The links below will direct you to the catalog record or finding aid of the resource listed. Remember to check our library catalog and finding aids – these are only some of the great sources we have about radium as a medical treatment!
Primary sources
The Frank Hartman papers are a rich resource in studying radium as a medical treatment. Listed below are some of the highlights of the collection.
View the full finding aid: Frank Hartman papers
Call number: MSS 2/0340
Certificates and qualifications, 1893-1955: Birth certificate, military discharge papers, etc.
Frank Hartman radium services records, undated: Radium products, applications, and price lists
Radium diary, 1942-1956: Notes the importance of radium, dangers, proper handling, newspaper clippings, and radium hunting
Scrapbook, undated: “Do’s” and “do not’s” in handling radium
Lecture notes regarding the Radium Products Company, 1925-1940: Information on radioactivity
Notes regarding meeting with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to discuss investigation of radium sales in the 1930s,
Hazards of medical radiation, undated: Dangers of radiation
Radon ointment, 1944-1946: Later usage of radium in the form of radon ointment
Suplee broadcast, 1936: Transcript of interview with Hartman about radium
Villanova College presentations regarding radium handling, 1937-1939
Newspaper clippings regarding radium and issues of radioactivity, 1930-1976
Radium promotional materials, 1920s
Photographs
Marie Curie, International Congress of Physics, Rome, 1920
Marie Curie, visit to the United States, 1921: Marie Curie meeting President Harding
Marie Curie, announcement of death, 1934: Photos of Marie Curie days before her passing. She refused to stop doing research in her lab with the material that would eventually cause her death until she was finally admitted to a hospital.
Marie Curie, general photographs, undated
Young Marie Curie (Skłodowska), undated
Marie Curie with Pierre, undated
Irene Curie and Frederic Joliot, 1937
Marie Curie’s daughter and husband. Both Nobel Prize winners and part of the prolific family of science.
Curie family and history of radium (album), 1960-1963
Röntgen, Wilhelm Conrad, 1894. Röntgen discovered X-Rays (Röntgen Rays).
Radium City, Northwest Territory, 1934-1945. Mining operations for radium took place in the early 20th century.
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Records of Elm Hill Private School and Home for the Education of Feeble-Minded Youth
“The Moral Treatment, Hygiene, and Education of Idiots”
“Influenza and Epidemic Pneumonitis” from Medical Council