Author: Martha Riley

Archives and Rare Books

Aphrodite J. Hofsommer, M.D. and her medical illustrations, 1929-1939

By — January 28, 2021

Today we are highlighting twenty-three medical illustrations dating from 1929-39. These beautiful black and white and full-color illustrations are by Aphrodite J. Hofsommer, MD, one of the first female graduates of Washington University School of Medicine. The drawings were donated by her son-in-law, Robert Glaser, and are now part of the Robert J. Glaser Photographs  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

Martin Kamen and Tracer Technology at WashU

By — February 19, 2020

This is the second installment in an ongoing series on Martin Kamen. Read the first installment here.   There was every prospect of a brilliant career for me in isotopic tracer methodology, a tool crucial in developments that would eventually usher in the era of molecular biology, bringing with it an understanding of the molecular  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

Carbon 14, The Cyclotroneers, and Washington University

By — May 21, 2019

Martin Kamen is not a household name today, but his synthesis of Carbon 14 in February 1940 was the first of many achievements in his long career as a chemist. In 1944, Kamen, a chemist in the new field of radiochemistry, worked for the Manhattan Project at Berkeley Radiation Laberatory and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

Women Come to WUSM

By — February 25, 2019

The 19th amendment to the constitution gave women the right to vote. Suffragists had cause to rejoice when it passed both houses of Congress in May and June 1919. Carol Skinner Cole (1888-1932) and Aphrodite Maria Jannopoulo (1896-1976) must have been on top of the world. They were the first women admitted as medical students at  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

16th-Century Flap Anatomies in Becker Medical Library

By — December 21, 2018

Anatomical flap books from the 16th and 19th century will be on display for First Fridays @ Becker on Jan. 4, 2019, in the Farrell Teaching and Learning Center (FLTC) hearth space from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Anatomical flap books contain anatomical illustrations with moveable parts. These visual aids simulate the process of anatomical  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

Descartes’ ‘Treatise of Man’

By — August 21, 2018

Rene Descartes’ “Treatise of Man” is my favorite work of the 35 in “Brain Localization: Images and ideas through 500 years, an exhibit of rare books” currently on display in the library’s Glaser Gallery. According to “Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine, #627,” “it was the first European textbook on physiology” and noteworthy  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

Moratorium, 1969 and St. Louis Doctors for Peace

By — September 20, 2017

With “The Vietnam War: A film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick” airing this week on PBS, it is a good time to examine the oral history of David Kennell, MD, and his archives on St. Louis Doctors for Peace. Kennell’s oral history and papers contain documentation of the 1969 Moratorium, an event to promote peace  [Read more]

1 2 3