Medicine Resources in the Cincinnati Historical Society Library

4 r Patient Ward,Cincinnati Tubercular Hospital ( later Dunham Hospital), ca. 1915. CINCINNATI MUSEUMCENTER FALL 2008 Medicine Resources in the Cincinnati Historical Society Library Collections Essay n February2008,Cincinnati Museum Center opened"Bodies:The Exhibition." lhe controversial traveling exhibit features sixteen complete human bodies, fifteen fetuses, and 151 body p·arts ( in fact,289 if you count each of the pieces of one body that is sliced into 138 wafers like a threedimensional MRI scan!) that were preserved through an adv· anced process known as plastinization. In the first six months of the exhibit, more than two hundred thousand visitors stre·amed through the galleries. The opening of the Bodies exhibit sparked · a myriad of questions about the state of medic·al knowledge in the nineteenth and carly twentieth centuries LT 4 67 Al EDIC I N E RES O URCE S I N THE C I N C I NNATI H 1 S T ORICAL SOC I E ' 1' Y Order of Lectures,Medical College of Ohio,18821883 . CINCINNATI MUSEUMCENTER and what CMC has in its cc, Ilections concerning earlier medical theories and practices. Although the Cincinnati Historical Society Library is not primarily a medical collection, many of its collections have resources th·at, taken together, raise fascinating questions and provide rich opportunities for researchers of the history of medicine. In the first half of the nineteenth century, Daniel Drake, sometimes referred to aS the " Benjamin Franklin of the West, was the recognized leader of the Cincinnati medical community. In 1817 Drake founded the Medical College of Ohio,and over the next four decades he welcomed hundreds of students to the study of medicine. In his opening lecture, delivered on November 5, 1849, preserved in pamphlet fc, rm in the collections, Dr·, ike reviewed the scope of a medical education and made it clear that the young gentlemen" ( no women here)entering the school would liave to master many individual sciences and the " profession of medicine."Even after two thousand years,Drake argued that the ancient writings of Hippocrates formed " the chief treasure of any medical library. Sample class schedules preserved in the ephemera collection lay out the course of study that students in Drake's college and several other competing schools followed. Preparation to become a physician in the 1840s ind 1850s required attendance at a series of lectures in anatomy, physiology , pathology, therapeutics, and operative surgery coupled with practical experience gained by service in the wards of local hospitals. It did not require handson experience in scientific laboratories or in personally dissecting a cadaver, though hopefully the students could observe their professor perform a dissection. Ohio law required physicians to be thoroughly familiar with the htiman body, but also made the acquisition of bodies for st, idy nearly impossible until 1881. The 1844 Catalogue of the Bot: inicoMedical College of Ohio, located in Cincinnati, bo, isted that it OHIO VALLEY HISTORY A. M. 910 College Diilactic LecGoo , 1 Sanutritan Llospital. tu)· es, 1011 Professor Hyndman. Good Samaritan Hospital. Prof. Dawson. 1, rof. Reamy. 68 Medical College of Ohio. PRELIMINARY TERM, 188283 . 01_ 4D]Elt OF LECT LI 1 ZE>, 4. HOUR. MONDAY. TUESDAY. |WEDNESDAY. | THURSDAY. FlIDAY. SATIJRDAY. Daily Morning Clinict, Ilt th„ College iii all 1)( ip„ rt„„· lita by the Faculty. Prof. Hor Professor Professor Dr. French. Ib nd„ in. Dr.Zinke. Ite: imy. Seely. Profe00 ! Profmor Professor Profeior 11. 12 Dr, No fl'. Ranwl, off. Palmer. Nickles Forchheimer. P. M. Dr. Walker. 31 Dr. Cilley. 45 Dr. Firick, Ar. Beeb,·. Dr. Kebler. Dr. Roeder. Dr. T], ornal. Dr. Mitchell. EvEN, NGSC }, Imieil, 1Ii, tologic:, 1 and Pathological Lihoratorios. DAN HURLEY FALL 2008 possessed a " Manikin" which allowed an ainount c, fknowledge that it once required years to obtain can be communic: ited in just weeks. In a pamphlet published in 1841, Drake reported on his field research into the causes and tre: itment of " Trembles and the Milk Sickness"first observed in the region in 1809. He evalu·ated the effectiveness of blc, od letting , the use ofcathartics, opi, im, blisters, and drinking scorched O'its. In the book collection, J. I I. Pulte's Domestic Hoineopatbic Physician 1851)and John Gunn's New Doniestic...