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Shockingly, we do not seem to have a copy of Osler's Practice of Medicine in our collection. I am positive that there must have been one here at some point. Surely the good Sir William Osler himself must have given a copy? But as I've searched the shelves in the stacks, I've never some across one.

After my trip to McGill, I realized that I needed to rectify that omission. So I put in a query for the book on Ebay and came up with a copy that hit all of the right buttons. It was old and it was inexpensive!

The copy is dated 1894, and is apparently a second edition copy. It's missing its back cover, but that's okay.

There's a penciled note on one page of James Wilson Fox of Buffalo, NY.  I can't quite decipher whether there's a date above or below it.

There was a Dr. Fox in the area close to Buffalo, but he disappears in the 1920's.

This copy seems also to have been the property of Dr. Oscar J. Eichhorn who was at the University of Maryland in 1917-1918. His delightful bookplate was on the front cover. 

And there is also a note indicating it was a birthday present to "Dad" on June 29, 1954. 

As I mentioned, I bought the book on eBay from a seller in Kentucky, so who knows where he got it.

But what really matters is that there's now a copy at MedChi once again. It will have a special place in the Krause Room, which was originally the Reading Room. 

Although Osler would not have had the chance to spend time in this room, he talked at several times about how much it meant to him to be with older and younger physicians discussing medicine and sharing information.  

The Grey Lady, a Doctor's Coupe

As I was sorting through the pictures of Marcia I found at the Maryland Historical Society, one of them caught my eye, mainly because it wasn't a picture of Marcia. 

It was a picture of her car, which she called "The Grey Lady", and along with the photograph, there was a little card, explaining the car and offering people a ride in it. She also mentions that the car has her monogram on the door! 

I was curious about the car, and could get a general date of the time period because the picture was taken in front of 1211 Cathedral Street, which was built in 1909. I estimated the car to be late 1910's or so, but checked with a friend who collects vintage cars. He confirmed the general date, and informed me that this particular car was known as a "doctor's coupe" and that it wasn't a Ford, because at that time, Ford only made black cars. So it was likely a Buick or a Dodge. 

Apparently, small cars like this, with two seats and a large trunk, were preferred by physicians who made house calls, and could carry a nurse and a lot of equipment. The coupe had to be dependable in all sorts of weather, day or night, so it was an enclosed car.

Unfortunately, most of the early 1900's Medical Journals are bound, and have had the advertising pages at the beginning and ends of the volumes removed, so I can't check and see if there are adverts for these Doctor's Coupes. 

What is interesting is that Marcia, probably in her early 40's at that time, had her own car and was driving herself around the city and environs. She was the Executive Secretary of the Faculty at that time, and probably had a lot of meetings with physicians. They couldn't always be expected to come to her. 

Letters Between Old Friends

I recently spent an afternoon at the archives at the Maryland Historical Society a week ago, specifically searching for more information about our Marcia Noyes. A number of years ago, many of our files were transferred to the Historical Society, so that much of the history of medicine in Maryland would be centrally located.

There was a file with letters to and from Sir William Osler, and his wife, Lady Grace Osler, as well as Osler's nephew, William W. Francis, who became the guardian and organizer of Osler's massive collection of books. 

Francis and Marcia were about the same age and knew each other through Osler, with whom Francis lived for several years. When Osler's books were transferred to McGill University, Francis came along with them and became the first Osler Librarian.

"Dr. Billy" and "Sister Marcia" kept in touch, bound by their love of Osler, and their professional love of books. Both were involved with the Medical Library Association (MLA). Letters between the two are funny and candid, in the way that long-time friends have. 

The two grew old together through their letters, and commiserated about their ailments. Both were sad that Francis's hospitalization prevented him from travelling to Baltimore for Marcia's 50th Anniversary party, and in their letters, it was clear that they knew they'd never see each other again after one last MLA meeting. 

On Marcia's death, Francis sent a telegram to the Faculty, with the following words: Well done good and faithful Sister Marcia. Farewell to Osler's earliest from his latest librarian.

William Willoughby Francis died in 1959.

Visiting the Biblotheca Osleriana

I was in Canada last week for a short break and I took time to visit McGill University, Sir William Osler’s spiritual home.

As you might remember, I got to know Sir William quite well when I transcribed and subsequently published a biography of him, from a manuscript originally written in 1934. Additionally, writing this blog has presented me with plenty of opportunity to get to know him even better.

I literally started my visit at the bottom – the bottom of a huge hill. I went to the Rare Books collection at McGill in the morning,

and had a chance to see some of their massive collection of books, as well as their architectural archives and ancient printing press (above). 

Because this is the Fiftieth Anniversary of Expo 67, there was a good collection of Moshe Safdie’s works, including Habitat in Montreal, and Cold Spring New Town in Baltimore, just off of Cold Spring Lane, as well as some architectural models. 

After lunch, I headed up the hill to Boulevard Sir-William, where the Osler Library is located.

 

It was originally in another spot on campus, but when a new medical school building was built in the early ‘60s, the library was taken apart and moved to the new space.

Sir William and Lady Grace Osler are both interred at McGill, behind a bronze plaque,

which is nearly identical to the one at MedChi’s Osler Hall. Ours has a bit more patina than McGill’s does,

but their space is climate controlled, unlike ours! 

The space is all old oak, stained glass and thousands of books, which were originally catalogued at Oxford and then sent to Canada. 

It took several years after Osler’s death in 1919 for all of this to happen because there were so many books!

It was fun to look up on the ceiling and see this painted there.

There was one for each of the four schools with which Osler was affiliated professionally.

I have to say that the visit was more emotional than I expected. Although he was never at the library named for him, his presence was all around.

One sad note: During my visit to the Osler Library, I found out that Professor Michael Bliss, who wrote the extensive and definitive biographies of Drs. Harvey Cushing and William Osler, and whom I had hoped to visit in Toronto, died suddenly just before I decided to visit. We had several good conversations after I published the Osler book, and he was furious that he hadn’t taken the time to read through the manuscript from our archives. He told me that it corraborated two stories that he had found, but wanted an additional source for them. And both were in our book. His obituary is here.

The staff at the Osler Library and the Rare Books collection could not have been warmer and more welcoming to me and I was delighted to be able to spend time visiting with them! Thanks so much!

Bringing the Past to Life

When we look at all of the old black and white photos in our collections, they seem so flat and lifeless, even if they include lots of people. In our minds, these aren't real people, because they don't look like the people we see every day. 

But when you add color to the image, it instantly comes to life. I am the resident photoshop wizard, so have played around with colorizing some of our images here. 

The first picture I did was our Marcia Crocker Noyes. As you might know, we like to pose Marcia for the holidays. But when you've got a black and white Marcia on a bright sunny beach, it doesn't look right. So, she needed to be colorized. 

I went down to the Krause Room and tried to channel Marcia, so I could figure out what colors her dress and cape were. I had to guess on some things, but overall, I am pretty happy with the result.

Next up was one of MedChi's early headquarters buildings. This was a lot more of a challenge, as it was on the second floor of the Emerald Hotel on Calvert Street. There were tons of advertisements, windows, brickwork and other details, so it was a perfect job for that odd not-quite-holiday day.

Finally, I played around with a group of physicians from the late 1800's. They're a dour bunch, clearly posing for the camera. I am not sure if that's a room at an early HQ building of ours, or a backdrop set. 

Half of this picture is in color, so you can see the contrast.

And here's the fully colorized version. 

I looked at old advertisements for men's clothing in the late 1800's to come up with the color. I picked hair and eye colors based on closely looking at each of the men and making educated guesses. I have portraits of Drs. Chew and Donaldson, but Chew's hair is white, and Donaldson's hair is a close approximation to this. 

I realize that there are a lot of people who hate the idea of colorizing images, but it's not like the original people or places were in black and white. We are just giving them life again. 

The Marcia C. Noyes Award Winner

The highest honor that MLA confers is the Marcia C. Noyes Award. Jean P. Shipman, AHIP, FMLA, executive director, Knowledge Management and Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, and director, MidContinental Region and National Library of Medicine National Training Center, National Network of Libraries of Medicine, University of Utah–Salt Lake City, received the 2017 Marcia C. Noyes Award at MLA ’17 in Seattle, Washington.

As has become tradition, MedChi sent a bouquet of flowers to Ms. Shipman, as did the physicians to Marcia when she was the librarian here.

Shipman launched her professional career in 1980 at the Welch Medical Library, Johns Hopkins University. In 1981, she joined the Maryland Association of Health Sciences Librarians, and since that time, she has been robustly active in service to the health sciences librarianship community of practice.

With a career spanning over thirty-five years, Shipman has proved to be a remarkably effective advocate for the profession, as evinced by the leadership positions she has held on behalf of MLA. She joined MLA in 1984 and began holding leadership positions at the national level in 1992, when she served as chair of the Ida and George Eliot Prize Jury.

Since then, she has held at least seven elected or appointed leadership positions, including, but not limited to, 1998–2001 cochair of the 2001 National Program Committee, member of the 1999–2002 Board of Directors and secretary of the Board of Directors from 2000–2002, 2001–2002 chair of the Informationist Conference Task Force, 2006/07 MLA president, 2007/08 chair of the MLA Nominating Committee, and 2011–2014 Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) associate editor, Building Projects. Additionally, Shipman was awarded MLA Fellowship in 2009.

Her passion for the profession is evident in her words and actions. Shipman’s leadership of the National Library of Medicine (NLM)/MLA Health Information Literacy Project has had a positive and enduring impact on patients and health sciences librarians. Many libraries used the tools that the project developed to bring information literacy resources and health literacy concerns to health care professionals, improving patient education activities and interdisciplinary cooperation.

Shipman has devoted her life to innovation in health sciences librarianship, making impactful and durable contributions through service to the profession and through research, scholarship, and applied practice initiatives in the areas of scholarly communications, library space planning, health information literacy, hospital librarianship, mentoring and leadership, and the evolution of new roles for health sciences librarians. Like Marcia C. Noyes, Shipman models the professional and personal characteristics that honor the enduring principles of health sciences librarianship.

We received the nicest thank you note from Ms Shipman and hope to meet her the next time she’s in Baltimore. Thanks to Jean Shipman for carrying on the tradition of excellence started by Marcia Crocker Noyes when she came to the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in 1896.

Thanks to the Medical Library Association News for the article on Jean Shipman. 

Our Marcia

With the 50th anniversary of the classic album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, this week, we decided to take another look at the cover. Seriously, it’s probably been about 49 years since we last looked, but with all of the publicity about the album, we gave it a re-listen and checked the cover again.

We knew that one-time Baltimore resident, Edgar Allan Poe, was on the cover, but taking a second look, we were shocked to see our own Marcia Noyes among the luminaries! 

See if you can find Marcia!