New Brochure Highlights Historical Treasures

The History of Medicine Collections brochure made its appearance just in time for Medical Alumni Weekend in early October. In the planning process for a number of years, the brochure provides us with an important marketing tool, as well as a handy way to respond to general queries for information about our collections. The four-panel gatefold design fits neatly into a business-size envelope. The illustrations used in the brochure showcase some of our treasures from the Trent Collection. The text summarizes our organization and services and provides directions, hours, contact information, and highlights of the collection including instruments and artifacts. Five separate inserts placed in a pocket give greater detail about the following areas:

These inserts were designed to be easily be updated as needed while the brochure itself could remain unchanged over a longer period of time.

We have mailed a copy to each of our Trent Associates, to Medical Center deans, department heads and division chiefs, as well as to directors of affiliated programs on the Duke campus. We have also shared our brochure with colleagues at other institutions. If you did not receive a copy and would like one, please call 660-1144 or email mclhistory@mc.duke.edu.

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Trent Associates*

Trent History of Medicine Society Speakers

The Trent/Bullitt Collaborative Speaker Series is half-way through the 2007-2008 academic year. Drs. Francis Neelon and Peter English have already presented their Trent lectures on the second Tuesday of October and December respectively. Dr. Neelon graciously stepped in on short notice when Dr. Ivan Brown was unable to present his scheduled lecture due to illness.

Neelon	English
Halperin	Lyons

Dr. Edward Halperin, now Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Louisville, will return to Duke on 12 February to speak on The Poor, the Black, and the Marginalized as the Source of Cadavers in U.S. Anatomical Education. The Trent Society will close the series on 8 April with Gray Lyons, a third year medical student in the MD/PhD program. His topic will be The Art of Early Medical Illustrators.

On the alternate months, January and March, the Bullitt Club will host at the UNC Health Sciences Library. See our Website at http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/hom/events/speakerseries/ for full information on speakers, topics, and locations.

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Fourth Annual Visit

The fourth annual anatomy class visit was held on the afternoon of Tuesday 6 November. Under the guidance of Dr. Jeffrey Baker, 109 students viewed the spectacular atlases from the Trent Collection. The class was divided into three groups to avoid crowding in the reading room and to allow time for everyone to personally examine each volume. Among the items on display were the famous Vesalian musclemen, a life-size rendering of the gravid uterus by William Hunter, Bidloo’s realistic dissections complete with a fly on the dissecting table, Albinus’ enormous atlas with flayed figures posed against a backdrop of exotic animals, a copy of a fourteenth-century Persian manuscript with anatomical diagrams, and a collection of European ivory anatomical manikins.

Faculty members assisted students in comparing what they were seeing in the lab with what their medical predecessors had recorded about human anatomy. Professor Matt Cartmill (Biological Anthropology and Anatomy), Dr. Francis Neelon (Associate Professor Emeritus, General Internal Medicine), and Dr. Ara Tourian (Associate Professor Emeritus, Neurology) were present to engage the students in discussion.

One of the three groups	Students examining Haller and Bidloo
Dr. Baker discussing early anatomists

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Recent Acquisitions

Caldwell, Charles. An oration on the causes of the difference … between endemic diseases of the United States of America and those of the countries of Europe … Philadelphia: T. and William Bradford, 1802.

Fletcher, Ralph. Sketches from the case book, to illustrate the influence of the mind on the body … London: Printed by J. Barfield, 1833.

Richter, Friedrich. Die Glückliche Mutter … Quedlinburg & Leipzig: Gottfr. Basse, 1827.

Rosenfeld, George. Die Diagnostik innerer Krankheiten mittels Röntgenstrahlen … Wiesbaden: J. F. Bergmann, 1897.

Shibata, Koichi. Geburtshülfliche Taschen-Phantome. München: Verlag von J. F. Lehmann, 1898.

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