Browse Items (222 total)
- Collection: Boston Medical Library
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Over the teacups
The poem "To the eleven ladies who presented me with a loving cup" was reprinted in Over the teacups (1891), Holmes’ late collection of essays and poems following in the vein of The autocrat of the breakfast-table. This copy of the first…
Homeopathic Educational Services Flyer
This mail order supply house in California markets homeopathic books, tapes and DVDs, software, and home medicine kits. The firm's motto is "Homeopathic medicines: natural drugs that work," and it promotes homeopathy as "a 21st century science since…
Almanach ad annum 1494
Almanacs were used to record the most propitious days and times for purging, bloodletting, and pharmaceutical manufacture according to astrological and astronomical events. This specimen for the city of Erfurt in 1494 includes woodcuts depicting…
An Introductory Discourse, to a Course of Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Physic
This pamphlet is a presentation copy to the Boston Medical Library from its author, David Hosack, a celebrated New York physician who was in attendance at the duel of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr in 1804. Four of the five items bound together…
Malleus maleficarum
This is a first edition of the Malleus maleficarum [The Witches' Hammer], the foremost legal and theological handbook on witchcraft and demonology. It describes the operations of witches, remedies against spells, and the judicial proceedings of…
Eugenics, genetics and the family : scientific papers of the Second International Congress of Eugenics
There were three international meetings of eugenics researchers during the period of the movement’s greatest influence and activity. This volume reprints the scientific papers from the Second Congress, held at the American Museum of Natural…
The Second International Exhibition of Eugenics
Harry Hamilton Laughlin was chairman of the Committee on Exhibits associated with the Second International Congress and organized this display at the American Museum of Natural History in the fall of 1921. A gift of $2,500 from Mrs. E. H. Harriman…
Facsimile telegram
Following Holmes’ resignation of his professorship at Harvard, the physicians of New York hosted a public dinner in his honor. Each guest was given a mock telegram from “The American Rabid Telegraph Company,” quoting lines from…
De Febribus
Isaac Israeli was born in Egypt and studied widely in natural history, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. He settled in Kairwan, Tunisia, where he served as court physician to the caliph and wrote several esteemed medical and philosphical works in…
Nasology, or, Hints towards a Classification of Noses
This extended joke at the expense of phrenology passed through several editions in the mid-19th century and was published under the pseudonym of Eden Warwick. George Jabet maintains that the nose, besides being an ornament to the face, or a…
The history of Japan, giving an account of the ancient and present state and government of that empire
A later translation into English of the work of Englebert Kaempfer, who traveled in Japan in the early 1690's, as part of an historical survey of Japan
Acupuncture illustration from Amoentitatum exoticarum
Some of the best descriptions and illustrations of acupuncture and moxibustion appear in the work of Englebert Kaempfer who traveled in Japan in the early 1690s.
Moxibustion illustration from Amoentitatum exoticarum
Some of the best descriptions and illustrations of acupuncture and moxibustion appear in the work of Englebert Kaempfer who traveled in Japan in the early 1690s.
Fasciculus medicinae
Although notable as one of the first incunables acquired by the Boston Medical Library, this first edition of the Fasciculus medicinae is also a cornerstone in the history of medicine, as it contains the first detailed anatomical illustrations ever…
Ueber Schwarzwasserfieber
The Hyams Collection includes the Hand-apparat, an extensive working pamphlet collection of August von Wassermann (1866-1925), a German bacteriologist who worked with Robert Koch and discovered the Wassermann test for syphilis. The collection focuses…
Tumors among the Chinese
Many of the patients treated at the Ophthalmic Hospital in Canton by Peter Parker in the 1830s were immortalized in large color portraits produced by the artist Lam Qua (1801-1860). This album contains rare watercolor studies for a number of the Lam…
A most excellent and learned woorke of chirurgerie, called Chirurgia parua Lanfranci
The 16th century English surgeon, John Hall, translated the medieval Chiurgia parva of Lanfranc and added to it his lament for the poor training of surgeons in his own time. His poetical defense of surgery was intended to show "the behavour that is…
Eugenical sterilization in the United States
Harry H. Laughlin was director of Eugenics Record Office for thirty years and assisted Charles B. Davenport in first publishing the Eugenics Research Association’s Eugenical news to promote the activities of the Office. In 1922, he compiled and…
Traite ou reflexions tirees de la pratique sur les playes d'armes a feu
Although the Countway's collections have long held copies of the second (1740) and also the 1748 and 1759 editions of Le Dran's famous treatise on gunshot wounds and military surgery, as well as the first English translation from 1743, this fine copy…
De Lapidibus
De Lapidibus was one of the most popular works of scientific and medical lore current in the Middle Ages. Translations into French, Spanish, Irish, Hebrew, and English are known, while over 125 Latin manuscripts have survived. This is one of only…
Photographs of the Harvard Unit assembled by Geraldine K. Martin
In the summer of 1915, Geraldine Kemmis Martin (b. 1887) traveled to Paris as an operating nurse with the Harvard Unit of the American Ambulance Hospital and assembled an album of photographs of her colleagues and experiences in World War I. The…
The Massachusetts Register and United States Calendar for the Year of Our Lord 1807
This edition of a directory of local institutions, societies, and charitable organizations contains the earliest entry for the Boston Medical Library and a list of its officers and Trustees.
Minute Book of the Massachusetts Homeopathic Fraternity
Formed by Samuel Gregg and a handful of other pioneer practitioners, the Massachusetts Homeopathic Fraternity met monthly at the homes of its members to discuss cases and exchange information. It came to have over eighty members and eventually…
Ballot to dissolve the Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society
On April 15, 1964, at the 124th annual meeting, the members of the Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society voted 10-5 to dissolve their organization.
Signatures of the new members of the Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society
Following the reorganization of the Medical Fraternity as the Medical Society, the members used this volume to record changes in the by-laws. New members added their signatures upon admission to the society through 1881.
Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society fellowship certificate
Dr. James Krauss (1866-1939) received his medical degree magna cum laude in 1889 and practiced in Boston, specializing in genito-urinary medicine and surgery
Catalogue of fellows of the Massachusetts Medical Society
Printed as part of the published proceedings of the Society, this list of fellows from 1872 is the last to include homeopathic members such as Israel Tisdale Talbot, David Thayer, and Herman L. H. Hoffendahl, prior to their expulsion in June 1873.…
Records of the Massachusetts Medical Library
The Massachusetts Medical Society formed its own library in 1782. Although the Boston Medical Library surpassed it in size, this record of the library's circulation from the mid-1820s indicates several of the Boston Medical Library…
An act more effectually to protect the sepulchres of the dead, and to legalize the study of anatomy in certain cases.
Bound copy of the 1831 "An act more effectually to protect the sepulchres of the dead, and to legalize the study of anatomy in certain cases."
Heredity and human progress
In this radical work, Washington physician, William Duncan McKim, proposed moving beyond sterilization of the “very weak and the very vicious” to liquidation by the state through the use of carbonic acid gas. In his chapter “A…
Soldiers' Fair at Springfield, Massachusetts
Recto: "Abraham Lincoln born Feb. 12, 1809."
Verso: "Soldiers' fair, Dec' 1864. Springfield, Mass."
Verso: "Soldiers' fair, Dec' 1864. Springfield, Mass."
An account of a monster
In 1821, Philadelphia physician John Kearsley Mitchell met and examined Aké, a Chinese youth with a partially-formed parasitic twin protruding from his stomach, and sent back this first-hand report from Canton.
"The autobiography of a quack : and the case of George Dedlow"
This tale of a Civil War soldier, George Dedlow, who loses both his arms and his legs but continues to experience sensation in his missing limbs the phantom limb phenomenon was written by Silas Weir Mitchell and grew out of his experience with…
Heredity : its relation to human development
In 1880, Bostonian Loring Moody, familiar with Galton’s work, issued a circular to form an Institute of Heredity, part school, part library, to promote lectures and interest in addressing social ills through eugenic principles. The circular…
Memoir on acupuncturation
This first American publication on acupuncture was translated from the French by Franklin Bache, a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, "believing … that a short treatise on Acupuncturation, from the growing importance of the remedy, and the…
An answer to the homœopathic delusions, of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes
This is one of the pamphlets printed in reaction to the Holmes lecture on homeopathy. In responding to Holmes' criticism of the use of infinitesimal doses, Charles Neidhard states, "We, with many Homœopathic physicians, have never believed in…
Homœopathy : with particular reference to a lecture by O. W. Holmes, M.D.
Pamphlet printed in reaction to the Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) lecture on homeopathy.
Coloquios dos Simples, e Drogas he Cousas Medicinais da India
Once physician to the King of Portugal, Garcia de Orta travelled to India in order to escape the Inquisition, and remained there the rest of his life. He taught in the faculty of medicine at Lisbon in the early 1530's; in 1534, he settled in Goa,…
"North Western Sanitary Fair, Chicago, Ill., 1865."
Columbia to left, waving American flag. At her feet, an eagle, shield with arrows, and boxes and barrels that are marked NW, NW SV and N.W. SAN COM. The sun setting behing mountains, artillery park, and lake with ships and monitor.
Iusiurandum
At the end of Nicolaus Perottus' De generibus metrorum appears one of the most famous documents in the history of medicine, ethics, and education: the first printing of the Iusiurandum, the Hippocratic Oath. While certainly not composed by…
Perspectivas bioeticas en las americas
The Jackson fund allows for the acquisition of both historical and contemporary works in Latin American medicine, and the Countway now holds a complete run of this bioethical journal from 1996 until the present.
De revelatione facta ab angelo Beato Methodio in carcere dete[n]to
This book of prophecies attributed to the fourth-century martyr, Methodius, was probably composed by a fifteenth century monk, Wolfgang Aytinger, to arouse animosity between Christians and Muslims. Although not specifically medical, the De…
De sermonum proprietate, sive, Opus de universo
This encyclopedia of a ninth-century archbishop is the oldest incunable in the Boston Medical Library collection. The De sermonum proprietate contains chapters on subjects as diverse as the earth, animals, precious stones and metals, heretics,…
Dissertatio de arthritide
Published by a physician and botanist of the Dutch East India Company in Japan, this text contains the first Western description of acupuncture.
Trials of a public benefactor, as illustrated in the discovery of etherization
Commissioned by William T. G. Morton, Trials of a public benefactor attempts to provide support for his claim to precedence in the discovery of ether anesthesia. Here, as part of the story, Oliver Wendell Holmes coins the term in a letter to Morton…
Das Buch der Croniken und Geschichten
The first German edition of Hartmann Schedel's famous Nuremberg Chronicle traces the history of the world through six ages, from the Creation to 1493, concluding with the Apocalypse. Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff designed maps, city…
Great Central Sanitary Fair at Philadelphia
Recto: "We gave our wealth for those who gave their health for us."
Verso: "In commemoration of the great central fair for the U.S. Sanitary Commission held at Philadelphia, June 1864."
Verso: "In commemoration of the great central fair for the U.S. Sanitary Commission held at Philadelphia, June 1864."
An Examination of Phrenology
While a professor of anatomy and physiology at Columbian College in Washington, D.C., Thomas Sewall published these two lectures to students—one of the earliest attacks on phrenological doctrine—based on his study of the brain's…
Nautilus bookplate
On January 23, 1889, Oliver Wendell Holmes presented his book collection of over 900 volumes to the Boston Medical Library, with holdings ranging over four centuries, from the most current publications back to the beginnings of printing. A copy of…
Outlines of Phrenology
Published while Spurzheim was touring in America, the 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…
Receipts to cure various disorders for my worthy friend, Mr. Winthrop
English physician Edward Stafford compiled this 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.
Homœopathy simplified; or, domestic practice made easy
This popular manual of domestic homeopathic practice—dedicated to Samuel Gregg—went through five editions. Its author, John A. Tarbell, also published the Pocket homœopathist and edited the Quarterly homœopathic review and…
The collegian, no. I
The first published poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes were printed in the six issues of a monthly Harvard undergraduate student magazine, The collegian, from February through July, 1830. Some of his poems then appeared in Illustrations of the…
The Pellet
During the Massachusetts Homoeopathic Hospital Fair, this newsletter of anecdotes and poetry, The Pellet, was printed and sold each day. The Fair itself raised $72,000 and prompted the formation of the homeopathic medical school at Boston University.
The Thomsonian Manual
The Thomsonian botanical movement, like homeopathic medicine, developed its own culture of authorized druggists and agents and published books and a number of short-lived periodicals, including this one from Boston.
New guide to health
First published in 1822, Thomson's New guide to health (later known as The Thomsonian materia medica) was the cornerstone of the Thomsonian botanical medical movement and went through thirteen editions by 1841. Many editions were prefaced, as here,…
Thomson's patent for Elijah Trescott
Many copies of the New guide to health and the Thomsonian materia medica contain, as does this one, certificates attesting to the holder's right to use Thomsonian preparations as a member of the Friendly Botanic Society. By 1840, Samuel Thomson had…
Vaccinae Vindicia
Robert John Thornton published this detailed account of smallpox vaccination cases as an attack on Dr. Benjamin Moseley (1742-1819) and other opponents of Edward Jenner's work. In 1800, Moseley, a member of the Royal College of Physicians, suggested…
"Sanitary Commission bulletin," vol. 1, no. 2.
Issued twice monthly from November, 1863, to August, 1865, the Bulletin reported on the work of the Commission and the local sanitary fairs, accounts of battles and the experiences of prisoners of war, and provided a regular means to report on the…
"Sanitary Commission bulletin," vol. 1, no. 22.
Issued twice monthly from November, 1863, to August, 1865, the Bulletin reported on the work of the Commission and the local sanitary fairs, accounts of battles and the experiences of prisoners of war, and provided a regular means to report on the…
Traveling homeopathic pharmaceutical kit
Inscription inside reads: "This medicine case is one of the articles which belonged to the late 1st Lieut. Alfred R. Glover, who was killed in battle, June 14th, 1863, at Port Hudson, La., and was afterward returned to his home."
"Artificial limbs removed"
John Wales January enlisted in Company B of the 14th Illinois Cavalry and was captured in July, 1864. The reverse of the original print of this photograph gives January's account of his sufferings as a prisoner of war and the amputation of his own…
J. M. Da Costa
Jacob M. Da Costa was a Philadelphia physician who identified a cardiac phenomenon in soldiers which he termed "irritable heart."
Great fair for the Sanitary Commission held at New York.
Verso: "Blessed is the Giver. Great fair for the Sanitary Commission, New York, May, 1864."
Death of Dr. Spurzheim
This unsigned obituary is one of several articles devoted to J. G. Spurzheim printed in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal at this time. Note the prominent medical figures, including Drs. John Collins Warren, James Jackson, Walter Channing, and…
Verses Inscribed by a Phrenologist on a Skull
The variety of subjects allied to phrenology under the Fowler brothers is illustrated by this volume of their popular periodical. In addition to biographical sketches of prominent individuals, cranial analyses, and news of the progress of the…
Oliver Wendell Holmes, circa 1872
The original of this photograph is preserved in an album of the members of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, compiled in 1872. Holmes was elected to membership in the society in 1836, just after his graduation from Harvard Medical School.
Harvard Medical School in 1883
During the 1880s, Holmes was involved with the fund-raising appeals for the Medical School’s Boylston Street building. As part of the centennial celebration and dedication of the new building in 1883, he delivered this oration, tracing the…
Diary of a man seeking care under Samuel Hahnemann
After a course of cupping, blistering, and taking the waters at the German spa of Wiesbaden, the unnamed subject of this diary sought relief from his rheumatism by coming under the care of Samuel Hahnemann in Paris in 1838.
Samuel Gregg
This unusual album of carte-de-visite photographs was assembled by Dr. Samuel Gregg, the first homeopathic practitioner in Massachusetts. In addition to photographs of Gregg, the album contains portraits of many of the homeopaths of New England,…
Luther Clark
This unusual album of carte-de-visitephotographs was assembled by Dr. Samuel Gregg, the first homeopathic practitioner in Massachusetts. In addition to photographs of Gregg, the album contains portraits of many of the homeopaths of New England,…
Constantine Hering
This unusual album of carte-de-visitephotographs was assembled by Dr. Samuel Gregg, the first homeopathic practitioner in Massachusetts. In addition to photographs of Gregg, the album contains portraits of many of the homeopaths of New England,…
Conrad Wesselhoeft
This unusual album of carte-de-visitephotographs was assembled by Dr. Samuel Gregg, the first homeopathic practitioner in Massachusetts. In addition to photographs of Gregg, the album contains portraits of many of the homeopaths of New England,…
Otis Clapp
This unusual album of carte-de-visitephotographs was assembled by Dr. Samuel Gregg, the first homeopathic practitioner in Massachusetts. In addition to photographs of Gregg, the album contains portraits of many of the homeopaths of New England,…
Israel Tisdale Talbot
This unusual album of carte-de-visitephotographs was assembled by Dr. Samuel Gregg, the first homeopathic practitioner in Massachusetts. In addition to photographs of Gregg, the album contains portraits of many of the homeopaths of New England,…
Milton Fuller
This unusual album of carte-de-visitephotographs was assembled by Dr. Samuel Gregg, the first homeopathic practitioner in Massachusetts. In addition to photographs of Gregg, the album contains portraits of many of the homeopaths of New England,…
David Thayer
This unusual album of carte-de-visite photographs was assembled by Dr. Samuel Gregg, the first homeopathic practitioner in Massachusetts. In addition to photographs of Gregg, the album contains portraits of many of the homeopaths of New England,…
Regimen sanitatis
Probably the most popular medical work of the fifteenth century, the Latin Regimen sanitatis [Rule of Health] was translated into almost every European language following its first appearance in print in 1480. Nearly forty different editions were…
Hortus sanitatis
The Hortus sanitatis [Garden of Health] was a popular compendium of plant and herb lore during the Middle Ages. This is the first Latin edition, and twenty others were printed in Latin before 1547 attesting to its popularity. In addition to botanical…
Lines of the hand and their associated zodiac symbols
Chiromancy or palmistry is the study of the lines and shapes of the human hand to determine an individual's characteristics and analyze past, present, and future events. Books on the subject were among the most popular incunables produced. This brief…
Pestblatt
This broadside sheet was printed during an epidemic of plague in the German city of Augsburg in the early 1470s. The woodcut depicts Saints Sebastian and Roch (accompanied by an angel), comforting those struck down by the plague. Prayers to the two…
Herbolarium de virtutibus herbarum
The Herbolarium describes the medicinal uses of common herbs and plants with woodcut illustrations of each. The work was once attributed to the medieval physician Arnaldus de Villanova (d. 1311) because of this imaginative frontispiece depicting a…
The Medical Repository of Original Essays and Intelligence Relative to Physic, Surgery, Chemistry and Natural History
The early 19th century saw the rise of the medical journal as an outlet to disseminate news of discoveries, book reviews, and matters of interest to physicians. It also heralded the beginning of the proliferation of medical publishing. As part of its…