By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

The current exhibit in the Eckenhoff Reference Room and in the Special Collections reception area highlights some of the American Civil War era texts and artifacts held by the Galter Health Sciences Library Special Collections.  Here you can see noted texts and correspondence from both Confederate and Union medical men including Dr. Edmund Andrews, one of the medical school's founders. Nearly all of the founders served in the military, either at Camp Douglas in Chicago or on the battlefields.

Dr. Andrews acquired the most notable battlefield experience as surgeon in the First Illinois Regiment of Light Artillery, seeing heavy action during Grant’s campaign in Tennessee.  Letters from Dr. Andrews were published in the Chicago Medical Examiner during 1862 and described his observations with descriptions of surgeries, conditions of the camps and hospitals, and overall health of the troops.

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This article was featured in Library Notes #57 (October 2009).

By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

This is the third installment in a multi-part series on the history of Northwestern University's medical school.

Planning a 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 looking for land to construct a new campus that could accommodate all the schools in their own specialized buildings in one central location.

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This article was featured in Library Notes #52 (May 2009).

By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

This is the second installment in a multi-part series on the history of Northwestern University's medical school.

The fall session of 1893 saw the medical school in new buildings on S. Dearborn and 24^th Streets.  Wesley Hospital, which had been founded in 1888, was nearby. Four years of medical study was made obligatory and the school year was lengthened to eight months. Practical, systematic and required courses in clinical laboratory methods were inaugurated in 1899, which was another first in medical education in the United States.  Courses in chemistry, pathology, physiology and bacteriology were added during this time. Full time professorships were established, with their incumbents teaching exclusively.  All the fundamental departments of instruction were placed in the hands of instructors sufficiently paid to enable them to devote their time to the institution.

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This article was featured in Library Notes #51 (April 2009).

By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian 

As the Feinberg School community celebrates the 150th anniversary of its founding, the current exhibit in the Eckenhoff Reference Room of the Galter Health Sciences Library reflects a selected view of significant items from the publishing record of 1859.

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By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

This article was featured in Library Notes #50 (March 2009).  

This is the first installment in a multi-part series on the history of Northwestern University's medical school. 

This year marks the 150^th anniversary of the founding of the Medical School.  Originally the Medical Department of Lind University, the founders established the school in an effort to reform and raise standards for medical education.  Included in their campaign were higher entrance requirements, longer terms of study, more diverse subjects, and a graded curriculum.

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By: Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian

This article was featured in Library Notes #48 (Fall 2008).

"What good is a book without pictures?" -- Alice

The current exhibit on the 2^nd level atrium walkway of the Galter Health Sciences Library brings together images of the human brain. Nearly 500 years of study and scholarship are represented, from a medieval manuscript to an early 19^th century hand colored aquatint copper engraving.

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Written by: Ron Sims, MA, Special Collections Librarian

The recorded dawn of dermatology can be traced to the Ebers Papyrus, a work of the Ancient Egyptians, which dates to the 16th century B.C. The papyrus is a miscellaneous collection of extracts and scraps of medical information from at least forty sources and was found in a tomb in Thebes in 1862. The ancient manuscript describes many kinds of skin diseases, cosmetic problems, and therapies. The Galter Library has one German and two English translations of the Ebers Papyrus.

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This article was featured in Library Notes, #44 (Spring/Summer 2007).

Long before streaming video, iPods and similar late 20th and early 21st century devices, mechanical visual aids were an important part of medical education. Stereoscopic vision was known to the ancient Greeks and can be seen in medieval painting conveying the illusion of depth.  The 17th century saw the increased use of similar devices as exemplified in a perspective box invented by Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678).

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