Category: Archives and Rare Books

Archives and Rare Books

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them at Becker Library

By — November 17, 2016

If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you’re probably aware that the Potterverse is about to expand with the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This new film follows the adventures of Newt Scamander, the wizard who authored the textbook Harry and his fellow Hogwarts students used in their Care of Magical Creatures class. While we Muggles (or No-Majs, as we’re called in North America) are unlikely to encounter any hippogriffs, acromantulas, and grindylows in person, if you venture up to Becker’s Archives and Rare Books you can see them in some of our historical texts!

Archives and Rare Books

Medical School Militarized

By — November 11, 2016

On Veterans Day the United States honors those who served in the United States Armed Forces. Washington University School of Medicine has educated many military men and women over the years, including one particularly interesting group.

During the Second World War it was possible to be an active serviceman or servicewoman and still attend medical school – or nursing or dental school – by participating in the US Army’s Specialist Training Program (ASTP), the Navy’s V-12 Program, or the Cadet Nurse Corps.

Archives and Rare Books

Fireworks, Jelly, and a Feather Duster: Early Gifts to St. Louis Children’s Hospital

By — October 26, 2016

In 1880, a year after St. Louis Children’s Hospital’s opening; the newly minted hospital published its first annual report. In addition to a list of hospital officers and a report of the hospital Board of Managers, the 1879-1880 annual report included a list of the various donors and donations given to the new hospital. Monetary donations are listed alongside gifts of items such as blankets, pillows, and cribs. These usual donations are interspaced with eclectic items that the people of St. Louis gifted to their new children’s hospital.

Archives and Rare Books

Contacting Ghosts

By — October 13, 2016

The end of fall is the season when the veil between our world and the spirit world is thinnest. That means Halloween is the best possible time to try to communicate with ghosts and spirits!

Archives and Rare Books

Teresa J. Vietti, MD: Pioneer Pediatric Oncologist

By — October 5, 2016

“At a time when care for children with cancer was only compassion, Teresa Vietti almost single-handedly developed the approach of laboratory-based studies, translational research and clinical trials. She was truly the mother of multimodality cancer treatment."

Teresa J. Vietti, MD

Archives and Rare Books

25 volumes of Washington University’s the Hatchet yearbook now available online

By — October 4, 2016

The Becker Library is pleased to announce the first 25 volumes of Washington University’s yearbook The Hatchet are now available online in the Digital Commons.  The 1903 through 1928 yearbooks feature all of the Schools at Washington University, photographs of students and faculty, fraternities and sororities, sports teams, and student life.

Archives and Rare Books

Banned Books Week: Thomas Browne

By — September 29, 2016

September 25 – October 1 is Banned Books week. Hopefully you saw Susan Fowler’s earlier Becker Brief about Banned Medical Books (if not, check it out here!), but we also wanted to take the time to post about historical banned books. One of the works in our special collections that was once censored by the  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

Phrenology exemplified and illustrated or Scraps no. 7 by D.C. Johnston, Boston, 1837

By — August 31, 2016

Phrenology has many definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary.  My favorite is:

The theory that the mental powers or characteristics of an individual consist of separate faculties, each of which has its location in an organ found in a definite region of the surface of the brain, the size or development of which is commensurate with the development of the particular faculty; the study of the external conformation of the cranium as an index to the position and degree of development of the various faculties. (Phrenology, Oxford English Dictionary c 2016)

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