HSLS Update

Medicine in the Americas

Falk Library, along with all libraries that maintain rare book collections, faces the challenge of balancing access to valuable primary resources, while protecting fragile physical volumes. Fortunately, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is addressing this dilemma through a new initiative, Medicine in the Americas, 1610-1914: A Digital Library<www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/americas/americashome.html>.

Through this project, NLM’s History of Medicine Division, in conjunction with the National Center for Biotechnology Information, is providing online access to major historical works in the development of medicine in the New World, including Latin America, Canada, and the Caribbean.

Covering the period from 1610-1914, digital library topics will include:
•  Popular and clinical works in various specialties
•  Epidemiology and public health
•  Allopathic and alternative approaches
•  Geographical, ethnic and racial diversity
•  Women’s health and women physicians
•  Publishing milestones

Thus far, ten historical American medical books have been scanned and are available in Portable Document Format (PDF), and as searchable text files. Plans call for Medicine in the Americas to expand with the addition of two hundred more works in the coming years. Among the titles already available are some of the most significant medical works published in the Western hemisphere.
Examples include:
•  Colman, Benjamin (1673-1747). Some Observations on the New Method of Receiving the Small Pox by Ingrafting or Inoculating. (Boston: Printed by B. Green, for Samuel Gerrish..., 1721). 
This study discusses the first large scale inoculation experiment conducted in the Western world by Cotton Mather and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston in Boston during a smallpox epidemic in 1721.

•  Morton, William T.G. (1819-1868). Remarks on the Proper Mode of Administering Sulphuric Ether by Inhalation. (Boston: Button and Wentworth, Printer, 1847).
One of America’s greatest contributions to medical science was the discovery of inhalation anesthesia in the 19th century. While several figures claim credit for this discovery, Morton’s book is a key work in this ongoing controversy.

•  Barton, Clara (1821-1912). The Red Cross of the Geneva Convention: What It Is. (Washington, DC: Rufus H. Darby, Steam Power Book and Job Printer, 1878).
Clara Barton, a nurse during the Civil War, was the founder of the American Red Cross.                     

-- John Erlen