Category: Research and Access

Providing Remote Services and Support

By , March 24, 2020

The Center for the History of Medicine’s Holmes Hall reading room is currently closed due to COVID-19 precautions, but staff continue to provide remote support. Please contact chm@hms.harvard.edu for more information.

Incunabula volume, 1496

Conciliator differentiarum philosophorum et medicorum, 1496

Center staff provide the following services:

  • Schedule comprehensive consultations online (Zoom) or phone
  • Provide support for students, researchers and faculty during online office hours. (Please sign up in advance and a link will be provided.)
  • Assist in making arrangements for future visits and projects.

Online Resources:

Start your research remotely with the help of our collections’ online finding aids, and LibGuides. Other useful digital resources include:

  • OnView: the Center’s primary portal to digitized content and exhibits
  • Medical Heritage Library: online access to thousands of rare books, journals, pamphlets, and other items digitized as part of the Medical Heritage Library, Inc.’s consortium
  • Dataverse: Research data available from Center collections
  • Colonial North America: A Harvard Library project involving manuscript materials that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America including items relating to science, medicine and health
  • Fredrick Stare papers: In collaboration with the University of California, San Francisco, the professional collection of Fredrick Stare, founder of the Department of Nutrition at the now T.H. Chan School of Public health, is digitally available.
Warren Anatomical Museum Gallery

Warren Anatomical Museum Gallery

For even more open access resources provided through Harvard Library, please check this evolving list.

 

Follow us for further information and updates on Twitter and Instagram @HarvardHistMed

Center Reading Room Closed Until Further Notice

By , March 16, 2020

Due to coronavirus (COVID-19), starting Tuesday, March 17 and until further notice, the Center reading room is CLOSED to all researchers. We are able to provide limited online reference service.

Please contact us to schedule a remote consultation or ask a reference question at chm@hms.harvard.edu.

 

 

Apply now for a 2020-2021 New England Regional Fellowship!

By , November 1, 2019

The New England Regional Fellowship Consortium (NERFC) is now accepting applications for 2020-2021 research grants.

This collaboration of thirty major cultural agencies will offer at least twenty awards in 2020–2021. Each grant provides a stipend of $5,000 for a minimum of eight weeks of research at three or more participating institutions beginning June 1, 2020, and ending May 31, 2021. The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine and its Center for the History of Medicine is a NERFC member. Visit the NERFC website for more information and list of participating institutions.

Special award in 2020–2021: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts will underwrite a project on the history of New England before the American Revolution.

Application Process: All applications must be completed using the online form.

Deadline: February 1, 2020

Questions: Contact the Massachusetts Historical Society:
Phone at 617-646-0577 or Email fellowships@masshist.org

Apply Now for a 2020-2021 Boston Medical Library Fellowship!

By , November 1, 2019

Feldtbuch der Wundtartzney
(Gersdorff, Hans von, -1529. / Strassburg, Durch Joannem Schott, 1517) f RD151.G32 Boston Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine

Since 2003, the Boston Medical Library (BML) in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine has sponsored annual fellowships supporting research in the history of medicine using Center for the History of Medicine collections. BML Fellowships in the History of Medicine at the Countway provide stipends of up to $5,000 to support travel, lodging, and incidental expenses for a flexible period between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021. Besides conducting research, the fellow will submit a report on the results of his/her residency and may be asked to present a seminar or lecture at the Countway Library.

The collections of the Center for the History of Medicine enable researchers to contextualize, understand, and contribute to the history of human health care, scientific medical development, and public health; they reflect nearly every medical and public health discipline, including anatomy, anesthesiology, cardiology, dentistry, internal medicine, medical jurisprudence, neurology, obstetrics and gynecology, pharmacy and pharmacology, psychiatry and psychology, and surgery, as well as variety of popular medicine topics and public health subjects such as industrial hygiene, nutrition, and tropical medicine. The Center serves as the institutional archives for the Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and the Harvard School of Public Health, and is home to the Warren Anatomical Museum, which includes anatomical artifacts, pathological specimens, instruments, and other objects. Through the Center, researchers have the opportunity to use the rich historical resources of both the Harvard Medical Library and Boston Medical Library.

Fellowship proposals (no more than 5 pages) should describe the research project and demonstrate that the Countway Library has resources central to the research topic.
Applications should include:
• CV
• Length of visit
• Proposed budget and budget breakdown (travel, lodging, incidentals)
• Two letters of recommendation are also required

Electronic submissions of materials may be sent to: chm@hms.harvard.edu

Boston Medical Library Fellowships
Center for the History of Medicine
Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
10 Shattuck Street
Boston, MA 02115.

Application deadline is Friday, February 14th.

Please see our website for more information and details about previous research recipients. Awards will be announced in early April.

Documenting and preserving the Warren Anatomical Museum’s medical wet specimen collection

By , November 9, 2016

 

Specimens on display for Anatomy Day, 2016.

Specimens on display for Anatomy Day, 2016.

From roughly the 1840’s through the 1940’s, the Warren Anatomical Museum (WAM) collected and acquired several hundred anatomical wet tissue specimens from medical institutions and from area physicians and academics. While these specimens were originally on display within the museum, the relocation of the WAM to a smaller venue prompted the move of these specimens into storage. In April of 2015, the Museum Collections Technician, Alex Denning, began the task of cataloguing and documenting these specimens. As is the nature with any biological material, the condition of many of the specimens has deteriorated over time, despite preservation efforts. Throughout the history of collecting and saving specimens, chemical preservatives, such as ethanol (or other alcohols and ‘spirits’), formalin and formaldehyde, and various other chemical combinations, have been used to fix (render inert and stable) and preserve anatomical tissues. There is great variability in the current conditions of these specimens and they vary in subject matter from gross anatomical dissection specimens used in teaching, to pathological specimens retained for educational purposes due to their rarity.

Clavicle with sarcoma.

The task of moving over 800 specimens from museum storage to a laboratory space presented a number of logistical challenges. Due to the nature of the specimens, being housed in a variety of potentially unknown chemical preservatives, relocation of hundreds of medical specimens proves difficult and must be undertaken by special transport. Specimens were properly secured into containers and transported in specialized vehicles to make the journey to the lab. The specimens are now being processed in batches, the first of which contains 300 specimens and is nearing completion.

Processing a historic specimen involves identification, photographing, data collection, cleaning, and repackaging. Each specimen corresponds to a museum number that (hopefully) has documentation on the origins of that particular specimen. Over time, many paper labels have been lost and few specimens have their museum number etched into the glass container or on a tag within the container. This makes identification difficult and many specimens will receive temporary ID numbers until they can be identified through the process of elimination. Within the wealth of information available at WAM and the Center for the History of Medicine (CHoM), often there will be donation or loan histories, and sometimes even patient and surgery information that help to provide context for a particular specimen.

The most important and time-consuming step for each specimen is the data collection. Condition notes are collected, which note the fluid levels and coloration, any deterioration of the specimen, and stability of the container and its seal.  Photo documentation is also a vital step in this process as it records the condition and appearance of a specimen in its found state, which also serves as important data for future processing of specimens. Once documentation is complete, the exterior of the specimen container is cleaned, small cracks are sealed or stabilized, and if possible, a fluid sample is collected for future identification. The specimens are then repacked safely and returned to their storage containers.

 

Dr. A. T. Hertig, Dept. of Pathology, HMS, using specimens to teach medical students.

Dr. A. T. Hertig, Dept. of Pathology, HMS, using specimens to teach medical students.

As soon as a specimen is fully documented, all data, photographs, and archival information are entered into the WAM database. Efforts are currently underway to make this information available to researchers and the medical community in the future. The project has sought the help of a number of anatomists, pathologists, and medical historians to assess the potential of each specimen for teaching and research purposes. The goal of this project is not just to document and conserve existing specimens, but it is also the hope of the WAM to eventually open specimens up to researchers and scholars upon the project’s completion.

 

C. G. Jung Biographical Archive Recordings Digitized

By , April 1, 2011

Carl Gustav Jung

The Center for the History of Medicine is happy to announce that the audio recordings of the C. G. Jung Biographical Archive have been digitized and are now available to researchers. Previously accessible only in transcript form, the collection consists of 181 interviews with Jung’s family, friends, colleagues, and contemporaries. The interviews, which took place from 1968 to 1972, were funded by the Francis G. Wickes Foundation and were conducted by Dr. Gene F. Nameche. The collection was donated to the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine in 1972. A mentee of Sigmund Freud, Jung was a leader in dream analysis and is credited with founding the field of analytical psychology.

Due to restrictions set by the interviewees, some interviews are closed to access. In addition, access to the entire collection is restricted to onsite use only. For more information regarding access, please contact the Public Services staff.

The digitization of the Jung Biographical Archive was supported by the Carl Gustav Jung Fund, created at the time of the collection’s donation to ensure its longterm research use and accessibility.

Digital Highlight: John Warren’s Lectures at Harvard Medical School

By , October 19, 2010
John Warren;s lectures at HMS

The earliest surviving lectures from Harvard Medical School (H MS b3.13, Harvard Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine)

Partially in the handwriting of Dr. John Warren (1753-1815), this volume of lecture notes on anatomy, beginning in December 1783, is the earliest surviving record of teaching at Harvard Medical School.  Warren’s plan for medical study had been adopted by the Harvard Corporation on September 19, 1782, and he became the first faculty member appointed at the Medical School.  These lectures were delivered in Harvard Hall, on the Cambridge campus.

After summarizing the history of his subject, Dr. Warren then justifies dissection as an essential component to anatomical study: “At the first view of dissections, the stomach is apt to turn, but custom wears off such impressions.  It is anatomy that directs the knife in the hand of a skilful surgeon, & shews him where he may perform any necessary operation with safety to the patient.  It is this which enables the physician to form an accurate knowledge of diseases & open dead bodies with grace, to discover the cause or seat of the disease, & the alteration it may have made in the several parts.”

The lecture notes were bequeathed to Harvard in 1928 by Dr. John Warren, the great-grandson of the first Warren.  Through the generosity of Dr. Susan C. Lester, Assistant Professor of Pathology, and the Manual of Surgical Pathology Fund at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the volume was recently conserved and then digitized in its entirety and is now available from the HOLLIS catalog at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HMS.COUNT:4435974.

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