Thalidomide 50 Years On

The archive of the Thalidomide Society (SA/TSY) and the papers of Professor Richard Smithells (PP/SML) have been catalogued and are now available to researchers at the Wellcome Library. Thalidomide was developed by the pharmaceutical company Grünenthal in Germany in 1957, and was used as a painkiller and tranquillizer. It was also effective in treating morning sickness during pregnancy, and many scientists believed that this drug would not harm the developing baby. However this was found not to be the case, and over 10,000 children in 46 countries were born with deformities such as phocomelia. The drug was licenced in Britain in 1958, marketed as Distaval, and was withdrawn in late 1961. Between 1959 and 1962 approximately 2,000 babies were born with deformities due to the drug, and only 466 survived. 2012 is a landmark year concerning thalidomide: it is just over 50 years since withdrawal of the drug Distaval and is the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Thalidomide Society.

The Thalidomide Society (originally called the Society for the Aid of Thalidomide Children) was formed by a meeting of four parents in August 1962, at the Dolphin Hotel in Southampton. Their aim was to set up a national society devoted to the aid of their own and other children affected by the drug thalidomide. The inaugural meeting took place on 20th October 1962, with forty-four parents attending. A draft constitution was created (SA/TSY/A/1) which states that the Society would not only include children affected by thalidomide but those with similar disabilities. Branches of the Thalidomide Society were set up, due to the wide geographic range of the parents. They would meet regularly and operated with local organisations that could help the families.

The Society worked closely with the Lady Hoare Thalidomide Appeal until 1974, to raise money to help the families affected, and increase awareness of their cause, this was helped by several national newspapers (see extensive press coverage represented in SA/TSY/G). There were a variety of fundraising schemes, general donations and offers of help (SA/TSY/C/1) and car competitions (SA/TSY/C/3). The money raised from these was used to support thalidomide families with social workers, research into new technologies (such as prosthetic arms and wheelchairs), a holiday home, and went towards the Oxford Centre for Enablement and the Chailey Heritage Craft School and Hospital. The Society is now a user led organisation; the majority of the council is made up of thalidomide affected people. The archive of the Thalidomide Society contains documents on its creation, (SA/TSY/A/1), fundraising schemes (SA/TSY/C), publications (SA/TSY/D), and of their recent events such as the annual AGM and conferences (SA/TSY/A/3).

Distillers (the company that distributed thalidomide: it is now owned by Diageo Ltd) and the parents of the children affected by thalidomide finally reached a settlement in 1973, after years of negotiations. From this the Thalidomide Children’s Trust (now the Thalidomide Trust) was set up to distribute the payments fairly amongst those affected. Professor Richard Smithells, a renowned consultant paediatrician, worked closely in these negotiations and provided medical testimony. Smithells became involved with thalidomide as a clinician on the Liverpool Registry of Congenital Abnormalities that was formed in 1960, where he began studying the links between prescription drug use during pregnancy and birth defects. Along with several other physicians he discovered the teratogenicity of thalidomide in 1961, and subsequently became a leading expert on thalidomide diagnostics. Much of his work concerning thalidomide and congenital malformations is reflected in the new catalogue PP/SML. These papers include a copy of a book for children he created for the NSPCC, Alphabet Zoop (PP/SML/A/3), correspondence and reports working with the Thalidomide Trust (PP/SML/C) and various textual resources he collected over the years regarding the drug (PP/SML/E). He became the Chair of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Leeds in 1968, and he served on the Thalidomide Trust advisory council from 1974, then as a trustee from December 1976.

The collections of the Thalidomide Society and Professor Smithells are part of the Wellcome Library’s Archives and Manuscripts collection. The catalogue can be searched on our online catalogue using the references SA/TSY and PP/SML respectively. Please note that due to the subject and nature of the material a significant proportion of the documents in these two collections have been closed for various fixed periods, for data sensitivity reasons.

Author: Morwenna Roche

The Georgian medicine vendor as physician: William Brodum

Wellcome Library no. 20131i

A watercolour in the Wellcome Library (left) shows an interior with three figures.  In the centre a plump, self-satisfied looking man  looks down with approval at the work of the second figure, on the right, who is Death himself. Death is a tall and physically active skeleton wearing a tie-wig: he vigorously stirs a pestle in a mortar to grind up ingredients for medicines. Some pharmaceutical vessels are shown on the floor around them, and the shelves in the background are full of apothecary's glassware.  The third figure is a woman patient who sits in front of the fireplace on the left, gripped by illness.

The obvious interpretation is that the man is an apothecary (pharmacist), hence the glassware on the shelves of his house. Death is the apothecary's business partner, making up medicines with lethal side-effects: clearly the woman is going to die as a result of taking the harmful medicine. Right?

No, not exactly.  If the setting is an apothecary's shop, the sick woman wearing night-clothes would be sitting in front of the fire in the pharmacist's establishment, not in her own home. To explain that improbability, one would have to assume that she is meant to be a member of his household -- which would rather reduce the applicability of the joke and take the edge off the humour. As the watercolour is attributed to the ever-humorous Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), that would be a problem.

A possible clue to the subject came to light in January 2012 when Christie's in New York offered at auction another watercolour version of the same composition, inscribed in what looks like Rowlandson's hand "Dr Brodum and his assistant at work pro publico bono". [1] So who was Dr Brodum?

Wellcome Library no. 1397i

William Brodum (right) was one of several members of the Georgian medical fringe who were portrayed by caricaturists. Samuel Phillips Eady, also portrayed by Rowlandson and discussed in this blog-post, was another who could be so described. Unlike Eady, Brodum is dignified by an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), where evidence is cited that he was a Danish Jew, born Issachar Cohen in Copenhagen around 1767. [2] He came to England around 1787 to work for another medicine vendor (Dr Bossy), using the name William Brodum. He obtained an Aberdeen M.D. degree in 1791, and from his house at 9 Albion Street, Blackfriars Road, London, launched his own career as a medicine vendor, specializing in two product lines: "Doctor Brodum's Botanical Syrup for the cure of scorbutic, leprous and scrofulous complaints" and "Doctor Brodum's Nervous Cordial for the cure of consumptive, nervous and debilitated constitutions, and people who have been in hot countries". His advertising for these products included a lot of code words that were euphemisms for syphilis (debility, leprosy, nervous weakness etc.), and the same insinuation was gracefully made in the title and body of a two-volume publication, Guide to old age, or, A cure for the indiscretions of youth (1795), dedicated to King George III, whose favour he received. A miniature portrait of him around this time was published in an engraving by Ezekiel Abraham Ezekiel (1757–1806), a member of the Jewish community in Exeter (above).

Brodum was therefore both a commercial medicine vendor and a doctor of medicine. Since the two professions were theoretically distinct and incompatible, problems could arise with the regulatory bodies, one of which was the Royal College of Physicians of London. In practice, this combination was not unusual at the time: Sir Hans Sloane, Dr Robert James, and Dr Richard Mead were among physicians associated with proprietary medicines (chocolate in Sloane's case), a fact which led one commentator to ask "Have not members of the College dined at Dr Brodum's table?". [3] In any case, Brodum was summoned before the College and told he could not accept consultation fees and should remove from his house the brass plate which described him as “Dr Brodum”. Brodum refused to accept this ruling, and the academic authorities in Aberdeen did not appreciate the College’s scorn for the value of their doctorate. Brodum continued to visit patients for an advertised cost of 5 guineas a week, while outpatients could visit him at his house every Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. [4]

Whether by accident or design,the goings-on in Rowlandson's watercolour fit this situation perfectly. If the man is meant to be identified with Brodum -- he died in 1824 and Rowlandson in 1827 -- we need not ask whether it shows a medicine vendor or a physician. Brodum and Death together make up the medicines at Brodum's pharmaceutical laboratory in Southwark, while the patient in the background, huddled in front of her own fireplace, represents the use to which the medicine will be put in Brodum's medical practice.

[1] Christie's, Old Master and early British drawings and watercolors, New York, Rockefeller Plaza, 26 January 2012, lot 38

[2] Edgar Samuel, 'Brodum, William (fl. 1767–1824)', Oxford dictionary of national biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008. Brodum wrote that he was "born and bred" in the same country as the Queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, in north Germany (Guide to old age, or, A cure for the indiscretions of youth, 1795, vol. 1, fol. A2r)

[3] Roy Porter, Health for sale, Manchester 1989, p. 9

[4] William Brodum, Guide to old age, or, A cure for the indiscretions of youth, 1795, pp. 153-155

We’re making it a little bit easier to login to your Wellcome Library account

From today you can login to your Wellcome Library account witha username of your choice.

Set your username to something more meaningful to you thanyour Library barcode to make future logging in quicker and easier.

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To set your new Wellcome Library account username:

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Wellcome Library Masterclass: Interpreting Caricature

At this new Wellcome Library event, attendees will be introduced to items from our collections, interpreted by acknowledged experts.

On the 27th April (2.30pm-4pm), our speakers will select a number of works from the Wellcome Library's collections on the theme of Medicine and Caricature, and unpick the meanings and details contained within these artworks. The session will also include a discussion of the selected items with attendees.

The event will be of particular interest to those with a strong research interest in the History of Art, History of Medicine or Visual Culture.

Speakers:

Prof Ludmilla Jordanova, Professor of Modern History, Kings College London

William Schupbach, Iconographic Collections Librarian, Wellcome Library

The session is free, but pre-registration is essential and numbers are limited to 15. Please email Tracy Tillotson (t.tillotson@wellcome.ac.uk) to book a place.

Image: Burdett, Peel, O'Connell and Wellington in the roles of the body-snatchers Burke and Hare, suffocating John Bull with a rope; representing the extinguishing by Wellington and Peel of the constitution of 1688 by Catholic Emancipation. Coloured etching by A. Sharpshooter, 1829 (Wellcome Library no. 663317i).

Item of the Month, March 2012: 'How the Department of Health of the city of New York is fighting tuberculosis'

To mark World TB Day 2012, we're travelling back to the United States at the turn of the 20th century to look at tuberculosis prevention in New York.

In 1882 Robert Koch announced his discovery of the tuberculosis bacillus, formally placing pulmonary tuberculosis (or consumption) among other communicable but preventable diseases. Responses to this varied. In New York the sanitary authorities didn’t make any major steps towards sanitary regulation and prevention using Koch’s work until 1894.

Hermann Michael Biggs (1859-1923), M.D. and from 1902, New York General Medical Officer, had initiated concerns and started a campaign to change the local approach to stopping the disease as early as 1887 when he was a consulting pathologist, urging notification, registration and surveillance of the disease as well as education of the public involving leaflets, press, exhibitions and lectures.  

These measures were all brought in eventually and disinfection was additionally suggested as a vital part of the campaign as well as free sputum analysis tests offered by the Dept. of Health’s bacteriological laboratory. Epidemiological cluster studies recorded on maps showed where local concentrations of the disease were, enabling targeting of available health resources.

This new approach caused angry controversy within the medical profession, but continued. In 1896 land for a tuberculosis sanatorium was bought at Otisville, 75 miles away in the Shawangunk mountains, offering free treatment for New York City residents. Special tuberculosis wards were set up in one of the New York Hospitals in 1903. Specialised clinics were opened with trained staff between 1904 and 1907. 

A scrapbook of 134 pages with 116 items of assorted stationery pasted into a continuous narrative about the city’s battle to prevent and control tuberculosis was compiled specially for the 1908 conference on tuberculosis in Washington, D.C. A footnote on the title page would appear to indicate that “250 sets” were produced. The Wellcome Library has one of these scrap books in its printed medical ephemera collection.

The scrapbook includes ‘A brief history of the campaign against tuberculosis in New York City’ by Biggs and preserves a very comprehensive range of campaign publications which includes simple forms, cards, envelopes, letterheads as well as samples of the pamphlets and leaflets that were distributed to people. The material is primarily in English, but with certain items translated into other languages reflecting the diverse ethnic population of New York City in 1908.

Four small maps also show detailed epidemiology of the disease, building by building in Lower New York in 1894-1898 and 1899-1908. Procedures for sanitary supervision and registration are given in detail with the relevant forms pasted in situ. Leaflets used in the campaign are here in a variety of languages explaining what the disease is, how it is spread (spitting is given as the chief cause), the importance of hygiene (disinfection and fumigation), what hospital and other health services were available to people and the need to report cases to the authorities. Information for health professionals is also included. The work of the bacteriological diagnosis laboratory is outlined as are the procedures for the collection of sputum samples.

The book documents a turning point in how tuberculosis was treated in New York and also the efforts of Hermann Biggs, fighting against the authorities to get them to change their approach in the light of Koch’s recent discoveries.

Tuberculosis features throughout the Wellcome Library’s collections. A general search in the online catalogue will yield much more in the way of books, journals, pictures and ephemera: this sources guide outlines our manuscripts and archive collections pertaining to the disease. [2] 

Images:
- Hemrnan Biggs, (From 'Plagues and People' website University of California, Irvine)
- Images from 'How the Department of Health of the city of New York is fighting tuberculosis' scrapbook

Author: Stephen Lowther

[1] It had previously been in the Medical Department Library of the British Local Government Board, responsible for overseeing administration, public health, sanitation etc. at a local level in England and Wales between 1871 and 1919 when it was abolished by the Ministry of Health Act.

[2] The Ephemera Collection in particular has numerous examples of colourful Christmas fund-raising stamps or seals from around the world which were sold every year to raise money for charities working with people suffering from TB. They had no postal value but made Christmas card envelopes look brighter and more cheerful. Many countries funded services and help for people with tuberculosis by placing a small surcharge on their actual postage stamps once a year. The money raised by this went specifically to help organisations and charities. We have many of these and they can be found within the Wellcome Library's stamp collections.

New seminar series: Damaging the Body

We are pleased to announce the details of a new academic seminar series, Damaging the Body: Physical Harm and the Self, 1850 - 2010, to be held at the Wellcome Library and organised by the UCL Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines in conjunction with the University of the West of England.

The aim of the seminars is to provoke interdisciplinary discussion of the ways in which the creation of more diverse histories of bodily damage in the nineteenth century and beyond might open up wider concerns.

Details:
Friday 23 March, 6pm
Åsa Jansson (Queen Mary, University of London)
Melancholia and 'Suicidal Propensities' in Victorian Medicine: Statistics, Diagnostics, and Classification

Friday 20 April, 6pm
Dr James Nicholls (Bath Spa University)
It All Adds Up: Changing Models of Alcohol Harm

Wednesday 2 May, 6pm
Dr Katherine Watson (Oxford Brookes University)
Loss of Face: Vitriol Throwing in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Britain

All seminars will take place in the Wellcome Library, 2nd floor, 183 Euston Road, NW1 2BE. Please deposit bags and coats in the ground floor cloakroom and meet in the 2nd floor foyer. Doors at 6pm prompt, seminars will start by 6.15.

Image: A woman diagnosed as suffering from melancholia with fear, or fear of everything, and with a propensity to attempt suicide. Lithograph, 1892, after a drawing made for Sir Alexander Morison (Wellcome Library no. 38637i).

You said, we did...

Thanks to everyone who has taken part in our Wellcome Library surveys over the past year. We have been sending out surveys quarterly in conjunction with our survey partners Morris Hargreaves Macintyre and have been hugely pleased with the results. We can't thank you enough for taking the time to share your views with us.

We will be moving to monthly surveys in order to help speed up our responses to your queries and suggestions. We've been acting upon the feedback and are already implementing changes where possible.

The survey results are anonymised when we receive them, so we have no way of contacting you directly if you make any suggestions or have any questions about our services. We'll be using the Library blog to feedback about the changes we have implemented in response to the surveys, so keep an eye out for updates.

Here are a few of the changes we've made as a result of your feedback:

Lockers and cloakrooms: the new cloakroom on the ground floor is free to use and is available during building opening hours. Lockers have moved from the ground floor to the Library, and they are available during Library opening hours. A £1 coin is required, but it is returned when you empty the locker. Remember, you can't leave anything in the lockers overnight--all items will be removed.

Copying facilities: Users reported issues regarding the stability, speed and difficulty of use of the self-service scanners. To resolve the stability issue, we worked extensively with the software manufacturers to upgrade and test the software. This has significantly improved reliability and performance. We've changed the network connection to speed up communication between printers and scanners and added extra memory to both printers. To make the scanners easier to use we have redesigned the help button to better reflect and explain users’ options.

Self service digital photography: Back in the summer of June 2011 a trial of self-service digital photography began in the Rare Materials Room. We hope that you'll continue to find this tool useful.

Many thanks to all of you who took the time to send your thoughts through the Library Survey. Your views matter to us, so please let us know how we can improve our services. And remember, all completed surveys will be entered into a prize draw and one lucky feedbacker will win £100 for their efforts!

Saving Oxford's Medicine

Launched last year, Saving Oxford Medicine is an initiative from our friends at the Bodleian Library to survey, catalogue and promote the archives of past and present members of the Medical Sciences Division of Oxford University. You can check out the project blog here. 

We have been very excited to read about what the project team is working on. The inter-connectedness of our interests and our collections is immediately apparent - ranging from  penicillin research (see the Abraham papers at the Bodleian and the Chain and Heatley papers at the Wellcome) to the life and work of the pharmacologist and physiologist Edith Bülbring (see here for papers at the Bodleian and here for those at the Wellcome).

Supported by the Wellcome Trust’s Research Resources in Medical History grants scheme, a major project to open up the papers of the geneticist Sir Walter Bodmer is now also well underway. We are looking forward to hearing more about this, and other fabulous Oxford medical collections, in the future. 

Image: Bodleian Library, Oxford: bird's eye view with key and coat of arms. Line engraving (Wellcome Library no. 21002i). 

Author: Jenny Haynes

Taking a bite out of Francis Crick

On Friday 16 March (1.10pm-1.55pm), Wellcome Library Fellow Dr Christine Aircardi, will be giving a free Bite-Sized Lunchtime lecture at University College London.

Christine will talk about her current research, in a lecture entitled: "The life of Francis Crick: a lesson in bridgingdisciplines". 

More details anddirections are available from the UCL website.

War and the psyche

Lt J P D Hewatt, 'Shell Shock', 1917

Readers who consult the online Archives and Manuscripts sources guides may have noticed some recent changes to the guides on war, medicine and health. In order to streamline these somewhat, the content has been rearranged, into War, Medicine, and Health: general and guides relating specifically to World War I and World War II, and a significant amount of material relating to psychiatric and psychological issues to do with warfare pulled out to create a new guide, War, Psychiatry and Psychology.

We already held some important materials on these latter subjects, such as the observations by Charles McMoran Wilson, later Lord Moran, of the new phenomenon of 'shell shock' on the Western Front during the Great War, material in the Bowlby and Winnicott papers on the effects of wartime evacuation on children, records of S H Foulkes' work with the 'Northfield Experiment' during the Second World War. However, a number of more recent acquisitions, such as the papers of H V Dicks relating to his involvement in 'de-Nazification' of Germany after the war and his writings on the psychology of totalitarianism, and several collections of papers of individual psychologists received along with the records of the British Psychological Society have additionally developed our strengths in this area and this is reflected in the creation of  this new guide.

This turns out to be especially timely given the news of this forthcoming event, Psychoanalysis in the Age of Totalitarianism, bringing together historians, social theorists and psychoanalysts to explore the impact of the Second World War and totalitarianism on psychoanalysis, and of psychoanalysis on the understanding of the war and totalitarian systems. Organised under the auspices of the Institute of Psychoanalysis, the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism (Birkbeck, University of London), Birkbeck College, University of London, and the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies of the University of Essex, it will take place in the Wellcome Collection Conference Centre, 21-22 September 2012.

Online resource: Journal of the American Medical Association – all back issues now available

The Library is delighted to announce that we recently purchased access to the complete back files of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), right back to the first issue.

Published continuously since July 1883, JAMA is an international, peer-reviewed journal - the most widely circulated medical journal in the world. Its main aim is to promote the science and art of medicine, and the betterment of public health.

The journal has published a number of landmark studies, such as 'The Etiology of Yellow Fever' (16 Feb 1901); 'The Etiology of Scarlet Fever' (Jan 26 1924); 'The Treatment of Meningococcic Meningitis with Sulfanilamide' (24 April 1937) and 'Live, Orally Given Poliovirus Vaccine' (6 Aug 1960) [1]

The Wellcome Library also subscribes to the current issues of JAMA, so our coverage is complete from 1883 to the present day. Our registered readers can therefore now access the journal from both within and outside the Library.  More details on this resource - and others Wellcome Library readers have remote access to - are available on our website.

[1] A selection of key papers from JAMA - with commentaries from later practitioners - is Harriet S. Meyer, George D. Lundberg (eds). Fifty-one landmark articles in medicine : the JAMA centennial series (Chicago, 1985)

Author: Aileen Cook

Image: Cover of JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 193, No.6, August 9, 1965 (from Osler's Web, John P. McGovern Historical Collections and Research Center, Houston Academy of Medicine)

Duplicitous delicacies

Faking it in the world of manuscripts has a long, if not exactly distinguished, history.  Given the determination of ingenious fraudsters to play intellectual havoc with documentary evidence over the centuries, and the voracious collecting habits of the Wellcome Library’s founder Henry Wellcome, it isn’t surprising that the library turns out to have played its own unwitting part in the art of forgery.

We can’t lay claim to having discovered a fraud on the scale of the Hitler diaries hoax, but social historian of food culture and professional chef Ivan Day has recently unmasked an intriguing fake amongst our collection of 17^th-century recipe manuscripts.

Image of  artificial almond paste fruit courtesy of Ivan Day


Acquired by Henry Wellcome in 1931, Grace Acton’s short recipe book (MS.1) has long perplexed researchers and archivists with its strange handwritings, recipes and lack of obvious purpose.  Ivan has now analysed the text and script of the volume to reveal that it is most likely a 17^th-century notebook used by a 19^th- or early 20^th-century forger to create a ‘Carry On Banqueting’-style recipe collection.

The identity and motivations of the forger are unlikely ever to be discovered, but Ivan’s research sheds valuable light on a curious and problematic volume.

Conservation In Action: Folios from the The Shahnama

Conservator Amy Junker Heslip talks us through the conservation treatment she undertook on the Wellcome Library’s folios of the Shahnama

The Wellcome Library holds 20, highly illustrated, loose folios from The Shahnama or “Book of Kings”. The Shahnama is the longest poem ever written by a single author: Abu’l-Qasim Hasan Firdausi. His epic work narrates the history of Iran (Persia). One of the chief ways in which the text could be appropriated, was by commissioning illustrated manuscript copies of the poem, the earliest known illustrated texts dating from c. 1300. The copies held at the Wellcome have been dated from between 18th century and 19th century, with at least two different hands visible in the work.

Following the return of one folio from this series, from being on loan, a decision was made to treat the entire series. The added considerations were their historical significance, research value and the increased levels of interest in the items.

19 of the 20 folios are pasted down to a backboard with a window mount adhered directly onto the primary support.

All items had varying degrees of pigment loss, most prevalent in the white or containing pale pink/blues pigments.  This can be seen in the white of the horse in this image (Folio Qcc2664.13).








After documentation and photography, each item was surface cleaned lightly around areas without media.  It was then tested under magnification for flaking, lifting or powdery pigment and the details were recorded.

A variety of adhesives needed to be tested to determine the most effective consolidant to readhere the flaking media.  I carried out the testing of these adhesives for strenght, ease of application and degree of visual change after application (shown are some of some of the consolidants tested).

Based on current practice, through a literature search, the application methods that were chosen were two fold: by brush, under magnification, for treating small areas with lifting or unstable media, and with a nebulizer, for treating the large areas of cracking, lifting or unstable areas.  All areas consolidated, and materials used, were logged on the Wellcome's Conservation Database.

All but one of the folios were adhered to a heavy weight back board.  On the verso of these some have text.  After discussion with the curator it was agreed that the minature may have been attached to the backboard during its creation and should remain.  The window mounts, however, were agreed to be 20th century and certainly western.  The board was acidic and cracking and it was decided that these window mounts should be removed (this image of folio Qcc2640.4 shows where the mount board had cracked in the top left corner).

When completed all folios were mounted into a heavy weight deep conservation mount, cut to a standard size, with an over mount to protect the pigment from any further damage.  As researchers will need access to the verso of the mounts, where there is text, an additional window has been cut on the back board and folio protected from damage with a sheet of melinex.

Images: C2294.14 with over mount; Hinging of folio C2294.14 and back window of folio C2284.14


Author: Amy Junker Heslip

Surprise addition to Blacker papers

C P Blacker c. 1940

Archives and Manuscripts was recently contacted by a charity bookshop which had received a donation of books formerly belonging to Carlos Paton Blacker, FRCP (1895-1975), General Secretary of the Eugenics Society, 1930-1952 and Honorary Secretary, 1952-1961, who also practised as a psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in South London. Among these were a number of letters and other papers.

We already hold a significant collection of Blacker's papers which are perennially popular with our readers and which is scheduled for inclusion in the Digitisation Pilot Project. We were therefore delighted to receive this additional material.

Although there were no huge major discoveries, a number of letters filled in gaps in existing sequences of which we had not been aware: there were several letters from his friend and colleague, the Oxford biologist J. R. 'Bill' Baker, from 1937-38, and an additional small group, with related items, concerning the publication of Baker's controversial book Race in 1974. There were also several letters, and other documents, from Major Leonard Darwin, President of the Eugenics Society. While consideration was given to filing these among the tranches of letters from these correspondents already in the collection, it was decided to reflect the rather different route these letters had taken into our holdings by creating separate files at the end of the relevant sequences, thus flagging up new material to researchers who may already have consulted existing files.

Among other strayed letters we found three from Roger Money-Kyrle in 1930: there was already some correspondence between them in the file PP/CPB/D.2 relating to Blacker's talk on 'Life and Death Instincts' in 1929.

There was also a certain amount of general personalia, including several heavily annotated books reflecting the breadth of Blacker's interests: for example, his copies of works by the eminent historian, Arnold Toynbee, the abridged version of A Study of History, and An Historian's Approach to Religion, with cuttings and a reprint, Blacker's typed notes on the latter volume, and a letter to him from Toynbee.

It is not entirely clear why these documents had become separated from the bulk of Blacker's papers. In some instances they had been put into the various books to which they related but in others there was no obvious association between the book and the inserted material. Sometimes it seems possible that a letter or other item was simply being used as a bookmark!

Wellcome Library Insight - Doctors and Midwifery

This Thursday (8th March) at 3pm our next Wellcome Library Insight focuses on the theme of Doctors and Midwifery.

With the current home birth rate in the UK at a mere 2.5 per cent, this session will look at the Wellcome Library holdings on the history of midwifery and some drawbacks of the rise of the male presence in the birth chamber, challenging the perception of a hospital birth as the only safe option for a pregnant woman.

Our popular Insight sessions offer visitors to the Wellcome Library an opportunity to explore the variety of our holdings. These free sessions are thematic in style, last around an hour and offer a chance to learn about our collections.

Details on attending are available on the Wellcome Collection website.

Image: A kraamkamer (birth-room). Watercolour, 17th century (Wellcome Library no. 44688i)

Anatomy or an ottamy? Dissection in Georgian London

On Thursday 15th March, Dr Simon Chaplin, Head of the Wellcome Library, will deliver the Monckton Copeman Lecture at the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London.

Titled “Anatomy or an ottamy? Dissection in Georgian London”, the lecture will draw upon Dr Chaplin's research on the history of dissection and anatomical display.

The lecture begins at 6pm. More details on attending this lecture - and the others in the Apothecaries' Eponymous Lecture series - are available from the Society of Apothecaries website.

Image: Three anatomical dissections taking place in an attic. Coloured lithograph by T. C. Wilson after a pen and wash drawing by T. Rowlandson.  c. 1770 (Wellcome Library no. 25405i).

The 'Orphans' go for a short walk

In 2009 the Wellcome Library acquired four large paintings known as the Acts of Mercy. They had been painted by Frederick Cayley Robinson between 1915 and 1920 for display in the Middlesex Hospital, in the Fitzrovia district of central London. The Middlesex Hospital building was demolished in 2005 (except for its chapel, which still stands), and its assets, archives and responsibilities passed to the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The paintings, being homeless, were then acquired by the Wellcome Library. From the Wellcome Library they were lent in 2010 to the National Gallery for a temporary exhibition focused on them and their painter. More information about the paintings is available in several postings on this blog.

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is now constructing a new cancer hospital, the UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre, in Huntley Street, London, south of the present University College Hospital and not far east of the site of the demolished Middlesex Hospital. 'The Orphans', one of the two pairs of paintings by Cayley Robinson that make up the Acts of Mercy, is being lent to the new cancer hospital, which will open next month, in April 2012. There is a certain appropriateness in the loan because the former Middlesex Hospital had a longstanding interest in, and reputation for, the treatment of cancer. [1]

That tradition went back to 1791 when a surgeon called John Howard sent a letter to "the medical gentlemen of the Middlesex Hospital" proposing that a ward be opened for "paupers afflicted with the disease called cancer". The purpose of this initiative was twofold: to afford relief to the patients and to investigate the causes of cancer. For the relief of patients, an out-patient as well as an in-patient service was suggested. For the purposes of investigation, Howard suggested that notes on cases be kept carefully and made available "to any intelligent or scientific person".

Howard was invited to put his proposals to the Middlesex Hospital Board: he not only did so but also produced an anonymous sponsor who was prepared to pay 3,000 guineas towards the costs. The hospital governors accepted the offer, and the ward opened in 1792. A few years later the sponsor was revealed to be the (by now deceased) Samuel Whitbread (1720–1796), the Bedfordshire brewer whose brewery was based in Chiswell Street in the City of London.

Whitbread's funds created the Cancer Charity, which has been described as "the centre and inspiration of the researches into malignant disease which have flowed from the Middlesex Hospital ever since." In 1914 the Barnato-Joel trustees endowed it with funds to build a new research laboratory. It was absorbed into the Middlesex Hospital's radiotherapy department in 1937. Both before and long after that date, many distinguished researchers, surgeons and physicians carried out at the Middlesex Hospital work towards the two objectives of the charity, relief of cancer patients and advancement of understanding of cancer.

It is that tradition of the Middlesex Hospital that will be continued in the new UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre in Huntley Street. It is remarkable that three specific features of John Howard's proposal to the Middlesex in 1791 are retained in the new building: out-patient treatments, in-patient facilities, and (in collaboration with the UCL Cancer Institute on the other side of the road), making the results of research available by open access publishing. As in the former Middlesex Hospital entrance hall, Cayley Robinson's 'Orphans' will be watching over patients in the atrium of the new building.

The other pair of paintings that makes up Acts of Mercy will remain in the Wellcome Library, and after 8 March 2012 will be redisplayed on facing walls, as Cayley Robinson originally intended. However, anyone wishing to see the four paintings together should revisit the Wellcome Library before that date for a last view of the quartet.

[1] R.S. Handley, 'Gordon-Taylor, breast cancer and the Middlesex Hospital', Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1971, 49: 151-164

Images: 'Orphans', by Frederick Cayley Robinson. Wellcome Library nos. 672831i and 672832i

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus / Happy St David's Day

In honour of St David's Day, the national day of Wales, today we focus on one of the Library's Welsh holdings.

One of the fascinations of archive material in particular is the way that it makes things specific: takes large, overarching topics and presents them in terms of particular instances, anchored to real people and real places. Today, of course, we will be looking at an item that takes us to Wales: to Rhagatt Hall in the valley of the River Dee / Afon Dyfrdwy, just downstream of the small town of Corwen.

Over the years this blog has featured extensive coverage of the Library's seventeenth century recipe books. Those are, however, simply the tip of the iceberg: manuscript recipe books continued to be compiled throughout the eighteenth century and on into the nineteenth, finally beginning to fade from common use in the second half of the century (although they are by no means extinct even now). Like the seventeenth-century volumes, these later examples mingle medical, culinary and household management instruction, in varying proportions according to the compilers' preoccupations. Their main point of difference from the earlier books is in their greater use of printed cuttings: as time passes we see people less willing to transcribe every recipe in longhand, when they can cut out something from a printed source and paste it into the recipe book, and some from this late period are composed almost entirely of cuttings.

Today's Welsh item is a recipe book from this late period. MS.8459 is a small volume containing some 130+ pages of medical recipes and other very assorted material, which was formerly owned by Jane Margaret Lloyd (1822-1912) of Rhagatt Hall, daughter of Edward Lloyd of Berth and Rhagatt, and Frances Madocks, daughter of John Edward Madocks of Fron Iw, Denbighshire. It is unclear whether she had the volume compiled or simply came into ownership of it at some stage. Within the volume are recipes for medicines, including homoeopathic ones, and some reports on experiences of their use; there are also recipes for the treatment of cats and dogs. Inserted items include prescriptions: one, dispensed by a chemist in Rhyl, is for a Mrs. Ffoulkes, probably Jane Lloyd herself, since in 1861 she married the Ven. Henry Powel Ffoulkes, archdeacon of Montgomery. There are various cuttings, including at least one in Welsh, the latter forming part of a collection of material on the use of violet leaves to treat cancer. Another cutting provides the lyrics to some popular songs, one of which - "The Lum Hat" - takes us into the realm of broad Scots dialect. Finally, taking us a very long way from Wales indeed, there is an invitation from the Officers and Council of the Japan Society to a Mr Herbert Tinker, asking him to an event also attended by His Excellency the Japanese Minister in the United Kingdom (this would be Count Hayashi Tadasu, who served as Minister from 1900 to 1905 and then as Ambassador for a further year). The presence of the last item, without any explanation, is evidence of the sheer unpredictability of archive material!

Archive material may be unpredictable: but one thing that one can predict, without much fear of contradiction, is that the Library's holdings are sufficiently various for pretty much any subject or part of the world to be represented somewhere in them. This one item is, of course, just a little sample of our Welsh material: the full list of hits on the words "Wales" and "Welsh" in the archives catalogue comes to over 8000. (Our sources guides on British Local History and Topographical Photographs provide a more manageable introduction.) On this day of all days, have a look through them.

Images:
1/ Daffodil, copyright Albert Bridge; from the Geograph website and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
2/ Title page and start of contents, MS.8459.
3/ Material on treatment of cancer, MS.8459.
4/ Inserted prescription envelope, MS.8459.
5/ Valley of the River Dee, near Rhagatt Hall, copyright Jonathan Billinger; from the Geograph website and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.