Happy Halloween!

From Everyone at MedChi and

The Center for a Healthy Maryland

Semi-Annual Meeting, Ocean City, 1908

I am not even through a dozen boxes from the Maryland Center for History & Culture, and I have found treasures galore. About half of the boxes of ephemera and all of the books are catalogued, but the rest of the ephemera is not.

With the semi-annual House of Delegates meetings coming up in the next few weeks, I thought I'd share two photos from the 1908 "semi-annual" meeting, held in Ocean City in September of that year. 

As you can see, some of our members took advantage of the still-warm ocean water to take a dip in their fetching bathing costumes, which were probably made of wool!

Luckily, they put their clothes on later and posed for a photo in front of what was probably their hotel.

Fortunately, Marcia had written the names of the bathers on the back of that photo, so we know who they are! You might need to enlarge the photo to see the names clearly. 

85 Years Ago Today

On October 21, 1937, the semi-annual meeting of the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland was held at the historic (even then!) West Nottingham Academy. 

West Nottingham was founded in 1744 and is the longest-standing boarding and day school in the United States. It is located in Colera in the north-east part of Maryland.

As I was perusing the 50+ cartons of books and ephemera we received from the Maryland Center for History & Culture, I found this great picture of physicians at the meeting who gathered for a photograph in front of one of West Nottingham's historic buildings.

  

An Upcoming Acquisition

I thought you might like to know of some exciting news! We are about to take possession of book collections from three of our most notable members: Upton Scott, our first President;

John Archer, the first person in America to receive a medical degree;

and Sir William Osler, who needs no explanation.

Several decades ago, MedChi deaccessioned a large number of items to the Maryland Historical Society (now the Maryland Center for History & Culture – MCHC) so that they would be more accessible to the general public. They are currently winnowing their collections to focus solely on Maryland-related items. While Scott, Archer and Osler were connected to Maryland, most of the books in their collections are medical tomes. MCHC gave us the right of first refusal, and how could we ever refuse when we found out what they had!

The books in the Archer and Scott collections date from the 1700s, with a few from the 1600s and 1800s. The items from the Osler Collection included numerous editions of the Principles and Practice of Medicine and Modern Medicine: Its Theory and Practice; compilations of his numerous lectures; programs from Osler-related events, and a little box which includes a woodcut of his bookplate and some personal letters. Additionally, there are numerous pieces of ephemera, etc. including letters, pamphlets, histories of local hospitals and more.

We will be picking up the 17 55 78 boxes of books and ephemera in the next week or two. I will be setting up a station in the Monumental Office, and then logging it in to the Museum database of items. Once the collection is in hand, I will be blogging about it here on the blog. I hope you will follow along.