If you stopped by the Annual Display of Rare Anatomical Books last week, you might have seen visitors hard at work on a scavenger hunt around the display. The fruit of their labors? The new tarot decks made with images from our rare book collections! Tarot cards are seen as divination tools and are thus [Read more]
When discussing medical history, it is common for narratives to focus predominantly on Europe and America — yet doing so misses large, rich parts of medical history. Spotlight on East Asia was a two-day speaker series focusing on medical history in East Asia (specifically China, Japan, and Korea), and was hosted by Becker Medical Library [Read more]
What does multiple awards-winning video game Baldur’s Gate 3 have in common with Becker Medical Library’s rare books collections? In Baldur’s Gate, players can collect plants and monster parts, which are then refined and used in potions that give special effects in the game. This mechanic mirrors the real-life practice of gathering plants and animal [Read more]
The Olympic Games are a celebration of athleticism and physical skill, traits prized by the Ancient Greeks. But what did the people of antiquity think of fitness and exercise? These topics are explored in De Arte Gymnastica, one of the earliest books on exercise and physical therapy. De Arte Gymnastica was first published in 1569 [Read more]
From February 5-9, 2024, libraries, archives and other cultural institutions around the world are sharing free coloring sheets and books based on materials from their collections. On the first floor of Becker Library, you’ll find snacks, coloring books and materials, so let your inner child take over! Read on to learn more about the images chosen from Becker’s rare [Read more]
Practitioners of humoral theory took the idea of a balanced diet to a whole new level as they incorporated the consumption of food and drink into their medical belief system. A prevalent medical practice in medieval and early-modern Europe, humoral theory has its roots as far back as Hippocrates and Galen in ancient Greece. The four [Read more]
Some say that the coronavirus vaccines are a ploy to inject the public with microchips that will constantly track your location; others claim that they’ll hook you up to the 5G network and make you explode. Some people think that the vaccine will rewrite your DNA in order to work, while others tweet about how [Read more]
From Feb. 6-10, libraries, archives and other cultural institutions around the world are sharing free coloring sheets and books based on materials from their collections. On the first floor of Becker Library, you’ll find snacks, coloring books and materials, so let your inner child take over! Then show off your masterpiece(s) to the circulation desk to win a special prize.
The event featured three presentations given by members of the WashU and St. Louis community. Each presentation served to help contextualize Frederik Ruysch’s work by looking at the history of anatomy, print engravings, and similar topics.
Also called mesmerism, animal magnetism reflected the zeitgeist of the era — a method of treatment that relied on harmony with nature and was dependent on unseen forces.