Please Join Us for the Third Annual Ghost Tour and Evening of Spooky Stories

For decades, there have been stories of staff members and others hearing footsteps echo in the hallways or on the stairs, finding items which appear with no explanation, or catching a glimpse of a figure our of a corner of an eye...

On Wednesday, October 29 and Thursday, October 30, from 6:30 to 7:30, MedChi will be hosting a Ghost Tour of MedChi's Historic Headquarters Building in Mount Vernon, which is reputed to be one of the five most haunted buildings in Baltimore. 

While we can't guarantee that you will see Marcia, we will tell you stories of her haunting of the building, show you our extensive stacks library, our timeless art collection and the historic medical equipment our physicians have used for the past 226 years. 

Copies of the recently published biography of Marcia will be for sale that evening. 

To reserve a spot, please click on the QR code, or open it with your phone. Tickets are $10 per person and will support the preservation of our archives. Click here for tickets!

Reservations are required. And don't forget to select which date you'd like to attend!

Carroll County Farm Museum

A few months ago, I got an email from the curator at the Carroll County Farm Museum telling me that they had found a number of items that had been loaned by MedChi in 1962. 

In late August, I made the trek up to Westminster to see what we had lent to them. They knew what items had been ours because of our unusual identification system - acquisition numbers painted in red nail polish. 

By Maryland law, after this much time has passed, legally, the Farm Museum now owns everything we lent them, but mostly, I was interested to see what they had. 

Almost everything had a note attached to it that the item had been donated by physicians from Carroll County.  

As we went through the items, one of us checked our Medical Annals of Maryland to see if we could find out about the donor, and another checked Google to see if we could figure out what the item was, as everything was not marked.

This was one of my favorite pieces, and if I could have snuck it out in my bag, I would have. It is a late 1800's inhaler for anesthesia or ether. It was a beautifully made English transferware piece, which I collect. 

There were several other inhalers, but they weren't nearly as glamorous! This is called Gwathmey's Gas Ether Inhaler. You can see where the bottom parts fits over your mouth and nose. 

Honestly, I hadn't been to the Carroll County Farm Museum for decades, so it was fun to visit again! 

Camp Seyon

A few weeks ago, I received an email from someone in Vermont whose family had owned the property that was Marcia Noyes' Camp Seyon (Noyes in reverse) on Lake George. 

Marcia ran a summer camp for girls for a number of years, finally selling the property in the 1930s. We have old advertisements for the camp, recruiting both counselors and campers. 

At first, the only building housed the kitchen with its huge, wood burning, cast iron stove and the great room with floor to ceiling book shelves, used principally as a dining hall for the girl's camp that had existed there since the turn of the century.

From an article about the property I found online: 

The girls slept on narrow, World War I army cots in large canvas tents rigged on wooden platforms.  Marcia Noyes (Seyon is Noyes spelled backward), who ran the camp, was an internationally known medical librarian at Johns Hopkins University the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland.

Johns Hopkins The Faculty provided her a penthouse apartment in Maryland and the Medical Librarians Association still gives out a yearly award in her honor. But Miss Noyes' summers were dedicated to the camp and her girls. Marcia had the Main House floated down from an island in the Narrows on a barge as the Camp was, then, a virtual island. A boggy path led across the isthmus to the peninsula but vehicles were left on the mainland.

After she sold the Camp, it seemed to remain in one family for several generations. When they finally sold it in the early 2000s, they kept a lot of things from the property. Among the items were some pieces from the Camp Seyon years. 

As one of the descendants was going through the papers, etc. he realized that they should be with Marcia's documents at MedChi, and not with the family, so he kindly sent them to us!

There were numerous ink printings of various ferns from the property, along with the scientific names and descriptions, all in Marcia's handwriting.

Additionally, there were some notes and letters, plus catalogues of various camping supplies. 

Here are some more pieces which were in the box.

We greatly appreciate the family's foresight in making sure that we received the documents from Camp Seyon, and they weren't just thrown away.

Wooden German Doctors

One of our generous donors gave us a set of hand-carved wooden German physicians. 

Each figure has a hand-written description of what type of doctor the figure represents, and some of the tools of the trade. Below is an ophthalmologist in one of our display shelves with some early 20th century ophthalmology tools.

The figures are displayed in our Krause Room, and are in shelves with some of our historic German medical books. In the image below, you can see on the left side, the figure in the rust apron and his specialty is listed as "chirurg" and behind him, a German book on surgery.

The next time you're in the building, stop by and take a look at them. They are so charming!

The figures are from the collection of Dr. John H. Talbott, Sr. who was among other things, the Editor of JAMA and a very important researcher on topics (during WWII) such as climate and its effects on soldiers, and later he was among those researchers who discovered colchicine, the first effective treatment for Gout. 

From Dr. Talbott's obituary in the New York Times on October 13, 1990:

Dr. John Harold Talbott, Sr. a researcher, educator and author, died Wednesday at a care community where he lived in Delray Beach, Fla. He was 88 years old and died of lymphoma, said his son, Dr. John A. Talbott of Baltimore.

Dr. Talbott wrote 12 books and hundreds of articles and was former editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association and the former director of scientific publications of the American Medical Association. He was also an editor of the Merck Manual and of his own journal, ''Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism.''

A 1929 graduate of Harvard University Medical School, Dr. Talbott did his internship at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. From 1930 to 1940 he was affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. In these years, he worked for the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory, where he did research on the physiological effects of exposure to high altitudes. He also did research on gout and arthritis.

In World War II, he was director of the Army Climatic Research Laboratories in Lawrence, Mass., where he studied environmental stress on soldiers produced by exposure to extreme temperatures.

He then spent 13 years at the University of Buffalo Medical School and at Buffalo General Hospital as a professor and chief of medicine. In 1959 he was named editor of the A.M.A. journal and remained there for 12 years. As editor, he was criticized by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare for issuing warnings on possible cancer-causing effects of smoking or food additives, calling them premature or without sufficient evidence. In 1971 he moved to Florida to serve as a professor of medicine at the University of Miami.

We are so delighted to have these wonderful figures as part of our collection!

The Details

As I mentioned, I recently acquired a drone! My drone's name is Daisy Drone because the blades of the motor look like daisy petals.

I had an opportunity to fly it outside our 1898 building to see the details a week or so ago. The building's details are brownstone, and 125+ years worth of being on a busy street has caused a lot of deterioration and discoloration. 

Droning On...

After wanting a drone for ages, I finally got one... and promptly flew it into the woods up at my friends' farm. Luckily, I had insurance on it, and got another one. But then, another friend was selling his, which was WAY easier to use than my original one, so I bought that and returned the replacement! 

Whew!

You might be asking what this might have to do with this History of Medicine blog, so I will tell you! There are artworks, busts, and other items that are out of my reach. I can't get a good "head on" view of these items to get a good identification for them. 

Sending a drone up, even ten feet or so, gets me at eye-level with the art work. Two of our busts are in the Krause Room, above the bookcases. Last year, I finally identified two of the bronze busts, but the only photos I got were from the ground (or my eye level) looking up.

Using my drone, whose name is Daisy Drone by the way, I took photos of the busts at eye level. 

Stay tuned for more drone photos, and me seeing what I can do with my new toy tool.

Marcia Crocker Noyes: The Librarian Who Never Left

I am so pleased to announce the publication of "Marcia Crocker Noyes: The Librarian Who Never Left," a biography of our librarian of 50 years.

Marcia was hired by Dr. William Osler in 1896 to be the first trained librarian for the Faculty, as it was then known. She was required to live and work on the premises, so that if a physician needed a book in the middle of the night, she could get it out of the stacks.

When we built our current building in 1909, she was highly involved in the design of it, as it was also to become her home. Marcia died in 1946 and her funeral was held in Osler Hall, a fitting testimony to her long friendship with Dr. Osler.

Of course, we've all heard stories about how she's never left the building. In fact, in her latter years, she mentioned that she would stay away for a few days, and then come back to haint (haunt) the building. And indeed, she has!

The book is available in two formats: an 80-page soft-cover edition for $30.00, and a digital format for $5.00. The funds raised by the sale of the book will be used to support the MedChi archives. 

To purchase the book in either format, either scan or click the QR code below. 

I hope that you will enjoy reading the book as much as I did researching and writing it!

More About Dr. Davidge

All of a sudden, after Baltimore Fishbowl published an article, and the University of Maryland's PR Department went into overdrive, we are getting a lot of press about our donation to the UM Medical Alumni Association. 

Here is a list of all media mentions thus far!

Baltimore Fishbowl 

UMSOM Elm 

UMSOM P.R. Office 

WMAR-TV 2 30 second blurb  

UMSOM – Clip from WBAL

Baltimore Sun – Our Mona Lisa

The Daily Mail (US edition)

Capital Gazette

WMAR-TV2

WMAR-TV2 YouTube

The Baltimore Banner

ArtNet News

Smithsonian Magazine's Cool Finds

Hopkins School of Medicine Photos in the Osler Years

I was going through some of our old Osler books, as well as the ones I recently acquired (see last post), and scanned in a bunch of pictures. Because of the age of the books, they are all out of copyright, so I am republishing some of them here. 

See how many of the names you recognize from Old Baltimore Medicine days!

New Acquisitions

I recently found out that Marcia was a big fan of auctions, and when we moved into our building in 1909, she scoured the local auction rooms for furnishings for the building. She collected paintings, rugs and furniture to make the building feel like a warm and welcoming place for the members. 

Over the past 12 years, I've continued the tradition of buying items for the building and collections from auctions. Recently, I made a great purchase, which I got for my favorite hammer price - insultingly low!

I got Sir William Osler, Bart. [Baronet] Brief Tributes to His Personality, Influence and Public Service (Baltimore, JHU Press, 1920; A Way of Life (Baltimore, Remington, 1928) and The Bibliography of the Writings of Sir William Osler, Minnie Wright Blogg (Baltimore, Privately Printed, 1921). Miss Blogg was the librarian at Johns Hopkins Hospital. 

Another book I won was Sir William Osler Memorial Number: Appreciations and Reminiscences (Montreal: Privately Published, 1926) 619 pages. 

The memorial number is FILLED with dozens of photographs, many of which I'd not seen before. It was printed in a limited edition and the copy which I got is number 1424 of 1500.

The book is more than 600 pages and there are numerous essays from each part of Osler's life, including the early years, Montreal, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Oxford.

Many of the essays are reminisces from old friends and colleagues.

It has been fascinating looking through the book, and when I have the time, I will pick and choose the essays I want to read.

Happy Independence Day!

 From Everyone at MedChi

Happy Independence Day 2025!

1215-1217 Cathedral Street

I recently found out that MedChi once owned the two buildings directly to the north of our 1909 building, 1215 and 1217 Cathedral Street.

The School 49 building is on the right and 1215-1217 is to the left. 

In 1935, the owner of the two properties died, and in 1936, the Faculty, as it was then known, bought the two for $6,500, or $862,000 in today's money. The plan was to expand the Faculty's building and relocate the Board of Medical Examiners and the Committee on Careers in Nursing to the building. 

At the semi-annual House of Delegates meeting, the members were encouraged to visit the new buildings, and check the display of bookplates (some of which are now displayed in our Museum).

On the left side of the image, you can see a "white" house that looks like two joined houses, which would have been 1215 and 1217.

During the 1950's, plans were to demolish the two buildings and build a three-story building as an annex to the 1909 building.

But at the semi-annual House of Delegates meeting in April of 1960, that plan was dropped and a new plan was formulated to renovate and upgrade the original building, including adding an elevator, air conditioning and new seating for Osler Hall. 

This may have been the period in which all of the decorative elements from Osler Hall were removed and the Hall was stripped to Mid Century Modern blandness. (Details here)

Osler Hall, Circa 1962

At some point in the early 1960s, the buildings were demolished.

1961 and the adjacent buildings have been demolished.  Cathedral Street is one-way, southbound.

Plans to build a parking lot there to supplement the parking on the Maryland Avenue side. Half of the current lot was the playground for the adjacent School #49. 

The Return of Dr. John Davidge

A series of curious events occurred over the past few days. Let me recap for you...

On Thursday, I received a text from an old sailing friend of mine. She was helping friends clean out a property in Fells Point, and came across an old painting of John Davidge. If you don't know, Davidge Hall, at the University of Maryland's School of Medicine, is the oldest medical school building still in use.

It was built in 1814 and named for John Beale Davidge, one of the founders of the school (along with MedChi).

The painting was found in a closet, completely forgotten. As my friend read the plaque, she saw that he was an early physician, and knew that I worked at the Medical Society. She asked if we'd be interested in buying it, and of course I said YES and sent them a payment instantly!

I picked the painting up on Saturday and had a chance to examine it over the weekend. Everything looked right for the time it would have been painted. I did some research on the painter, but couldn't come up with anything that worked with the timeframe. 

On Monday, I called Larry Pitrof, the Executive Director of the UM Medical Alumni Association (MAA) to ask what he knew about the original painting of Davidge that I assumed they owned. 

He told me that the one contemporary painting they had, which was in an oval frame, was stolen in the early 1990s, when Davidge Hall was the President's office, and was open to the public all of the time. 

About ten years ago, MAA commissioned a painting of Dr. Davidge so they would have some representation of him. 

A black and white photograph of that painting, which I've seen, was lost, as well, probably during one of their renovations.

Larry was VERY interested in the portrait, so I decided to donate it to them as Davidge Hall is the only place the portrait belongs. They will have MedChi's and my name included on the plaque as the donors of the painting. 

Medical Alumni Magazine, Summer 2025

For the MAA to have a nearly contemporary painting of one of the School's founders, and the Hall's namesake is huge for the University, and I hope that we get some publicity out of this discovery.

I dropped off the painting on Monday afternoon, to the delight of the Larry who had never seen any copy of the painting.

Meg Fairfax Fielding with the Davidge portrait.

After it's cleaned up, and the renovations are completed, it will take pride of place at Davidge Hall. We are so pleased about how all of this turned out. 

Update One: Here's a great story about this from Baltimore Fishbowl. And a nice piece from the UMSoM. Big article from the Baltimore Sun (gift article), and a piece from ArtNews.

Update Two: There is some question, by those who know WAY more than I do, about the date of the painting, and whether the date was changed from 1944 to 1844, because the painter's dates don't work with the 1844 date. As I only had the portrait for 48 hours, I didn't get a chance to do any deep research on the painting, the canvas or the dates. I only know what I saw. Even if the painting was 1944, it's still the oldest known painting of Dr. Davidge.