Exhibited June, 2006 - September, 2006

A new exhibit brings together materials from our collections on the theme of devices used to care for and treat infants as well as invalids of any age. The materials selected are drawn from gifts received from a wide variety of donors over a great many years: Drs. George & Evelyn Wilbanks, Dr. & Mrs. Enrique Montero, Ms. Virginia M. Carden, Mr. Robert W. Severance, Dr. & Mrs. Emil Beyer, and Mr. Frank Hinnant.

Reproductions of delicately colored steelplate engravings from Crosilhes’ Le Médecin de la Famille (1849) are used as illustrations. Included are a diphtheria kit, a lactometer, infant and invalid feeders, medicine spoons, an eye bath, a collection of stethoscopes, several syringes, bloodletting and cupping equipment, a steam atomizer, a family medicine chest, and an asafetida amulet. A charming collection of germ stories written for a young patient by a family physician from Beardstown, Illinois in the early 1930s is presented next to an eighteenth century text promoting the use of the goat as a wet-nurse.

The exhibit will be on display in the lower lobby cases in the Library through early September.