Digital image library

Plague Era Woodcuts Shed Light on Shared Beliefs In Action

Staff #MedievalMedicineMonday, Out of the stacks, Staff research February 1, 2021May 19, 2021Bubonic plague, Digital image library, Medieval medicine, Religion, Woodcuts

– by Patrick Magee, Visitor Services/Gallery Associate

Welcome back to another issue of #MedievalMedicineMonday! On Mondays, Visitor Services/Gallery Associate Patrick Magee will be exploring the depths of medieval medicine as depicted by woodcuts found in our early printed books.

This week, we’re going to look at how woodcut creators and the general public made sense of the beginnings of a plague. In Pestbuch, Hieronymus Brunschwig depicted the onset of a pandemic through a series of woodcuts, themselves serving a purpose somewhere between documentation and warning. In the woodcut drawings, Brunschwig depicts a mixture of illness at its worst alongside the continuing lives of everyday folks and doctors/attenders of the sick.

Antikamnia Calendars: 19th Century Medical Advertising

Staff Out of the stacks, Staff research January 20, 2021May 19, 2021Antikamnia Chemical Company, Digital image library, Medical trade ephemera, Nineteenth century medicine, Patent medicines, Pharmaceutical companies

– by Josh Bicker, Visitor Services Floor Supervisor

Among the College of Physicians Medical Library’s collection, we have a number of advertisements for the Antikamnia Chemical Company. Within these, a curious image can be found in an advertising pamphlet of the time, portraying a stout man, dressed in a suit, with an enormous skull atop his neck. With spectacles perched at the bridge of his nose, he closely inspects a round tablet with the letters “AK” monogrammed on it. Rays of light shower over him, and at the bottom of the page we see the phrase “Tis The Genuine”. It is as if he has received some divine inspiration.

Fungus Among Us: How One Type of Mushroom Has Been a Medical Boon Since the 1700s

Staff #MedievalMedicineMonday, Out of the stacks, Staff research December 28, 2020May 19, 2021Agaric fungus, Botanical medicine, Digital image library, Medieval medicine, Woodcuts

– by Patrick Magee, Visitor Services/Gallery Associate

Welcome to #MedievalMedicineMonday! On Mondays, Patrick Magee, Visitor Services/Gallery Associate, will be exploring the depths of medieval botanical medicine as depicted by woodcuts found in our early printed books.

Although commonly held beliefs over medicine change quite a bit over time, one thing that’s certain is the ceaseless documentation of every turn of events within the medical world, from plague to poison. Medicinal science involves a lot of trial and error, and sometimes what seems like an inscrutable idea at first can become the backbone of treatment. In this series of posts on medically significant plants, we wanted to beg several questions – which plants do we still use? Which ended up being effectively snake oil? What was for health, and what was for fun? All of these questions and more will be addressed over time, starting in this case with a fungus.
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Patent Medicines and the History of Cocaine

Staff Out of the stacks, Staff research December 23, 2020May 9, 2022Botanical medicine, Coca leaves, Cocaine, Digital image library, Indigenous medicine, Patent medicines

– by Charlie Dawson, Visitor Services/Gallery Associate

From the waning days of the golden age of patent medicine comes this advertisement for pharmaceutical cocaine. The ad was produced by CF Boehringer and Soehne, founded in 1885 Mannheim, Germany, but which soon expanded into New York. By the time of this ad’s publication in 1897, cocaine was available in New York only by prescription.

Ether in Surgery

Staff Out of the stacks, Staff research December 18, 2020May 19, 2021Anesthesia, Digital image library, Ether, History of medicine, Surgery

– by Josh Bicker, Visitor Services Floor Supervisor

A curious image from our Digital Image Library portrays two men, one of them lying on his back, with a ribbed, balloon like structure over his nose and mouth, as another man looks on, holding the balloon like structure on to his face. From the text around the image, we can tell this is Ormsby’s Inhaler, a variant of a number of different inhalers used at the time for administering Ether as an anesthesia for a patient undergoing surgery. This image is from a general anesthesia guide created by Henry Davis from 1892.

Cartophily & The Early World of Cigarettes

Staff Out of the stacks, Staff research December 7, 2020December 7, 2020Advertising, Digital image library, Philadelphia General Hospital, Tobacco, Trade cards

– by Josh Bicker, Visitor Services Floor Supervisor

The hobby of collecting trading cards has always been a popular pastime for many people. From trading cards of sports stars and pop stars, to collecting cards of characters from movies and popular TV shows, young and old have shown an interest in this hobby. The reason for collecting cards can vary. For some, it could just be an attractive piece of paper to look at, while for others it is a more serious form of collecting involving scrap books and getting appraisals for each card. Regardless of the reasons, collecting cards has been a pastime for many for a long time. Read more