Browse Items (152 total)
- Collection: Harvard Medical Library
Sort by:
On the importance of the study of anatomy. From the Westminster Review, with some additional remarks
This pamphlet on anatomy and dissection laws is attributed to English sanitary reformer, Thomas Southwood Smith, who would later perform the anatomical dissection of Jeremy Bentham in 1832. The "additional remarks," included in the reprinting of the…
Ticket of Admission to the Demonstrative Course of Eighteen Lectures on Phrenology
This ticket is inserted at the flyleaf of a copy of the third American edition of Spurzheim’s treatise, Phrenology, or the Doctrine of the Mental Phenomena (Boston: Marsh, Capen and Lyon, 1834) and was issued for his popular course of lectures…
Medical directions written for Governor Winthrop
English physician Edward Stafford compiled a book of basic recipes for medical disorders such as madness, vertigo, and the king’s evil for John Winthrop (1588-1649), the governor of Massachusetts. At the request of Robert C. Winthrop, president…
"The soldiers' manual : a hand book of useful and reliable information, showing who are entitled to pensions, increase, bounty, pay, etc. ... "
The manual's introduction states:
There is no particular class of wounds, injuries, or diseases, for which pensions are granted. It depends not so much upon the wound, injury, or disease itself, as upon the disabled condition arising therefrom. A…
There is no particular class of wounds, injuries, or diseases, for which pensions are granted. It depends not so much upon the wound, injury, or disease itself, as upon the disabled condition arising therefrom. A…
Trial of Professor John W. Webster for the Murder of Doctor George Parkman
While few early photographs exist of the Harvard Medical School building on North Grove Street, considerable information about the structure and its interior can be found, ironically, in the published transcripts of the 1850 murder trial of John W.…
Adventures of a deaf-mute
Another specimen of mendicant literature is this pamphlet by carpenter William B. Swett, recounting his explorations in the mountains of New Hampshire. Proceeds from its original printing were devoted to the Boston Deaf-Mute Mission, but Swett's…
A book of the records of inoculation for the kine pock
A colleague and friend of Harvard's Benjamin Waterhouse, Sylvanus Fansher (1770-1846) successfully vaccinated over 35,000 individuals in New England, New York, and New Jersey before 1816. This register, maintained by the town council of Providence,…
"Charles B. Johnson, age 21, Hospital Steward, 130th Illinois Infantry Volunteers."
Charles B. Johnson, who served with the 130th and 77th Illinois regiments and became a physician after the war.
Late in life, he published a memoir of his experiences with particular attention to medical care and diseases of soldiers during the…
Late in life, he published a memoir of his experiences with particular attention to medical care and diseases of soldiers during the…
"Armory Square Hospital Gazette," Armory Square, Washington, D.C. Vol. 2, no. 64. Page 1.
The Armory Square Hospital (now the site of the National Air and Space Museum) was active from August, 1862, through September, 1865, and many of the worst casualties of the Civil War battlefields were treated there. The patients and a former nurse…
Ticket granting privileges to the Marine Hospital at Charlestown, with engraving
Paper ticket granting medical privileges to the Marine Hospital at Charlestown by "The Physician of the Marine Hospital, Charlestown." Ticket adorned with rust-orange engraving that depicts the hospital and a vessel off-loading a wounded sailor. The…
Charles Fremont Dight
Picture of Charles Fremont Dight from Bulletin no. 1 of the Dight Institute
Boat race on the Charles River
This illustration was printed in the edition of Ballou’s pictorial for June 20th and depicts the finish of a race of club boats on the Charles at Western Avenue a few days earlier. Holmes “who is very partial to this manly exercise”…
Proceedings at the Delmonico's dinner
Following Holmes’ resignation of his professorship at Harvard, the physicians of New York hosted a public dinner in his honor. The dinner was held at Delmonico’s on April 12; the symbol of the event, embossed on the cover of the menu and…
Menu and program from Delmonico's dinner
Following Holmes’ resignation of his professorship at Harvard, the physicians of New York hosted a public dinner in his honor. The dinner was held at Delmonico’s on April 12; the symbol of the event, embossed on the cover of the menu and…
Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital, circa 1876
Engraving of Boston University School of Medicine and the neighboring Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital around 1876.
Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital, circa 1892
Engraving of Boston University School of Medicine and the neighboring Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital around 1892.
The Harvard Dental School Museum
The only surviving photographs of the interior of the Dental Museum are found in issues of The Mirror, the yearbook of the Dental School, and Richard Locke Hapgood's published History of the Harvard Dental School (1930). This photograph is from the…
Charles Wilson
Dr. Charles Wilson (1842-1912) was the curator of the Museum from 1881 until 1891. Wilson was also part of the class of 1870.
Waldo E. Boardman
Dr. Waldo E. Boardman (1851-1922) was the Museum's third curator, serving over thirty years, from 1891 until 1922. Boardman was also part of the class of 1886.
Vaccine Inoculation
This unusual illustration of a child's arm with the distinctive mark of inoculation was inserted in Benjamin Waterhouse's own copy of The Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation (London : printed by D. N. Shury, 1801). The Origin was Edward Jenner's…
Somnia Danielis
The Somnia Danielis [“Daniel’s Dreams”] is a work on the interpretation of dreams; it originated in the eighth century.
Newspaper clippings concerning the Tewksbury Investigation
A state almshouse for paupers at Tewksbury was founded in 1852. In the 1880s, charges of theft and abuse of the inmates–including the sale of bodies of the deceased to Harvard and other medical schools for anatomical dissection–were…
"Private L. H. Parham"
This report to the Senate outlines the treatment of Union prisoners of war by the Confederate forces at Belle Isle.
"Your committee, therefore, are constrained to say that they can hardly avoid the conclusion, expressed by so many of our released…
"Your committee, therefore, are constrained to say that they can hardly avoid the conclusion, expressed by so many of our released…
Facial Moulages
During World War I, Dr. Varaztad H. Kazanjian (1879-1974) used his surgical skills to treat the soldiers severely disfigured during combat. In 1915, he was appointed chief dental officer of the First Harvard Unit, organized to serve overseas with the…
Memoranda Book of J. Mason Warren (1811-1867)
Before J. Mason Warren departed to pursue his medical studies in Europe, Dr. John Collins Warren composed for him a volume of miscellaneous advice, suggesting lectures to attend and eminent physicians to meet, and charging him with certain…
Catalogue of the Library of Dr. John Collins Warren (1778-1856)
Dr. John Collins Warren began his own book collection while in Europe in 1799, and added to it many medical titles when he inherited his father
Account Book of John Collins Warren (1778-1856)
These personal accounts from 1822 and 1823 show the salary which Dr. John Collins Warren earned for the professorship of anatomy and surgery at Harvard Medical School and the fee charged for training of individual pupils. The account book also…
Pedigree of the Family of Warren
Shortly before his death, Dr. John Collins Warren (1778-1856) researched and published Genealogy of Warren with Some Historical Sketches (Boston : John Wilson and Son, 1854), tracing his family from its earliest origins down through the birth of his…
Photograph Album of J. Collins Warren
Following in the tradition of his father and grandfather, John Collins Warren-usually known as "Coll"-studied medicine at Harvard and then completed his education in England, France, and Germany.
This album of carte-de-visite style photographs was…
Lectures upon Anatomy
Partially in the handwriting of Dr. John Warren, this volume of lecture notes, beginning on December 10, 1783, contains the earliest surviving record of teaching at Harvard Medical School. The lectures were delivered in Harvard Hall, on the campus in…
John Warren to Secretary of War William Eustis regarding an opening at the Boston Marine Hospital
Two page letter from John Warren to Secretary of War William Eustis regarding an opening at the Navy's Boston Marine Hospital. Warren remarks that he hopes that the new appointee would employ favorable teaching conditions for the faculty and students…
Course outlines for anatomical lectures and dissections
This notebook was used by John Warren as Assistant, later Associate, Professor of Anatomy, to record the daily outline of lectures and dissections for first and second-year students, from 1911 to 1916. The pages displayed record Warren's notes on…
Letter from Benjamin Waterhouse to Edward Everett
In the 1820s, years after his initial vaccination experiments, Benjamin Waterhouse remained closely involved with the subject. He used this letterbook to keep copies of correspondence with President John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, and other…
A Prospect of Exterminating the Small Pox, Part II
In this companion pamphlet to his original publication just two years earlier, Waterhouse recounts the popularity of smallpox inoculation following his experiments, as well as the consequent appearance of spurious cowpox matter which caused a…
Medical Education : New Professorships in the Medical Department of Harvard University
The challenge to reform American medical education and bring it closer to the higher standards current in Europe started even before this editorial appeared in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. James C. White, a member of the faculty of the…
An Introductory Lecture Delivered before the Medical Class of Harvard University
Introductory lectures to new medical students were customary at the opening of each academic year and often printed in pamphlet form or, as here, in the pages of a medical journal. James C. White cautions the students against specializing too early…
Aberrant visual projections in the Siamese cat
In 1981, Harvard researchers David H. Hubel and Torsten N. Wiesel shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine with Roger W. Sperry of Caltech for their discoveries relating to information processing in visual systems. This article on the Siamese cat,…
