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McGoogan Library Rare Book Collection

 

 

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Hiram Winnett Orr, MD, Rare Book Collection

 

Named Collections

Books on Display:

Housed in two high-security rooms, the McGoogan Library’s Rare Book collection encompasses a variety of health science disciplines. These include midwifery and obstetrics, the history of disability, infant feeding, watershed works, anatomy, alternative medicine, and surgery. Materials range from a medical manuscript written during the 1300s by Albertus Magnus to collections compiled by modern physicians, including the Charles F. Moon collection of obstetrical works, the Leon S. McGoogan collection in obstetrics, and the H. Winnett Orr rare book collection on permanent loan from the American College of Surgeons.

Books Currently on Display

Explore a sampling of the collection’s printed works from the 16th through the 19th centuries.

 

 

Feldtbuch der Wundartzney, 1517

From the McGoogan Health Sciences Library Rare Book Collection

Feldtbuch der Wundartzney

Field Book of Surgery

Published 1517
Hans von Gersdorff  
(1455-1529)
Illustrated by Johann Ulrich Wechtlin
(1480/85-after 1526)

 

Hans von Gersdorff served as a surgeon in the Strasbourg army during the Swiss Confederacy’s fight against Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy. He was also the personal surgeon to Sigismund, Archduke of Austria.

 

Feldtbuch der Wundartzney was von Gersdorff’s only published work. Written in German, the book provided guidelines for treating wounds, such as setting bones and cauterizing gunshot wounds, recipes for plasters, salves, and balsams, and other anatomical-related instructions for military surgeons. He provided information on surgical procedures, such as extraction of arrows or fragments, and the first visual depiction of amputation.

 

Von Gersdorff also developed a retractor, a medical device used to raise depressed skull fragments, and a machine for the correction of crooked limbs.

 

Von Gersdorff invented this surgical instrument to treat skull lesions. A tripod screw elevator would raise a depressed skull fragment to realign it with the surrounding healthy bone.

The figure on the left is holding a matula, a clear glass flask used to hold urine. Uroscopy was a practice dating back to Classical Greece. A physician examined a patient’s urine for pus, blood, or other symptoms of disease. The urine’s color would be compared to a urine wheel, a diagram that related urine color to a specific disease.

Von Gersdorff recommended using hot oil to cauterize wounds. He also advised the use of hot cauters (upper section of the image), an instrument that was placed in a fire and then applied to a wound to stop bleeding. Unfortunately, cauterization with hot oil and hot cauters caused tissue damage and increased the likelihood of infection.

Von Gersdorff devised this metal turnbuckle-like splint that allowed for adjustable range of motion of a joint. Originally manufactured by armorers, the splint helped restore motion to stiff or immobile joints.

The “Wound Man” illustration acted as a type of annotated table of contents. It portrayed injuries an individual might receive through war, accident, or disease, such as weapons, rashes, pustules, scratches, or animal bites.

Did You Know?

  • Hans von Gersdorff was the first surgeon to describe the surgical technique of leg amputations.
  • Feldtbuch der Wundartzney was published in vernacular German and was intended for battlefield surgeons.   
  • The text showed new methods of treating gunshot wounds and lower limb amputations. The book also covers leprosy, anatomy, surgery, glossaries of anatomical terms, diseases, and medications.
  • Von Gersdorff derived his anatomical knowledge from Arabic physicians and French physician, Guy de Chauliac.
  • The artist of Feldtbuch der Wundartzney, Johann Ulrich Wechtlin was a student of Hans Holbein the Younger (ca 1497-1543). A German Renaissance artist, active between at least 1502 and 1526, Wechtlin’s woodcuts are his only known surviving works. He was the most prolific producer of German chiaroscuro woodcuts, "printed in two or more colors," during their period in fashion, though most of his output was for book illustrations.

 

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The Surgeon's Mate, 1639

From the McGoogan Health Sciences Library Rare Book Collection

The Surgeon’s Mate

Published 1639
John Woodall
(1556-1643)

 

John Woodall traveled to Germany, Poland, and France before joining the British Barber-Surgeons Company in 1599. In 1613, Woodall was appointed the first “Chirugeon Generall” of the East India Company, a position he held for 30 years. One of his duties was to fit-out the chests that ships’ surgeons used on voyages. He wrote The Surgeon’s Mate to instruct apprentices in the details of what to include in these chests. Woodall provided advice on the treatment for common diseases and ailments of seamen, including constipation, gunshot wounds, and fractures. He was the first to accurately describe the symptoms of scurvy, advising the prescription of fruit juices, and invented a new trephine saw for the treatment of head injuries. He also introduced new and more humane treatments for gangrenous tissues and instructed readers on the importance of clinical notes, care of instruments, and how to keeps one’s temper on long voyages.

 

John Woodall included his portrait on the title page (on right) along with the portraits of several important physicians who contributed to the advancement of medicine (clockwise from top left)

  • Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine
  • Podaliruius, son of Asclepius
  • Avicenna, Persian physician and astronomer (980-1037)
  • Ramon Llull, Spanish mathematician and philosopher (c. 1232-c. 1315)
  • Galenus Abrahams, Dutch physician and preacher (1622-1706)
  • John Woodall, the author (center)
  • Hippocrates, Greek physician (370-460 BCE)
  • Jean Fernel, French physician (1497-1558)
  • Paracelsus, Swiss physician, alchemist, and philosopher (1493-1541)

 

 

Woodall dedicated his book to Charles I, king of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1625 to 1649.

 

“To the King’s Most Excellent Majestie, Charles, By the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith”

 

Woodall devised a tobacco clyster or enema, the instruments of which are depicted here. Tobacco enemas were used to treat obstructions or bowel diseases. The vapor or smoke of tobacco, nutmeg, aniseed, or any other medicinal herb or compound would have been blown through this device into the rectum.

This image of the Roman god Mercury accompanies a poem about the substance mercury. Medicinally, mercury was used to treat syphilis, skin diseases, typhoid fever, parasites, headaches, and other illnesses. Alchemists used mercury in their research attempting to turn base metals into gold, cure disease, and acquire eternal life.

Woodall included his portrait on the title page along with the portraits of several important physicians who contributed to the advancement of medicine.

Did You Know?

  • John Woodall apprenticed at age 16 or 17 under a London barber surgeon.
  • Conditions aboard East India Company (EIC) ships were difficult, and sailors faced many medical problems at sea. Nutrition was poor, infectious diseases (including sexually transmitted diseases) spread rampantly throughout the close quarters, and battle brought much trauma. Coupled with this, ships were often poorly stocked with medicines, and the barber-surgeons were often inadequately trained. To deal with these issues, John Woodall was hired as Surgeon-General to the EIC in 1613 by Sir Thomas Smith, the governor of the company.
  • Woodall addressed the problem of poorly stocked ships by redesigning the surgeon’s chests and implementing a system of checking each chest’s inventory and sealing it before it was brought onboard.
  • Woodall’s book provides a list of the medicines and instruments in his surgeon’s chest and an indication for their uses. As the last section in his book, Woodall included a description of chemical symbols and alchemist’s terms to serve as a reference and to aid in the interpretation of medicine labels.
  • Woodall’s surgeon’s chest contained slots for 160 assigned medicines. One problem with trying to identify the composition of the medicines included in the chart is that all the medicines were identified in Latin. Also, much of Woodall's text is phonetically spelled and the reader will even find the same word spelled in different ways within a single entry.

 

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Elements of Surgery: For the Use of Students, Volume 1 of 2, 1813

Elements of Surgery: For the Use of Students, Volume 1 of 2

Published 1813
John Syng Dorsey  
(1783-1818)

 

John Syng Dorsey was born into an American medical family in 1783. His uncle, Philip Syng Physick, was the first chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. After finishing his medical degree, Dorsey traveled across Europe to audit lectures at major surgical centers. His view that European practices were stringent and not progressive, coupled with the trade embargoes and blockade of Philadelphia during the War of 1812, instilled a sense of nationalism in him that led to the publication of Elements of Surgery.

 

Considered the first American surgical textbook, Elements of Surgery is regarded as the beginning of the professionalization process for surgeons in the United States. Published in 1813, the work is an organization of his uncle’s lectures of major areas of clinical surgery, which included hernia and fistula repair, amputation, cesarean section, and non-surgical procedures such as bandaging and autopsy. Eight of Dorsey’s sketches are engraved and included in the volumes.

 

(On left) Ophthalmology Instruments:
Figure 8: Represents the section made in the cornea in the operation of extracting a cataract.
Figure 9: An artificial pupil, near the external margin of the iris.
Figure 10: The place of introducing the cornea knife and the mode of passing it through the anterior chamber of the eye.
Figure 11: This figure represents an accident which sometimes happens in the operation of extraction, the floating iris before the blade of the knife.
Figure 12: The forceps contrived by Dr. Physick with a circular punch on the extremities of the blades.
Figure 13: A small hood useful in extraction operations.
Figure 14: Wenzel’s knife for incising the cornea.
Figure 15: Curette and needle.
Figure 16: Wenzel’s forceps.
Figure 17: The nail-headed style used in fistula lachrymalis (opening in the upper tear duct).

 

 

Examples of Sutures
Top: Interrupted suture
Bottom: Twisted or Hair Lip Suture with movable steel point.

 

The first eyed needles were used for medicinal purposes around 30,000 BCE. Galen (129-216) a Greek surgeon used silk and catgut to repair gladiator wounds.

 

Bullet forceps with a curved tip were used to extract bullets from tissue. Sometimes cloth, linen, or other material would become imbedded with the bullet. Dorsey advised applying a poultice of bread and milk or linseed on the gunshot wound until it began to create pus.

In Elements of Surgery, Dorsey described that the patient in this image had a dislocated hip. The straps were used by the physician as a pulley system to relocate the ball of the hipbone into the socket. The patient was bled to induce him to faint. However, in this case, bleeding did not induce unconsciousness. The repeated attempts to adjust the hip, eventually weakened the patient and the physician was finally able to manipulate the joint back into place. The patient was discharged from the hospital after three weeks.

Ophthalmology Instruments
 

 

Did You Know?

 

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Traite complet de l’anatomie de l’homme, Volume 3 of 8, 1831-1854

From the McGoogan Health Sciences Library Rare Book Collection

Traite complet de l’anatomie de l’homme, Volume 3 of 8

Comprehensive Human Anatomy, Volume 3 of 8

Published 1831-1854
Marc Jean Bourgery  
(1797-1849)

 

Born in France in 1797, Marc Jean Bourgery struggled for his entire career to gain academic and scientific esteem. The eight volumes of his Traite Complet de l’Anatomie de l’Homme cover all aspects of anatomy, including morphology, surgical anatomy, and embryology, in both black and white and hand-colored illustrations. Artist Nicholas-Henri Jacob created 726 drawings from direct laboratory observation. The lithographs were created by Madame C. A. Jacob Hublier and others. The volumes skillfully integrated specimen preparation, graphic representation, and descriptive text. Too expensive for students, the volumes were purchased by physicians or members of the intelligentsia. The set took Bourgery 23 years to complete, with the final volume published five years after his death in 1849. Traite Complet de l’Anatomie de l’Homme is considered one of the most comprehensive, clear, and beautiful works of the 19th century.

 

 

“Brain-Spinal Envelopes:
The skull was sawn transversely above the eyelashes. On the left side, the cerebral hemisphere is coated by the dura; on the right side, this membrane is removed, and the surface is coated by arachnoid and pia mater.”

 

“On the lateral part of the face, the cheek wall is removed to show the inside of the mouth, and the superficial location of the lingual nerve below the mucous membrane. In the neck, rings of the carotid arteries have been preserved at certain points to mark the connections of the nerves. The right lateral wall of the thoracoabdominal cavity is removed entirely to below the cartilaginous border of the ribs. In the chest, the right lung (A) is moved forward and out to unmask the esophagus, aorta, thoracic duct, azygos vein and vertebrocostal groove, where the pneumogastric and the great sympathetic cord are drawn on the right side with their annexes. In the epigastric region of the abdomen, the stomach alone is represented (B), but floating, and its pyloric portion is removed so as to show the outbursts of the right pneumogastric nerve on this viscera and in the plexus solar.”

“Spaces occupied by brain-spine fluid:
The skull and rachis were sawn vertically on the middle plane. The head, slightly titled, does not appear quite in profile.”

 

“Exterior Surface of the Brain:
Brain and cervical portion of the spinal cord as seen in profile from the lateral plane. The entire half of the right side of the skull wall was removed in the mid-plane from the frontal sinuses to the foramen magnum. To expose the basilar outline of the brain entirely, the soft parts were removed and the facial bones cut. The lower part of the ear is kept. The preparation is the same for the cervical region as for the skull.”

 

Did You Know?

  • Bourgery attended lectures of the naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, a professor at the Museum of Natural History in Paris.
  • Bourgery worked as a clinical intern in 1817 with René Laennec, inventor of the stethoscope at the Hôpital Necker, and from 1818 to 1820 with Guillaume Dupuytren, French anatomist and military surgeon who treated Napoleon Bonaparte's hemorrhoids, at the Hôtel Dieu.
  • Bourgery started his medical studies in 1813 but did not complete them due to financial issues. Instead, he worked for several years as an officier de santé (health officer) in a copper foundry in Romilly-sur-Seine (Aube), where he was actively involved in chemistry, chemical engineering, and the establishment of a copper sulfate factory.  He finally received his MD in 1827.
  • Bourgery's role model and mentor was the anatomist and paleontologist Georges Cuvier, a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology." Cuvier was a major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century and instrumental in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils.
  • Around 1820, Bourgery was awarded a prize from the Paris medical faculty and a gold medal from the hospital administration for his work as an assistant doctor.

 

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