]]> View the online catalog record.

]]> Inscription: "984 12-3 Civil War Gettysburg" written on the underside of the base in pencil; Hand written label "984. Gun Shot Fracture." adhered to the posterior surface of the bone.
]]> The soldier entered Massachusetts General Hospital on November 3, 1865. At that time the arm swung freely without pain. Surgeon Henry Jacob Bigelow removed three more pieces of bone with a trephine, scraped the interiors with a gouge, wired the two sections together, and splinted the arm exterior. No union occurred.
On March 1, 1866 Bigelow performed a second operation with further bone removal and wiring resulting in a stiffening of arm, but patient fell on June 10, 1866 and re-broke the humerus. On January 12, 1867 a third operation was performed with further wiring resulting in paralysis of the upper arm, although no nerve was known to be severed. This operation resulted in union of the fracture but the paralysis continued. The post-operative arm was seven inches shorter than the patient's healthy arm.
Inscription: Historical tag "1008 Civil War" attched to preparation; "Civil War 1008 12-3 [MH or WH]" written on the underside of the base in pencil.]]> Inscription: "1027 / 12-3 Civil War / Gettysburg" handwritten in pencil under base; "1027. From Gettysburg. Soft parts / extensively lacerated. Wound - / ed July 3rd. Iron removed on 13th / extensive suppuration am- / putated Sept. 12th. Did well / till Oct. 4th then..."
]]> Inscription: "Lambert S. JANY 7 1869"]]> Inscription: in pencil on bottom of base: "Civil War / 4973 /12-3."]]> Inscription: in pencil on bottom of base: "6536 / 14-1"; in red paint on base: "6536 / 14-1."]]> ]]> ]]> Jackson, J. B. S. A A Descriptive Catalogue of the Anatomical Museum of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement. Boston: William D. Ticknor, 1847, 17.

]]> Jackson, J. B. S. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Anatomical Museum of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement. Boston: William D. Ticknor, 1847, 18.

]]> A Descriptive Catalogue of the Anatomical Museum of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement. Boston: William D. Ticknor, 1847, 18.]]> A Descriptive Catalogue of the Anatomical Museum of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement. Boston: William D. Ticknor, 1847, 42.]]> Joseph E. Murray Papers in the Center for the History of Medicine.]]> ]]>
In her oral history Dr. Notman discusses the importance of her relationships with mentors, including leaders such as Grete Bibring as well as peers; navigating her career path; taking risks; handling work-life balance; and her research, including a longitudinal study of the mental health of women who had undergone abortions, among other topics.]]>
The Inscription on the recto of the image reads: "Old Maid: Doctor A., when you have examined all my bumps, I'll trouble you to explain the faculties, sympathies & propensities of my dear poodle Pompey.
Doctor S.: Miss Strangeways! I can distinctly enumerate thro' the aid of my Patent Skullmeter, that your cranium contains 16,542 1/2 Mental faculties, which I shall by my scale of individuality describe on a future occasion. As for your Poodle Pompey, his prominent bumps are Uxoriousness and Philoprogenitiveness!!!"]]> Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau was one of the Boston Phrenological Society’s first publication projects. In this passage, Gall describes how he isolated the faculties of attachment and friendship.]]> The Influence of the Brain on the Form of the Head discussing attachment and friendship]]> Outlines of Phrenology was phenomenally popular, passing through four separate editions by 1834. The Outlines gives a brief overview of the theory behind phrenology, discusses the basic propensities, sentiments, and intellectual faculties, and then attempts to reconcile the concept of free will with a fatalistic determinism derived from the phrenological assessment of human proclivities. This copy of the Outlines was present to Henry Hooper by Spurzheim during his lecture tour in Boston just before his death.]]> Outlines of Phrenology, autographed by the author of the book, Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, and presented to Henry Hooper]]> Phrenology, or the Doctrine of the Mental Phenomena (Boston: Marsh, Capen and Lyon, 1834) and was issued for his popular course of lectures at the Boston Athenaeum during the fall of 1832. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal reported, “Among the constant attendants on this course are our most distinguished physicians, lawyers and divines … and although we cannot say how many of these are convinced of the correctness of Dr. Spurzheim’s peculiar science, most are persuaded that there is more truth in it than they had before suspected, and none can fail to be forcibly and favorably impressed with his ideas of education and of intellectual philosophy.” A subsequent course of lectures in Cambridge was never completed due to Spurzheim’s death on November 11th. Samuel Wells presented this ticket to the Boston Society of Natural History. The seal on the ticket reads “Res non verba quaero” [I seek deeds, not words.]]]> catalog record]]> The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal at this time. Note the prominent medical figures, including Drs. John Collins Warren, James Jackson, Walter Channing, and George Parkman, who were associated with Spurzheim’s burial at Mount Auburn Cemetery. James Jackson, who attended Spurzheim at his death, concluded that the cause of death was a fever, and John Collins Warren performed the autopsy. The unusual size and weight of Spurzheim’s brain proved a source of interest and comment. or the complete text of the obituary and a related article on the remains of Spurzheim, click here.]]> The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal following his death in 1832]]> A Catalogue of Phrenological Specimens belonging to the Boston Phrenological Society]]> An Examination indicate a proponent of phrenology disagreed with Sewall's conclusions.]]> An Examination of Phrenology with marginalia]]> ]]> Nasology, or, Hints towards a Classfication of Noses , written by George Jabet under the pseudonym Eden Warwick]]> ]]> Collection of Phrenological Cards, 1834-1835 (inclusive).]]> The Illustrated Self-Instructor as both a popular handbook to phrenology and an advertising tool—the opening pages of each volume were used to record character assessments, such as this one for G. A. Hook, given by O. S. Fowler in 1854. Individual faculties were rated on a scale of 1 to 7; traits on the lower end were ripe for development while those on the higher end could be repressed. The Illustrated Self-Instructor went through over twenty editions, the last appearing in 1918. In 1895, L. N. Fowler stated that over 100,000 copies of the work had been sold.]]> The Illustrated Self-Instructor written by Orson Squire Fowler and Lorenzo Niles Fowler, including indication of a character assessment of G. A. Hook by O. S. Fowler]]> American Phrenological Journal and Miscellany volume 9]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> Phrenological Dictionary, written by L. N. Fowler and his daughter, Jessie Allen Fowler]]> ]]> ]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

]]> ]]> ]]> here.]]> ]]> New Phrenological Organs Discovered]]> here.]]> ]]> ]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

]]> ]]> Phrenology: the Science of the Mind, the Student's Enchyridion by James Peadern Blackford]]> ]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

]]> ]]> ]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

]]> Anatomie et Physiologie du Système Nerveux appeared—one of the first and still impressive accounts of the structure and dissection of the human brain. It and the successive volume were written in conjunction with his assistant, Johann Gaspar Spurzheim.]]> Anatomie et Physiologie du Système Nerveux is the seminal work in which Gall discusses the location of the original twenty-seven cerebral faculties and the functions of each. The first two volumes, concerning the anatomical structure of the brain, were produced in conjunction with J. G. Spurzheim. The text of the Anatomie is complemented by an atlas of engravings of human and animal crania; the cerebral faculties are illustrated by engravings of the heads and faces of artists, authors, and philosophers, including Kant, Socrates, Plato, Rembrandt, and Christ.]]> Anatomie et Physiologie du Système Nerveux, written by Franz Joseph Gall]]> here.]]> How to read character : a new illustrated hand-book of phrenology and physiognomy, for students and examiners : with a descriptive chart. This particular illustration, Figure 22, is captioned: Symbolical head illustrating the natural language of the faculties.]]> How to Read Character by Samuel Roberts Wells]]> ]]> Memories of my life. Found on the plate facing page 244.]]> ]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> ]]> “A native chief has as good an education in the art of ruling men, as can be desired; he is continually exercised in personal government, and usually maintains his place by the ascendancy of his character…. A traveller in wild countries also fills, to a certain degree, the position of a commander, and has to confront native chiefs at every inhabited place. The result is familiar enough—the white traveller almost invariably holds his own in their presence. It is seldom that we hear of a white traveller meeting with a black chief whom he feels to be the better man.”

This is a first edition of Galton’s influential study of the subject which proved to be a cornerstone in the beginnings of the eugenics movement.

]]> Herediatry genius: an inquiry into the laws and consequences which discusses race]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> Herediatry genius: an inquiry into the laws and consequences which discusses race]]> ]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> ]]> “That is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, eugenes, namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea.”]]> Inquiries into human faculty and its development]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> “Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings; he has also the power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I conceive it to fall well within his province to replace Natural Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective. This is precisely the aim of Eugenics. Its first object it to check the birth-rate of the Unfit, instead of allowing them to come into being, though doomed in large numbers to perish prematurely. The second object is the improvement of the race by furthering the productivity of the Fit by early marriages and healthful rearing of their children. Natural Selection rests upon excessive production and wholesale destruction; Eugenics on bringing no more individuals into the world than can be properly cared for, and those only of the best stock.”]]> Memories of My Life by Sir Francis Galton]]> ]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> ]]> ]]> Life history album, edited by Francis Galton, allows for notes on the genealogy, life, development, marriage, children, height and weight observations, anthropometric information, and photographs in five-year increments. “A trustworthy record of past illnesses will enable your medical attendants to treat you more intelligently and successfully than they otherwise could, for it will give them a more complete knowledge of your ‘constitution’ than could be obtained in any other way…. The record will further be of great value to your family and descendants; for mental and physical characteristics, as well as liabilities to disease, are all transmitted more or less by parents to their children, and are shared by members of the same family.” Galton, at 80, was dissatisfied with this production and rewrote and republished the Album in 1902, extending its duration to the age of 100. This copy of the Life history album was given by his grandmother to George Kimball Clement (1888-1951) soon after his birth; Clement was a member of the Class of 1912 of Harvard College.]]> Life history album : prepared by direction of the Collective Investigation Committee of the British Medical Association, edited by Sir Francis Galton]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> “The photographic process of which I there spoke, enables us to obtain with mechanical precision a generalised picture; one that represents no man in particular, but portrays an imaginary figure, possessing the average features of any given group of men. These ideal faces have a surprising air of reality. Nobody who glanced at one of them for the first time, would doubt its being the likeness of a living person. Yet, as I have said, it is no such thing; it is the portrait of a type, and not of an individual.”]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

]]> “The face is distinctly intellectual in its character, and the apparent age is not far from the average age of the components…. The method of composite photography has, therefore, in this case, at any rate, produced a portrait which may be regarded as typical of the components, since its features fairly represent the group in respect to the only two qualities, namely, age and intelligence, in which the individual faces resemble each other.”

The original of this photograph was displayed with a number of other Bowditch composites at the Second International Exhibition of Eugenics in 1921.

]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

]]> McClure’s magazine in September 1894. Of them he says, “A study of the faces here presented certainly suggests the conclusion that there must be some racial peculiarities showing themselves in the composite portraits. The two composites of each race are clearly more like each other than like those of the other race, and the squarely cut jaw and brow of the Wend composites give the impression of greater vigor and strength of character than the more rounded features of the Saxons.”

Galton admired these composites; some years after Bowditch’s death, they were also displayed at the exhibition at the Second International Congress of Eugenics in 1921.

]]> ]]> “A study of the faces here presented certainly suggests the conclusion that there must be some racial peculiarities showing themselves in the composite portraits. The two composites of each race are clearly more like each other than like those of the other race, and the squarely cut jaw and brow of the Wend composites give the impression of greater vigor and strength of character than the more rounded features of the Saxons.”

Galton admired these composites; some years after Bowditch’s death, they were also displayed at the exhibition at the Second International Congress of Eugenics in 1921.

]]> “The composites are indeed beautiful and quite different in ‘type’ from both American and English. The Saxon & Wends being more alike to one another than either of them to the former two. I congratulate you on having added in this way to the too slowly collecting of typical forms. I suppose you will co-composite the Saxons & Wends respectively. One really ought to get a large collection in this way of racial types. I wish I were a better photographer myself to help in the matter. Your composites are sent today to exhibition at the Portrait Association at Edinburgh, partly for their direct interest and partly for the indirect advantage of supporting a proposal that will be made of obtaining photos of the inhabitants of selected typical villages in various parts of the British Isles where from historical reasons, the breed is likely to have been local for a long time. This is part of a larger scheme briefly designated as an ethnographic survey, which others are interested in and may take adequate pains to do effectively.”]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

]]> In his letter of October 31, 1881, Moody states, “As a means of eliminating the inherited effects of disorders from posterity, I would have the government establish and maintain good, comfortable, attractive hospital homes for the care, treatment and life residence of all habitual drunkards, confirmed criminals, idiots and incurable lunatics, who should be treated as people suffering from dangerous congenital diseases, liable to propagation through heredity; and so they should be strictly guarded from having any offspring, as far as possible by moral, and the remainder by legal, restraint. So the hereditary transmission of innumerable disorders would soon come to an end.” The Institute of Heredity was founded on November 27, 1880, “to reconstruct and establish the foundations of social order upon natural laws of human life and relations”; it was still sponsoring lectures as late as 1888.

]]> Heredity: its relation to human development by Loring Moody, which contains corresponsdence between the author and philanthropist Elizabeth Thompson.]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> Heredity in relation to eugenics, with its emphasis on the study of inherited traits and dispositions to disease, is dedicated to Mrs. Harriman “in recognition of the generous assistance she has given to research.” This particular copy was presented to the American Social Hygiene Association by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in 1930.

]]> Heredity in relation to eugenics]]> ]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> “if the laws of heredity that are known to hold in the case of animals also apply to man, the intermarriage of congenital deaf-mutes through a number of successive generations should result in the formation of a deaf-mute variety of the human race…. The indications are that the congenital deaf-mutes of the country are increasing at a greater rate than the population at large; and the deaf-mute children of deaf-mutes at a greater rate than the congenital deaf-mute population.”Bell went on the speculate about the possibility of legislation to forbid the intermarriage of deaf-mutes but favored determining the causes of intermarriage and discouraging or removing them.

Bell presented his findings to the National Academy of Sciences on November 13, 1883, and his work was subsequently printed as part of the Academy’s Memoirs series. This copy of Bell’s Memoir formerly belonged to Dr. Henry Pickering Bowditch.

]]> Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> The Jukes traces the origins of imprisoned members of the same family back to the colonial period to examine inherited and environmental tendencies to poverty, crime, and disease. Dugdale estimates the financial cost to society of maintenance of the Jukes and concludes with, “Over a million and a quarter dollars of loss in 75 years, caused by a single family 1,200 strong, without reckoning the cash paid for whisky, or taking into account the entailment of pauperism and crime of the survivors in the next generation, and the incurable disease, idiocy and insanity growing out of this debauchery, and reaching into the third and fourth generations. It is getting to be time to ask, do our courts, our laws, our alms-houses and our jails deal with the question presented?”

Arthur H. Estabrook, a field worker of the Eugenics Record Office, later used Dugdale’s original research and traced Juke descendants to produce a follow-up study, The Jukes in 1915. Estabrook displayed photographs of the Jukes along with some of his data at the 1921 International Exhibition of Eugenics in New York.

]]> “The Jukes” : a study in crime, pauperism, disease and heredity ; also further studies of criminals by R. L. Dugdale]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> The Kallikak family, tracks 480 descendants of Martin Kallikak, known as the “Old Horror,” the illegitimate son of a feeble-minded girl. Among the descendants were alcoholics, prostitutes, epileptics, criminals, illegitimate children, and children who died in infancy. As Goddard states, “The surprise and horror of it all was that no matter where we traced them, whether in the prosperous rural district, in the city slums to which some had drifted, or in the more remote mountain regions, or whether it was a question of the second or the sixth generation, an appalling amount of defectiveness was everywhere found.” Legitimate Kallikak descendants, however, proved to be prosperous and upright citizens.]]> The Kallikak family : a study in the heredity of feeble-mindedness by Henry Herbert Goddard. The frontispiece is a 1912 photo of Deborah Kallikak.]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> “very weak and the very vicious” to liquidation by the state through the use of carbonic acid gas. In his chapter “A remedy,” McKim states, “The surest, the simplest, the kindest, and most humane means for preventing reproduction among those whom we deem unworthy of this high privilege, is a gentle, painless death; and this should be administered not as a punishment, but as an expression of enlightened pity for the victims—too defective by nature to find true happiness in life—and as a duty toward the community and toward our own offspring.” Numbered among McKim’s “unworthy” are imbeciles, epileptics, drunkards, murderers, house-breakers, and the insane.]]> Heredity and Human Progress by W. Duncan McKim]]> ]]> Eugenical news started in 1916 and was, at various times, the official organ of the Eugenics Research Association and then the American Eugenics Society. Appearing monthly, the Eugenical newswas published by the Eugenics Record Office at this period and includes articles on the heredity of historical figures as well as items of news related to the eugenics movement, birth control and birth rate, and immigration and sterilization laws and other legislation.

The Eugenical news later became the Eugenics quarterly and appears now as the journal Biodemography and social biology.

]]> Eugenical News, volume 3, number 5 (May, 1918)]]> here through the Medical Heritage Library]]> The eugenics review first appeared in 1909 and was published continuously until this, its final volume under that title. In 1969, the publication was reformulated as the Journal of biosocial science and continues today. As part of the change, the Society encapsulated the rise and fall of the eugenics movement by stating that “the initial drive behind it, as behind the Society, came from those concerned with social evils, rather than with human biology. This orientation was understandable in the context of 1909 when social evils were obvious to all but knowledge of human genetics was rudimentary and human cytogenetics was unknown. The overall result was that in those early days the eugenic ideals of the few vastly outran knowledge and both outran the motivation of the many.”]]> The Eugenics Review]]> here]]> the Reactivation of the Dight Institute 1947-1949, in the Dight Institute Bulletin, no. 6 (1949)]]> Bulletin : Dight Institute of the University of Minnesota 1942-1951, no. 6, 1949]]> Bulletin no. 1 of the Dight Institute]]> Bulletin : Dight Institute of the University of Minnesota 1942-1951, no. 1, 1943]]> ]]> ]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

]]> Henry Fairfield Osborn, in his address of welcome, states, “In the United States we are slowly waking to the consciousness that education and environment do not fundamentally alter racial values. We are engaged in a serious struggle to maintain our historic republican institutions through barring the entrance of those who are unfit to share the duties and responsibilities of our well-founded government. The true spirit of American democracy that all men are born with equal rights and duties has been confused with the political sophistry that all men are born with equal character and ability to govern themselves and others, and with the educational sophistry that education and environment will offset the handicap of heredity.”

]]> Eugenics, genetics and the family : scientific papers of the Second International Congress of Eugenics]]> The Second International Exhibition of Eugenics. Frontispiece shows the exhibition hall.]]> “were, for the most part, either very long or very round, with well developed pattern, probably indicating that the criminal is potentially well endowed but improperly uses his endowment. Most of the crimes were minor ones—breaking and entering, drunkenness, vagrancy, now and then a major crime of murder. It was striking, perhaps fortunate, that the majority of these men were unmarried.” This specimen, no. 576, shows the brain of a Canadian alcoholic vagrant whose mother died insane. Dr. Canavan and Louise Eisenhardt published this series of photographs as The brains of fifty insane criminals : shapes and patterns, in 1942.]]> Brain of an alcoholic vagrant, N 15 53, #576, published in The brains of fifty insane criminals : shapes and patterns in 1942 and displayed at 2nd International Exhibition of Eugenics in 1921.]]> An online guide to the collection is available. Click here.

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