This exhibition opened November 4, 1999 at the Duke University Museum of Art and ran through January 16, 2000. Organized by Guest Curator Julie V. Hansen, a specialist in seventeenth-century art and science, and Suzanne Porter, Medical Center Library Curator of the History of Medicine Collections, the show included over one hundred rare and remarkable objects drawn from the historical collections of the four North Carolina medical schools. In addition to Duke, East Carolina University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest University participated in the collaboration. Several items on loan to the Duke Medical Center Library from the Duke-Semans Fine Arts Foundation and from Dr. Verne L. Roberts were also included, with their permission.

Throughout the centuries, images have been used to convey the meaning of a medical text. Examples abound in books on anatomy and in herbals. Instruments and equipment used to facilitate treatments and cures, such as a brass tourniquet or an apothecary jar can themselves be works of art. Among the items on display were sixteenth- and seventeenth-century illustrated books, ivory manikins, broadsides and fugitive sheets with moveable flaps, a bronze muscle figure, a surgical field manual and a renaissance amputation saw, a bas-relief skeleton carved from a single piece of ivory, and an African healing figure.

A 144-page, richly illustrated catalogue, which includes a distinguished essay contributed by Martin Kemp, professor of history at Oxford, accompanied the exhibition and is available for purchase at the Museum or from Duke University Press. An opening reception, with a lecture delivered by Thomas Robisheaux of the Duke History Department, was held on the evening of Friday, November 12th. Both the exhibition and the catalogue were made possible by generous donations from foundations and individuals. For more information, contact Suzanne Porter at (919) 660-1143.