History of medicine

William Osler, Medicine, and Fairy Tales

Staff From our researchers, Out of the stacks, Voices from our collection January 9, 2019January 9, 2019Fairy tales, History of medicine, Literature and medicine, William Osler

– by Wood Institute travel grantee Ryan Habermeyer*

Several years ago, in a daze of dissertation research, I stumbled upon a passing comment by William Osler, pioneer of modern medicine: “To talk of diseases is a sort of Arabian Nights entertainment.” What a curious coupling, fairy tales and medicine. As much as I tried to forget it and press forward with my dissertation I kept returning to that idea. How is pathology a bedfellow to fairy tales?

Here is my best conclusion: For centuries, disease was almost indistinguishable from magic – spontaneous, metamorphic, at times exotic, powerful, and mysterious. For centuries, disease provoked both wonder and fear; it elicited a kind of grotesque enchantment. Disease, I like to think Osler is suggesting, tells a story. It has traceable beginnings, chaotic middles and dramatic ends. To us, the victims, it is the villain which must be vanquished; but I imagine if diseases could talk they would cast themselves as the heroes and heroines struggling to survive against impossible odds.

From Hysteria to Anorexia Nervosa: An Evolution of Medical Terminology

Staff From our researchers November 28, 2018August 20, 202019th century mental health, 19th-century asylums, Anorexia nervosa, History of medicine

– by Julia Jablonowski

Most people in our contemporary society are familiar with anorexia nervosa –more commonly known as just “anorexia.” Yet few know the development of medical thought and the advancement of medical etymologies in the Victorian era that led to the emergence of what we know today as anorexia nervosa.

Prior to the pathological conception of anorexia nervosa, its fundamental symptoms, which are grounded in self-inflicted food aversions, were not thought of as an independent disorder until the nineteenth century. A common diagnosis that was used in the days before anorexia nervosa was hysteria, a disease historically exclusive to the female gender.[1]

In the Victoria era, a woman was societally understood to be passive, feeble, emotional, and fragile.[2] These beliefs as espoused by Victorian culture created a space in which women were understood to be societally, and medically, more susceptible to illness. From mood swings to fevers, light-headedness to exhaustion, it seemed that almost any physical or mental affliction residing within the body and psyche of a woman could be met with the diagnosis of hysteria. Other symptoms included a vast array of nervous and erratic behavior projected by women in the form of fatigue, food refusal or self-starvation, depression, bodily pains, anxiety, and the general feeling of unwellness.[3] Because of the broad symptoms of hysteria, it was applied to a large expanse of medical, mental, and emotional cases troubling the fragile Victorian female.

How to Talk About Difficult Issues in Medicine

Staff Education and outreach, From our researchers, Out of the stacks October 19, 2018October 19, 2018Doctor-patient relationship, Hemorrhoids, History of medicine, Medical "shame"

– by Wood Institute travel grantee Dr. Edward Allen Driggers*

American medicine has many problems and virtues. One way to “probe” and vindicate the virtues and deal honestly with the problems is participating in writing the history of medicine. Many of the readers of this blog suffer from or will suffer from some sort of medical illness or pathology. One difficulty of illness is talking about it with friends, family, and relatives. American society, much like many other world societies, is oddly squeamish about bodily fluids, belches, smells, and discharges. These passé manners do not serve our open and heartfelt discussions of diseases. For instance, dear reader, I suffer from Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD), specifically Crohn’s Disease. I have had abscesses, discharges, leaky bowels, and, to confess, I do not have all my original parts that I started life with. One of the most difficult things about being chronically ill is explaining these problems to friends, family, or a new lover. How do we talk about difficult things?
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The Diversity of Hormone Therapies in the United States, 1920-1964

Staff From our researchers, Out of the stacks May 29, 2018December 16, 2019Birth control pill, History of medicine, Hormone therapy, Tuberculosis

– by Kate Grauvogel*

With the isolation of estrogens, androgens, progestins, and insulin in the 1920s and 30s, boundless therapeutic uses for hormones became possible.[i] Fertility control, mental illness, and tuberculosis were just a few of the seemingly disparate problems that researchers attempted to treat or control by regulating hormones. My research adds to this picture by showing just how varied these uses were and how the community of researchers compared and coordinated their efforts. At the Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, I discovered additional diverse uses for hormone therapies in the published works of Dr. Edward Strecker and the papers and published works of Dr. Max B. Lurie.

Follow us on #TravelTuesday!

Staff #TravelTuesday April 30, 2018April 17, 2018Cataloguing, History of medicine, Medical trade ephemera

Welcome to #TravelTuesday! Every first Tuesday until September, Caitlin Angelone, Reference Librarian, will be showing off some intriguing, ephemera-based destinations to visit, beginning with health resorts!

Before Leprosy became Hansen’s Disease

Staff From our researchers, Out of the stacks, Voices from our collection April 4, 2018April 20, 2020Albert Ashmead, Gerhard Armauer Hansen, Hansen's disease, History of medicine, Leprosy

– by Elizabeth Schexnyder*

I’m always on the lookout for materials that have a connection to leprosy. In particular to the leprosarium established in Carville, Louisiana. Hansen’s disease is another name for leprosy.

Last year, a visitor from Philadelphia toured the National Hansen’s Disease Museum in Carville, where I am the curator. He suggested that I look into the collections at the Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library. He thought we had much in common. And so we did.

Seeing is Believing: Ophthalmology Over the Ages

Tristan Dahn #SeeingisBelieving, Out of the stacks, Staff projects February 5, 2018February 20, 2018Digitization, History of medicine, History of the book, Ophthalmology

We have all heard the phrase “an eye for an eye.” The full passage, from The Code of Hammurabi, 2250 B.C.E., reads, “If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye.” Less well known are the other ocular codes, including, “If a physician open an abscess (in the eye) of a man with a bronze lancet and destroy the man’s eye, they shall cut off his fingers.”

Ophthalmology, in a way, thus existed in ancient Babylon, meaning that the field is over 4,000 years old. Indeed, the ancient Egyptians detailed the treatment of cataracts and trachoma in papyri dating to 1650 B.C.E.

Hippocrates, the father of all medicine who lived in Greece in 5th century B.C.E., knew of the optic nerve, though he did not understand its function. He described many treatments for maladies of the eye, including restricted diets, hot footbaths and even cutting incisions into the scalp to excise the “morbid humors” of the eye. Galen, whose influence on Western medicine through the 18th century cannot be overstated, wrote two volumes related to ophthalmology, both of which are lost to history. However, his Anatomy and Physiology of the Eye exists to this day and prevailed for nearly 1,500 years after his death in 210 C.E.