By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

In honor of National Women's History Month, we are taking a closer look at some of the graduates of Northwestern University Woman’s Medical School (1870-1902)*

Emma Ann Reynolds, MD (1862-1917) was a graduate of Wilberforce University and the Provident Hospital Training School for Nurses (1892), and received her MD in 1895 from the Northwestern University Woman's Medical School. Following graduation, she was the superintendent of the Training School for Nurses, 1895-1896. She was appointed the physician in residence at Paul Quinn College in Waco, Texas in 1897. In 1900, she moved to New Orleans, Louisiana and practiced medicine there until 1906 when she re-located to Ohio for personal reasons. By 1910 she had established a private practice in Sulphur Lick, Ohio, providing much-needed services to the rural residents of Ross County until her death in 1917.

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This entry was posted on March 18, 2013 at 2:44 PM and has received 820 views. There are currently 0 comments.

By Ron Sims, Special Collection Librarian

In 1891, Daniel Hale Williams and other notable African American graduates* of Northwestern’s medical school founded the Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses. It was the first inter-racial institution for health care and health care instruction for Chicago’s African American community. The Hospital provided opportunities for all of Chicago’s African American medical students and nurses to further their medical studies.

Provident and Northwestern began a loose affiliation with many of the medical school’s faculty as hospital staff. The hospital was located at 29^th Street and South Dearborn, only five blocks from the former medical school campus. In 1932, as the Greater Provident Hospital, it became formally affiliated with the University of Chicago, moving into the former home of the Chicago Lying-In Hospital at 432 East 51^st Street.

Daniel Herbert Anderson, MD (1876-1960), Class of 1902 was an intern at Provident in 1903. Dr. Anderson, called “Bertie” or “Bert” grew up in Janesville, Wisconsin. Dr. Anderson’s father, Charles Henry “Harry,” ran a tonsorial parlor and bathing rooms in Janesville. Daniel Hale Williams was an apprentice to the elder Anderson, studying to become a barber. Williams began a preceptorship in medicine while continuing to live with the Anderson family.

The lives of Drs. Williams and Anderson were incredibly intertwined, as Dr. Anderson was originally named Daniel Hale Anderson in honor of Daniel Hale Williams. After falling out with Dr. Williams, Dr. Anderson was henceforth known as Bert. Dr. Anderson had a private practice in Chicago.

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This entry was posted on February 14, 2013 at 10:52 AM and has received 959 views. There are currently 0 comments.

By: Ron Sims, MA, Special Collections Librarian

The current exhibit in the Eckenhoff Reference Room on Level 1 of the Galter Health Sciences Library highlights works in science from the 16^th to the 18^th centuries.

John Peckham’s Perspectiva communis (1504), translated as ‘Common perspectives,’ was originally composed between 1277 and 1279, with the first printed edition published in 1482. It was considered the standard university text in optics and vision during that time period, used and cited by many medieval and Renaissance natural philosophers, including Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Johannes Kepler. The Library's edition contains remarkable woodcut illustrations, including a diagram of the eye, considered by some to be the earliest to appear in a printed book.

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This entry was posted on December 4, 2012 at 4:13 PM and has received 1079 views. There are currently 0 comments.

By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

As steward of the dental, medical, nursing, and pharmacy schools’ heritage, the Galter Library Special Collections holds a large number of artifacts including photographs, prints, memorabilia, instruments, and equipment. Once an important part of medical education at Northwestern, the artifacts were formerly housed in various school museums until the late 1950s, at which time the large amount of space needed for display could no longer be justified (see image at left: The Dental School Museum, on the 10th floor of the Ward Memorial, 1927).

Many items were permanently loaned to other institutions, specifically, Chicago’s Field Museum and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., or simply discarded. Items that were retained have, for the most part, been in storage.  Legacies and gifts from faculty and alumni have also been added to the collection over the years.

With the acquisition of new display cases, we are pleased to announce that selected items will soon be available for viewing both in the Galter Library and in the refurbished Method Atrium and Ward Memorial-Morton corridor.

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This entry was posted on September 10, 2012 at 2:53 PM and has received 1358 views. There are currently 0 comments.

By Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

In honor of National Women's History Month, we are taking a closer look at how the education of women in medicine got its start here at Northwestern.

As an experiment in the fall session of 1869, the Chicago Medical College matriculated three women: Mary Harris Thompson, MD, Odelia Blinn, MD and Julia A. Cole. The male students complained that, with women in the classroom, some clinical work and lecture material were omitted. As a result, only Dr. Mary Harris Thompson was awarded an MD ad eundem the following spring (a courtesy given to those who already had an MD), and Dr. Blinn and Miss Cole were not allowed to continue their studies.

Dr. Mary Thompson was born at Fort Ann, New York in 1829, and after completing a general education, she taught in elementary schools. In 1859, at the age of thirty, she began to study medicine at the New England Female Medical College in Boston and was awarded an MD in 1863. Her studies included a one-year internship with Drs. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. She was the first known woman to perform major surgery.

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This entry was posted on March 12, 2012 at 11:06 AM and has received 1048 views. There are currently 0 comments.

By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

In this article, we take a look at a selection of the Medical School's black graduates who went on to illustrious careers.

Ulysses Grant Dailey, MD, ScD, LLD, FACS, FICS

Ulysses Grant Dailey overcame financial and racial obstacles to become an internationally respected surgeon. More than a surgeon, Dr. Dailey was a teacher, training physicians who later became leaders and role models; he was an editor, shaping a forward-looking editorial style, reflecting his ideals and passion for medicine through the Journal of the National Medical Association; he was an administrator, founding a hospital which offered training positions to young physicians and treatment for patients regardless of race; lastly, he was an ambassador of American medicine, traveling to countries around the globe, assisting in studying and shaping health care systems.

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This entry was posted on February 10, 2012 at 10:42 AM and has received 1479 views. There are currently 0 comments.

By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

On November 11, 2011, Dr. Meryl H. Haber, Northwestern University, BS ’56, MS ’58, MD ‘59, GME ’64 was honored in an unveiling ceremony during the 2nd Annual Medical Education Forum. The unveiling took place in the Special Collections Reading Room on Level 2 of the Galter Health Sciences Library. In October of 2010, Dr. Haber generously donated his collection of rare books and a fund to assist in the restoration of the rare book collection.

The framed document honoring Dr. Haber, created by calligraphist Corinna Taylor, acknowledges Dr. Haber’s generosity and support of the Galter Library.

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This entry was posted on December 9, 2011 at 9:10 AM and has received 786 views. There are currently 0 comments.

By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

Planning for the New Campus

Northwestern University's professional schools—Medical, Law, Commerce, Dental, and Pharmacy—were originally founded as separate schools and scattered in various locations throughout the city of Chicago. In 1902, with the exception of the Medical School, the schools were consolidated in a single Loop location in the Northwestern University Building (formerly the Tremont House) at Dearborn and Lake Streets. In 1915, the University began a search for a new campus that could accommodate all the schools in their own specialized buildings in one central location.

Through the efforts of University President, Walter Dill Scott and the “Campaign for a Greater Northwestern” in 1919, the University purchased nine acres of land along Lake Michigan in the near north side Streeterville neighborhood. University architect, James Gamble Rogers created a master plan for the major buildings to be erected there.

Rogers’ style is known as “Collegiate Gothic.” The vision was to have low buildings rising from Lake Shore Drive, with the pinnacle as the Medical Center building and Superior St. as a dead end at Fairbanks Ct., giving two full blocks to the new structures.  As Daniel Burnham reminds us: Make no small plans!

The complex was the first “skyscraper” medical center in the world, housing the Dental and Medical schools, clinics and laboratories.

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This entry was posted on July 11, 2011 at 11:15 AM and has received 1746 views. There are currently 0 comments.

By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

This article is part of the new exhibit, Photographing Pediatrics, which will begin mid-June in Dollie's Corner, on Level 2 of the Galter Health Sciences Library. The exhibit includes a pictorial history of the dispensary and clinics at Northwestern.

In 1857, the Chicago City Dispensary, a charitable outpatient service, was opened.  With the newly established medical college known as the Medical Department of Lind University in 1859, the dispensary became affiliated with the college.

The 1863 annual announcement of the medical college noted that “[t]he Chicago City Dispensary occupies a room in immediate connection with the College, and is attended by Professors Andrews and Byford.” During the years of 1862-1863, more than 8000 patients were prescribed for and treated in the dispensary. Professor Andrews gave a ‘Surgical Clinic’ in the lecture room every Wednesday during the school year, with patients selected from the dispensary. Professor Byford gave a ‘Clinic’ on diseases of women and children every Saturday.

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This entry was posted on June 6, 2011 at 4:21 PM and has received 2025 views. There are currently 0 comments.

By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

In late December 2010, the Galter Library was pleased to accept donated materials from Barbara Miller, the great granddaughter of J. B. Murphy.  Among the treasures are photographs, newspaper clippings, an oil portrait and copies of Dr. Murphy’s Clinics. One of the more interesting items is a letter of introduction dated January 5, 1891, addressed to German authorities in Berlin from the Cook County Hospital administration, requesting assistance in obtaining “Koch lymph” for the Hospital.

These and other items will be on display in the Eckenhoff Reference Room and the second level reception area of Special Collections through early fall 2011.

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This entry was posted on April 7, 2011 at 11:43 AM and has received 2304 views. There are currently 0 comments.