Archives and Rare Books

Todtentanz – The Early Modern Dance of Death

Modern medical texts tend to be straightforward in their content, presenting the necessary information without artistic embellishment. Their medieval and early modern counterparts, however, made ample use of visual allegory. We’ve already talked about several famous examples, such as Vesalius’s evocation of classical statuary and the various Greco-Roman deities tucked into frontispieces, but today we’re  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

The Humors and You! Medieval Health, Diet, and Humoral Theory

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]

Archives and Rare Books

All the World’s A Stage: The Academic Dialogue in Print

One of the joys of reading primary sources is that it can provide us with a direct window into the past—browsing through an old distillation manual can lead down the path of researching medicinal cannibalism, or mentions of moon phases can provoke a segue into medical astrology. But it isn’t just the words that can  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

Vaccinae vindicia: an 1806 defense of vaccination

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]

Archives and Rare Books

Travel Scholarships Available for Archives and Rare Books Collections Use

Bernard Becker Medical Library is fortunate to have robust collections in archives and rare books that document the history of medicine from the late 15th century up to the present. Subjects in which the library’s holdings are particularly strong include ophthalmology and optics, neurology, deaf education, and the history of dentistry. In order to encourage  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

Louise Bourgeois and the first obstetrics book published by a woman

Although the medical field and publications were dominated by men during the European pre-modern period, Louise Bourgeois made a name for herself as both a medical professional and the author of numerous medical texts. To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re highlighting a woman author from our collections! Louise Bourgeois (also known as Boursier) (1563-1636) was a  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

Thomsonian Medicine: Herbalism, Home Remedies, and Popular Distrust of Professional Medical Training in 19th-Century America

Be sure to bundle up well this winter to avoid getting sick and catching a cold! While this common ailment has no cure, that hasn’t stopped people throughout history from coming up with ways to alleviate their sniffles, coughs and all other cold-related discomforts. In his work The book of health, Dr. Silas Wilcox described  [Read more]

Archives and Rare Books

Five centuries of gender bias in anatomy

The portrayal of anatomy is not necessarily objective. Anatomical atlases are products of both the individuals and the culture that produced them, and this is reflected in their pages. In some instances, anatomical texts show an association with eroticism, particularly regarding the female form. One of the most well-known instances of this is Charles Estienne’s  [Read more]

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