So begins the last part of 10a 215. The Wyse Boke of Maystyr Peers of Salerne is a 14th-century English medical text, and includes sections on the four humors, signs of deaths, herbs, and recipes. According to a 1993 article by Carol F. Heffernan, the book is attributed to a Peter de Barulo, who lived England in and around 1387. By all accounts, it seems to have been a popular and well-known book, so it’s not surprising that a copy of it ended up in 10a 215.
– by Wood Institute travel grantee Erin Solomons*
In November 2016, I visited the College of the Physicians of Philadelphia, under a travel grant from the F.C. Wood Institute. Over the past year and a half, I have been pursuing a practice-based MPhil/PhD in Photography in the United Kingdom. This means that I use the creation of artwork and traditional research methods to critically assess my area of interest. Prior to enrolling in the program, my art practice used raw materials and photography to investigate mental health, trauma, and American identity. My work has reflected the boundaries between the human body and intrusive interactions upon it.
– by Robert Hicks, Director of the Mütter Museum & the Historical Medical Library
William Maul Measey Chair for the History of Medicine
Special collections libraries occasionally spawn serendipitous discoveries while performing the most tedious tasks. Reference Librarian Caitlin Angelone was performing another bout of purging decades’ old pamphlet boxes of unneeded offprints of medical journal papers when she discovered a yellowed, folded wall poster. Carefully opening it, she discovered a ten-day diet schedule for posting in Union army hospital kitchens during the Civil War. In fact, the fine print at the bottom of the schedule commanded medical officers to conduct an “experimental trial” of the diet plan and report results to Surgeon General William A. Hammond, and scrupulously account for and report related expenses under the hospital fund, dated October 28, 1862.
Just like modern-day scholars have trouble reading some texts in medieval manuscripts because the handwriting is poor or sloppy; water-damaged, flaking, or torn; in a difficult dialect; or highly abbreviated, so too did medieval scribes. Texts were copied from an exemplar, and it was not uncommon for slight changes to exist among copies from the same manuscript. This could be due to line-skipping, the inability to read a word, or numerous other reasons.
Accompanying the second text, Cure infirmitatum oculorum, in manuscript 10a 135, are diagrams of 18 instruments used to deal with disorders of the eye, organized into six groups. The instruments for cataracts resemble hollow needles. Still used today in cataract surgeries, hollow needles were first utilized for the suction of soft cataracts by physician Ammar Ibn Ali Al-Mosuli (flourished 1010). Read more
– by Emily T.H. Redman*
I love the flu.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t love the fever and chills, the runny nose, the sore throat, or the all-encompassing ache that seems to span from deep in the bones all the way to one’s hair follicles. I don’t love the complications—the respiratory infections, the myocarditis. In particular, I really don’t love the potential for death. What I love the flu for is divorced from these horrors, and lies in the pedagogical value afforded by teaching students about the history of influenza epidemics. Influenza epidemics are fascinating on a micro level, an evolving and mutating virus hitting the body with a slightly different impact every year. But flu season hits us on another level; as we collectively respond to epidemics it shapes our cultures, ideas, and traditions.
On March 9, 2017, Imperfecta opens in the Mütter Museum, an exhibit curated by the staff of the Historical Medical Library, which will examine in text, image, and specimen how fear, wonder, and science shaped the understanding of abnormal human development.
One facet of this story is how people, laymen and scientists, reacted to new information in a time of discovery and upheaval. Steve Desch, an astrophysicist from the University of Arizona, said, “Humans have a strong instinct to ignore scientific findings, until those discoveries challenge the stories we tell each other about ourselves.” This tendency to ignore earth-shattering discoveries that fundamentally change how humans see themselves is a behavior that is as old as human existence itself. Read more