Browse Items (152 total)
- Collection: Harvard Medical Library
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The Mirror
From 1912 until 1943, the Dental School had its own yearbook, The Mirror, analogous to the Medical School's yearbook, The Aesculapiad. The 1925 edition describes the Dental Museum and its holdings and includes photographs of the interior and the…
Library of the Massachusetts Medical College
Harvard Medical School established a library of its own in 1816. This pamphlet of rules was printed and distributed to students following the collection's unification with the Boston Medical Library in 1819.
Description of the Physiological Laboratory
A large proportion of the new building on Boylston Street was devoted to laboratory space with adequate natural light. The Physiological Laboratory (“… intended to serve primarily as a laboratory of research, and secondarily as an…
Course Schedule
As part of the reform movement at Harvard, the recommended medical degree course was extended from three years to four in 1880. Students could still finish the requirements for an M.D. in three years, and anyone who completed a fourth was granted the…
Some Account of the Medical School in Boston, and of the Massachusetts General Hospital
This brief promotional pamphlet describes the Harvard Medical School at its Mason Street location and also the clinical and surgical opportunities offered by the new Massachusetts General Hospital. The school and hospital both at this period would…
Warren's handbook of anatomy
The lineal descendant of John Warren and John Collins Warren, John Warren (1874-1928) received a degree from the Medical School in 1900; he became a professor of anatomy at Harvard and was noted for his dissection work. During the last years of his…
Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development
In the notes to the introduction of this work, which assembles and revises his writings since the publication of Hereditary genius, Galton coins the neologism which gave its name to a movement: “That is, with questions bearing on what is termed…
The Illustrated Self-Instructor in Phrenology and Physiology
The Fowler brothers used 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.…
Henry Jacob Bigelow at age 23
Image of Henry Jacob Bigelow in Paris in 1841.
The physician's pulse-watch
English physician Sir John Floyer invented a watch to measure the rate of the pulse and here translates some relevant portions of the Specimen medicinae Sinicae("The Chinese art of Feeling the Pulse is describ'd; and the Imitation of their Practice…
The Eugenics Review
The official organ for the Eugenics Society in England, 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…
Eugenical News
One of the early periodical publications devoted to eugenics, the 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…
A hebdomadal reminiscence of diurnal events
James Arthur Emmerton (HMS 1858) of Salem used this diary every Sunday to record his experiences a student at Harvard Medical School from 1855 through 1857. He then returned to it to document life in the 23rd Massachusetts Volunteers during the…
Curso de botanica medica
This is a second edition of Durañona’s basic textbook for the study of medicinal plants and their uses.
Philip Drinker first demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of an artificial respirator
Original notes on early experiments leading to the development of the iron lung
The Parkman Murder : Trial of Prof. John W. Webster for the Murder of Dr. 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.…
A Journal of the Harvard Medical School Unit to the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris, Spring of 1915 / by Elliott Carr Cutler. [S.l.] : [s.n.] 1916?
Harvard's first involvement in World War I was staffing the American Ambulance Hospital in Neuilly during the spring of 1915; it was the second unit dispatched from the United States to the hospital. The Harvard Unit had a surgical staff, under…
Student Lecture Notes on Anatomy
Even the most renowned of neurosurgeons was once a first-year medical student, as illustrated by this volume of Harvey Cushing's notes on the anatomical lectures of Thomas Dwight. The Harvard Medical School student at this period attended anatomy…
The natural method of cureing the diseases of the body, and the disorders of the mind depending on the body
This copy of the second edition of George Cheyne’s work on disease is a rare and notable survivor of the disastrous Harvard fire of 1762. On the night of January 24th, during a storm of snow and high wind, Harvard Hall, containing the…
A Treatise on Etherization in Childbirth, Page 126
Page 126 from A Treatise on Etherization in Childbirth, by Walter Channing, MD, depicting a design for an ether delivery devise. Dr. Channing was Professor of Midwifery and Medical Jurisprudence and Dean of the Faculty at Harvard Medical College. In…
A Treatise on Etherization in Childbirth, Page 1
First page of A Treatise on Etherization in Childbirth, by Walter Channing, MD. Dr. Channing was Professor of Midwifery and Medical Jurisprudence and Dean of the Faculty at Harvard Medical College. In 1832, he became a founder and chief physician of…
A Treatise on Etherization in Childbirth, Title Page
The title page from A Treatise on Etherization in Childbirth, by Walter Channing, MD.
Dr. Channing was Professor of Midwifery and Medical Jurisprudence and Dean of the Faculty at Harvard Medical College. In 1832, he became a founder and chief…
Insertion of nasopharyngeal airway
Figure 23 from Obstetrical Anesthesia, Its Priciples and Practice by Bert B. Hershenson, MD demonstrates the proper placement of an endotracheal tube.
Catalogue of Books in the Boylston Medical Library (1824)
Before the formation of the Boston Medical Library, Harvard's Boylston Medical Library was the principal local collection not in private hands. The collection remained with the University in Cambridge after the Medical School removed to Boston in…
Catalogue of Books in the Boston Medical Library, and the Rules and Regulations concerning the Same (1808)
The copy of the 1808 Catalogue belonged to Dr. John Collins Warren, who held the office of Librarian at this time. The emendations probably represent an inventory of the collection, along with printing corrections for a subsequent edition in 1810.
Address to students in physic
Two years after the opening the Medical School, this account, published by the Harvard Corporation in the Boston magazine, described the progress of the new institution. Anatomical study under John Warren was one of the foundations of the curriculum,…
World's Largest Tooth Now Owned by Harvard
In 1929, Boston newspapers ran some unusual articles on the latest acquisition of the Dental Museum. This was no human Tooth, but a mastodon's tusk estimated to be 50,000 years old. Over 11 feet long and weighing 300 pounds, it was one of the…
Zabdiel Boylston Adams (1829-1902)
A graduate of Harvard Medical School in 1853, Zabdiel Boylston Adams enlisted in 1861, joining the 7th Massachusetts Volunteers as an assistant surgeon. He was later a captain with the 56th Massachusetts Volunteers. Adams was wounded at Orange…
Insensibility during Surgical Operations Produced by Inhalation
On October 16, 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. John Collins Warren performed the first public operation on a patient under ether anesthesia administered by dentist William T. G. Morton. Dr. Henry Jacob Bigelow witnessed the event and…
Laryngoscope placement in a newborn
Figure 33 from Obstetrical Anesthesia, Its Priciples and Practice, Bert B. Hershenson, MD demonstrates the first step in intubating a newborn—placement of the laryngoscope.
A group of deaf-mute families from Maine
As part of his research on deafness, Alexander Graham Bell made statistical analyses of the deaf-mutes and determined that deafness was hereditary and that the number of intermarriages between deaf-mutes was high and growing. He concluded that…
Intern : now you are the physician!
Intern was developed by two physicians based on their experiences on the house staffs at Duke University and Johns Hopkins. The object of this unusual board game is for the intern to be the first to admit, diagnose, and treat all of his or her…
Aristotelous
This is a rare early Greek edition of the collected medical and scientific works of Aristotle and contains texts on birth and death, youth and old age, respiration, divination, sleep, and memory.
Analytical review of Jenner's "An Inquiry..."
This anonymous article, appearing in December 1798, is the first American publication to discuss the work of Edward Jenner.
Map of Boston
Published in the May 5th issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, this map for attendees of the meeting graphically demonstrates the distance of the new Medical School campus from the center of Boston.
Invitation to Tea
Each afternoon during the American Medical Association's meeting in Boston, a musical tea was held on the new Medical School Quadrangle.
Scientific Exhibit in the New Buildings of the Harvard Medical School
During the course of the AMA meeting, demonstrations, lectures, models, photographs and slides, and other anatomical, pathological and scientific exhibits were all mounted in the amphitheaters, laboratories, and museum galleries of the new buildings.…
Drawing of the head and neck, lateral view
This is one of the several hundred original drawings produced by H. F. Aitken and eventually published in Warren's handbook. The text accompanying this illustration states, "The side of the skull has been cut away; the brain has been removed leaving…
An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ
The first edition of Edward Jenner's publication contains his evidence that inoculation with cowpox vaccine matter could be a preventive against smallpox. Pages 32-35 concern Case XVII, an eight-year-old named James Phipps, who was inoculated with…