Echoes From the Past

A few weeks ago, MedChi hosted a practice session for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's Youth Orchestra. During their practice time, I usually do some work in the Rare Books Room, so I can be close by if there are any questions. 

The children that afternoon ranged from eight to twelve years old, and made up the two violin sections which were practicing. As I sat in the Rare Books Room, the sounds of their music came drifting down the marble staircase. It was perfection.

I was mostly looking for illustrations and engravings from older books that we can somehow use in our work. One of the things that I found really charming in the books was the shadows of the images on one page on the opposite page. A lot of old books with illustrations like this have a piece of tissue paper between the image and the page to prevent the shadowing.

Another thing that never ceases to amaze me is the detail in the images in these books, which were mostly printed in the 1800s. I think about the person engraving the prints, and how much talent they must have had. You can just barely see a shadow of something like a deer that has come from the opposite page.

Not only were they artists, they had to have a steady hand, and be able to engrave everything backwards.   

What I Found: Baron von Munchausen

About 100 years ago, we inherited an old medical case. It was rosewood with silver corner pieces and an escutcheon.

It was given to MedChi by the descendants of a young physician who had emigrated to Baltimore with his seven children.

The story is that he had received it from a grateful patient, one Baron von Munchausen, who had liberated it from Napoleon’s physician at the Battle of Waterloo.

We have all the documentation about the family donating the “Napoleon Chest” to us, but when we investigated the rest of the story, things weren’t quite as clear.

The Battle of Waterloo was in 1817, and Baron von Munchausen lived in the early 1700s. He was a fantasist who was renowned for making up incredible stories.

Oddly enough, as I was going through some books here at the office, I stumbled upon a copy of “Baron Munchausen Illustrated.” This is possibly a second edition of the book from around the mid-1780s. The book about a fictionalized character named after a real person. 

The author, a German writer, scientist and con artist, Rudolf Erich Raspe, probably met the real Baron at the University of Göttingen. Raspe’s career mixed writing and scientific scholarship with theft and swindling.

Regardless of that, Raspe was a prolific writer, with at least eight different books about the Baron. The book I found has the most charming illustrations, which help tell the crazy stories, such as flying on a cannonball after a battle,

and riding a seahorse under the ocean.

The books are all written as if Baron von Munchausen himself was the narrator. In addition to the books, some of which are still being published, there are a number of movies which have been made of these stories, the most recent of which was in 2012 by Terry Gilliam.

Here are some additional illustrations. 

If you are in the area, please get in touch with me and I’d be happy to show you our Napoleon Chest and the rest of our Museum of Medical History.