Time for the Fall HOD Meeting!

This fall's HOD meeting is scheduled for Saturday, October 10, 2026 at Arundel Preserve.
I will be there with fun finds from our archives, some rare books and more. 

Scan the QR code to register! We hope to see you there. 

 

Another Fun Find

As I have mentioned several times, I am an auction aficionado, and when I spotted this fun early 19th century framed cartoon for my favorite price (insultingly low!), I snatched it up to hang in the office. 

The engraving is called "The Headache" and it was done by George Cruikshank, a noted 19th century illustrator and cartoonist. He illustrated everything from books by Charles Dickens, including Oliver Twist to advertisements and political cartoons. Cruikshank and Dickens were close friends for a long time, but fell out over Cruikshank's conversion to militant teetotaler and his accusation that Dickens had stolen the idea for Oliver Twist from him.

Cruikshank's illustrations are extremely detailed, as you can see above. The more you look, the more you see. Notice the little monkey? Devil? Imp? sitting on the man's shoulder holding a music book and singing into his ear. Just the thing, if  you have a headache.

Many of Cruikshank's illustrations are still used, such as this protest poster about the rise in the prices at the shops in Covent Garden. 

It seems that Cruikshank had a little cypher that he used on some of his works. It looks like a G with an anchor. 

After his name, you will see the letters FEC'T, which is shortened from the Latin, fecit, which means "he/she made it."

At the bottom of the print, you can see the name of the publisher, Thos. McLean, 26 Haymarket. Aug. 1st  1835. 

I was trying to figure out whether the date is 1835 or 1895, but in doing some research, I think that it's 1835. 

Either way, it's a fun print to add to our collection for a small sum!

P.S. After I posted this, a friend sent me one of Cruikshank's wonderful drawings. So clever!

MedChi Archives Blog Hits ONE MILLION Visitors!

I just uploaded a post on the blog, and thought I'd check the visitor stats. 

I was delighted to see that we have hit ONE MILLION visitors over the past thirteen years and 503 posts! Actually, as of 11:50 a.m., on September 21, 2026 we have had one million, fifty-six thousand, seven hundred and twenty-three visitors!

Thanks to everyone who has visited and helped us achieve this number! 

A Lucky Find!

Marcia Noyes was known for was attending auctions. When we first opened our building at 1211 Cathedral Street, she wanted to furnish it with comfortable chairs and sofas (think Chesterfields) and old paintings, as we did not yet have the painting collection that we do now. 

I have continued that tradition, finding everything from a set of three large teak bookcases, to a glass-fronted book case (sadly not a barrister's bookcase), and any number of old medical books which I've picked up for a pittance. 

One of my best finds (so far) was a medical ledger from one of our Founders, Dr. Francis Brown Sappington. You can read about it here.

Over the weekend, I was at a country auction in rural Pennsylvania. It's a two-part auction, both parts running concurrently. In the front, there is an auctioneer selling one item at a time. In the back, it's kind of a chaotic free-for-all, with a box lot auction*.  

I was going back and forth between the two and just happened back when they were starting to sell the "artwork" which I'd already glanced through. 

But when they laid the art out, there to my absolute shock was a small photograph of William Osler! The photograph is signed and is from the Philadelphia period. 

I found the same photograph in the McGill collection with a good description. 

One thing I wonder about is whether Osler would have had a whole stack of photographs that he signed, or whether the signature was printed along with the photograph. Keep in mind that this was 1887-ish, just before he moved to Baltimore. 

Here's the signature block on the bottom. Both of the photos are by Phillips, but with different fonts, and the word Philadelphia spelled out on mine. 

If you'd like to see what else we've found at auction, please click here.

* A box lot auction is a table filled with random boxes of assorted items. Everyone throws out bids, but no one knows what anyone else is bidding on. So, if I am looking at the Osler photo, and you're looking at the tools, neither one of us knows, so we both bid up to our high number. I win, and grab the Osler photo, and then the bidding starts over. If I pick two lots, it is twice the money. It's risky if you have your eye on something specific and have set an internal price. Someone else can snap it up! But it's a lot of fun.

President's Brunch and Celebration of Gene Ransom's 30th Anniversary!

 

For Tickets, please click below:

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We hope to see you then!

Who is This?

Astonishingly, even after 13 years at MedChi, I am still finding new things! I was walking around with our IT guy trying to find the outlets in each and every room, when I found this!

Although the piece is signed by the sculptor, there is no indication of who it is.

However, the sculptor is Percy Bryant Baker. This is what the Smithsonian has to say about him:

Bryant Baker studied in London at the City and Guild Technical Institute and the Royal Academy of Arts. His decorative carvings and sculpture were installed at Westminster Abbey and other cathedrals. In 1916 he moved to the United States and served in the army, working to rehabilitate American veterans from World War I by modeling artificial limbs. Baker won commissions for busts of five presidents, including John F. Kennedy. He also made bronze and marble statues of other political figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Henry Cabot Lodge. He was a Fellow of the National Sculpture Society, the Royal Society of British Sculptors, and a life member of St. George's Society.

The date on the bust is 1919, so I checked newspapers.com to see if I could find anything about him being in Baltimore around that time, and Baker was here sculpting a bust of Major (Dr.) R. Tunstall Taylor, US Army.

Hmmm... the name was familiar, but I couldn't think why, so I looked him up in our Annals, and found this. 

Dr. Taylor died in 1929.

Founded in 1895 by Dr. R. Tunstall Taylor, the Hospital for Crippled and Deformed Children was originally located at 6 West 20th Street. It was a free orthopaedic hospital for "crippled and deformed children." Two years later another house joined the hospital to form a complex, which eventually became Kernan Hospital. When I give my Historic Hospitals lecture, I talk about him and his small hospital.

This is the image of the bust in the Baltimore Sun. 

Unfortunately, the picture is not very clear, but comparing the profiles, they are similar. 

When you look closely, you can see the insignia of the US Army Medical Corps.

Major Taylor was assigned to the office of the Surgeon-General at the War Department, where Baker was working on making plaster cases for exhibits of war victims for the Army Medical Department's Medical Museum.  

So, have I solved the mystery? Or do you think that this is someone else? 

Philadelphia Hospital Museum

A few weeks ago, I took a quick trip to see the newly-opened Philadelphia Hospital Museum. We are getting ready to update our Medical Museum here at MedChi, so the opening was fortuitous, as we might be able to get some ideas from what they have done.

The Penn Hospital Museum is located on the campus of Penn Hospital in the oldest section of the city and is the oldest chartered hospital in the USA. 

In this period engraving, you can see the central sections which now holds the museum. On the top floor, the operating theatre uses the light from the sun to illuminate the room. 

The hospital grounds are surrounded by a beautiful garden and a central statue of William Penn, who was a founder of the hospital and later for some of its funding.

Each floor of the Museum has different rooms and exhibits. As you enter, you see the beautiful Minton-tiled floors and the elegant staircase. 

There is also a huge (8'x5.5') painting of Samuel Coates by the painter, Thomas Sully. 

There was also an old exhibition space, along with a botanical room. 

Fortunately, there is much of the original detailing remaining in the building, including secret staircases!

Like MedChi, this Museum has old ledgers and lists, which are fascinating to read. 

Of course, one of my favorite rooms was the beautiful old libraries, filled with glass-fronted bookcases.

They had some of the old anatomical and botanical books printed on heavy plastic (or something) so you could see the actual pages without touching them. 

On the top floor was the operating theatre. The guide told us that they could only operate between eleven and two or three on sunny days because of the light. 

Like us, PHM had lots of old surgical instruments and other tools. 

As I mentioned, the grounds are really lovely, especially on a hot, late June afternoon. 

We were so pleased to have the opportunity to visit and it was really worth the 200+ mile round trip!