Sir William Osler

Over the summer, I worked with Susan Speaker from the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine(whew!) on a Profile in Science for Sir William Osler. The first thing I learned is that I’d been pronouncing his name wrong. It’s Oooosler, with a long O, not Ahhsler.

Sir William came to Baltimore in 1889 to become Physician in Chief at the newly-opened Johns Hopkins Medical School. It was during these first years in Baltimore that Osler began writing a medical textbook, The Principles and Practice of Medicine, which went into 16 editions and whose royalties supported him for the rest of his life.

Sir William was elemental in the look of MedChi today. He worked hard to create a first class medical library and continued to donate books to it even after he moved to Oxford University. There were funds named in his honor and funds and books were contributed to MedChi through it. He was instrumental in hiring Marcia Noyes, the librarian who lived and worked at MedChi for 50 years. He was renowned for his love of books and there are many notes between Sir William and Marcia Noyes discussing various books.

Sir William also did much to bridge the medical community in Baltimore. Hopkins had a practice of hiring “outsiders” and not local talent, and there was much resentment amongst the local medical community.

In our numerous images of Sir William, he never looks happy, but this is because he didn’t like to sit for portraits. He actually had quite a good sense of humor, and was a practical joker.

During the last six months before Osler moved to England, he gave numerous lectures, attended dinners in his honor and received myriad accolades. Generally, he was exhausted by the time he left!

After his death, the honors continued with the Olser Historical Society.

To visit the NIH’s Profile in Science of Sir William Osler, please click here.

Warner-Hanna Map of Baltimore 1801

Anyone who knows me knows my love of maps, so when I came across the pieces of the Warner-Hanna 1804 map of Baltimore in our archives, I was so thrilled. It was in pieces, so I scanned each one and then put them back together digitally.

It is incredibly detailed, and shows the homes and gardens of those living in Baltimore at that period, including many of our early members, and one of my ancestors. The map was initially made by Charles Varle, but it didn’t sell well, so he sold the copper plates to Warner & Hanna who republished it without attribution. It was republished in the 1870’s and then again in the 1947. I have a suspicion that ours is the 1870 map, not the 1801 map.

When I first put this map on my Facebook page, someone sent me an image of the Warner & Hanna map that had been hand-colored.

Somewhere down the rabbit-hole, I found this amazing essay on the houses and their gardens on the Warner & Hanna map, and contemporary paintings that actually showed them. I am seriously in awe of the person who researched this.

Here’s a property from the W&H map, (it’s just above the W&H logo on the map above).

and here’s the painting of the same property. It’s now in the Winterthur Museum.

This truly amazes me.

Tour Poster

Do you remember how all of the old rock concerts used to have tour posters? Well, I made a poster for a tour we did in October for the Baltimore Architecture Foundation. I must say that I am quite pleased with it!

I took an image of the MedChi building and through the magic of Photoshop, I cleared out all of the windows, and then layered images of some of the paintings in them. Our Marcia Noyes is front and center in the Reading Room window and the others are, from top left, Edward Harris, George Miltenberger, William Osler, Upton Scott, Marcia, Samuel Coale, John Davidge (hiding behind the tree) Nathan Ryno Smith, Charles Sloan and Thomas Buckler. 

MedChi’s “Other” Building

As I wrote before, we have a HQ building that was purpose built in 1909 for MedChi. But in the early 1980’s, we had greatly expanded what we do and needed additional space. Luckily, the adjacent building, an old school, was vacant. Through a deal with the City, we acquired the building and the gymnasium for the grand sum of $1.00. My office is dead center on the third floor.

The building, which was constructed in 1900, was originally the Marsden’s School, then Marsden’s University School and then the University School for Boys. In the 1940’s, it became PS #49, the Robert E. Lee School. It closed in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. We have a bronze bust of Robert E. Lee and the granite plinth where it sat, stored in the stacks.

I went out and took some pictures of the building a few days before we did our architectural tour in October and I was lucky to get some great yellow afternoon light. I think that the building is quite handsome on the exterior. There are loads of gorgeous carvings and details. The front entrance:

The Veritas shield.

One of the faces

 

Books

The great round windows on the gymnasium

More detail

Wonderful huge windows, although I’ve gotten grief for the “replacement” windows that were installed at some point. The windows in my office are steel-framed, and while they do open, they’re a bear to close!

Ex Libris: The Bookplate Collection, Part I

Recently, as I was searching the archives, I came across a box of bookplates which had been collected during the early 1900’s. It seems that at some point, Marcia Noyes had advertised in the Maryland Medical Journal that she was collecting bookplates, and many people responded!

The plates are being scanned into digital files so that they’re not lost. The plates are in small paper folders, each with notes about the donor and other details. However, many of the files are empty, and have a written note that the plate were added to a book – perhaps a ledger or a scrapbook. Of course, I’ve not found that, but that’s not to say it doesn’t exist!

Here are some of the plates I’ve scanned to date.

What do you think about MedChi having an exhibition of the bookplates? I was thinking of enlarging them to poster size and then displaying them. I think it would be fun! You could see a lot more of the detail if they were enlarged.

I still have four more folders to look through and scan the interesting bookplates. Let me know which one you like the most!