The Malloch Room Newsletter
Issue 14
Fall 1996

NUMISMATICS AND MEDICINE AT THE ACADEMY

New York Academy of Medicine, now 150 years old, projects its meaning in a wide variety of ways. A splendid building signals established institutional status, its famed library demonstrates ongoing commitment to preserve and to share medical knowledge , handsome interior spaces invite both individual and group participation in the Academy's programs which, in turn, reflect and promote the enterprise of medicine as a whole. Now, suppose that the Academy wished, today, to encompass within a single image all that it offers and that it represents, in other words, to portray itself symbolically. Such visual concision, necessarily more poetic than precise, stands in a very long tradition of corporate self-representation, a tradition that when successful has notably evoked and fostered the sense of a collective group identity, purpose and continuity. Flags and seals, badges and achievements of arms, logos and proprietary brands, all fall within this category of symbolic representatives that circulate among th e initiated and the general public. So too do the coins and medals that are the focus of the present brief review.

This train of thought was stimulated by a recent visit to the Academy of Medicine's Malloch Room which houses several special collections. Here, my attention was drawn to the Academy's holdings of Medicina in Nummis. These are an intriguing assortment of several hundred coins, tokens, jetons, badges, medals and plaques, mostly struck or cast in metal, which have over many years been donated by the Academy's membership and friends and which illuminate the remarkable diversity subtended by medical histor y. Such artifacts were produced for a variety of purposes but each of them preserves and will still yield up on examination reflections of their original time and place and of the sensibilities of those individuals and societies which caused them to be ma de, distributed and passed on to us. Among these metallic objects is a six inch bronze rounder (Figure 1) that appears to be the particular symbolic image commissioned by our 19th century institutional forbears to represent the Academy to itself and to th e world.

Coins

Any review of medical numismatics must begin with coins, those familiar objects passing as current money through our hands every day. From antiquity, in Asia Minor ca. 600 B.C., to the present, most coins have been stamped with both a picture and a tex t. This is done primarily so that its users may at a glance have confidence in whoever or whatever assures the money's authenticity and worth. It is ordinarily only after taking in the coin's visual appearance, which almost invariably incorporates a symbo lic device, that the user accepts a coin "at face value." For well into the present century, coins were expected to have an intrinsic worth dependent upon their content in gold or silver or, where made of an inferior metal such as bronze or brass, to be l egally convertible into precious metal, so-called specie. Coin designs, denominations and mottos have always served to express the issuer's warrantee that the requisite inherent weight and purity of precious metal was correct, or that a subordinate coinag e might readily be exchanged for specie. Virtually all modern bank notes, and copper or nickel coinage, function as subordinate money representing rather than having real value. They must all be taken on the faith that they are legal tender, and such fai th more than ever depends upon recognition of the symbolism on their surface and upon the quality of their manufacture.

Beyond merely guaranteeing acceptability however, the specific images and inscriptions displayed and circulated through coinage were early recognized as providing an opportunity for propaganda. In fact, prior to the advent of printing, coin replication and circulation was the most effective medium of mass publication available. Coinage traveled near and far bearing the message which had originally been placed upon it, sometimes circulating from hand to hand for tens or even hundreds of years.

Ancient Greek cities typically projected the reliability of their money by depicting thereupon images of their gods, of such other symbols of their power as mythological animals, or of those local products upon which depended their prosperity. Thus, Pe rgamum, Kos and Epidaurus, among other cities, displayed Aesculapius on their coins, together with his serpent and staff, often within his temple, all of which served to advertise the principal local industry, healing. Tiberias in Galilee stamped Hygeia o n its coins in the time of Hadrian to promote those hot springs that bring patients to Israel even today. Sicilian city states featured opium poppy-heads in ancient times, and Lybian cities, the sylphium plant. In medieval Christian coinage the cross, and images of saints together with their attributes, were the symbols most commonly depicted. The people's faith in powers of protection and healing associated with these images and related biblical quotations resulted in the use of coins as amulets and tali smans. Pierced by a hole and worn around the neck or affixed to a garment, coins thus served as general preventatives or even as medical specifics without actually losing their inherent worth as a store of wealth. Coins, and later medals, portraying a wid e variety of saints provided a diverse medical armamentarium for these coins and medals were considered more potent than other remedies or preventative then available. St. Roch's was worn against plague. St. Benedict's were useful against fevers, stone, a nd for general protection. St. George was a protector of travelers, and St. Ulrich protected from epidemics in general. St. Ariastasius offered relief from both demonic possession and headache while St. Valentine prevented epilepsy. An entire industry in plague-preventative coins grew up in Bohemia during the late fifteenth century; silver mines had been discovered and their refined product entered the market mainly in monetary form. Pest-thalers, silver/dollar-sized coins depicting the Brazen Serpent con structed by Moses (Numbers 21) to protect the Hebrews against an outbreak of plague during their wanderings in the desert, were worn as a specific protection against plague throughout central Europe and were a substantial part of this monetary output.

The kings of England emphasized the divine origin of their right to rule for hundreds of years, at least from the 12th to the 18th centuries, by means of a ceremony that involved the royal touch applied to the lesions of scrofula, cervical lymphatic tu berculosis. The illness itself, which came to be known as "The King's Evil," was believed to be healed through this intercession and as a sign and symbol of this dramatic royal/divine act, a gold coin was presented to the patient by the King and hung with a ribbon around the patient's neck. This coin was called an "angel" because it depicted the archangel St. Michael slaying a dragon, but the other side of the coin showed the Ship of State and the name of the sovereign. It is interesting to note in passin g that the usual charge for a physician's visit in 16th century London, at a time this royal healing ceremony was particularly being emphasized, was also a gold angel, then valued between six and eight shillings. By the 17th and 18th centuries, as the pre sumption of the divine right of kings faded, a small gold medal came to replace the coin which preserved the symbolic images of St. Michael and the ship, but added the inscription Soli Deo Gloria (To God alone is the Glory). In modern times the messages t hat coins bear have typically become less religious and more political and the symbols of faith in divine power are decreasingly seen on currency. It is somewhat ironical to note that it is in the United States where politics and religion are constitution ally required to be separate that, since 1864 and to the present, the law requires that the phrase "In God We Trust" be struck onto every coin issued.

Tokens

A few words should here be said about tokens that look and feel like coins but are invariably more limited than a national coinage in the range of their acceptability. Local authorities - in the case of medicine, towns, hospitals, charities or old age homes, even individual pharmacists and physicians - have produced tokens as money-substitutes, when for some reason, there is a desire to control strictly or to limit their circulation. Standard money, coinage, besides passing as currency may function as a reserve of value over long periods of time, and indeed be exchanged as such even beyond the borders of the original issuing authority. The accounting procedures of a hospital, an almshouse, or a private healthcare provider, however, may require tighter surveillance and regular recirculation. Sometimes this is a matter of keeping accounts (or close tabs on employees): nineteenth century medicinal soda fountain tokens, or those used to dispense the waters at spas, just like modern subway or bridge tokens, help to balance the books each day and to discourage pilferage. Inmates of insane asylums, poorhouses and prisons, on the other hand, have not generally been considered trustworthy to handle money. In such situations where the issue is control and the us ers are captive or subordinate there is no need to propagandize nor to prove an intrinsic worth of the metal token itself. Hence such tokens, along with those of leprosaria which have been used for fear of contaminating the general currency, are often cru de and aniconographic.

Prudent distributors of bread and soup to the poor, or for that matter modern dispensers of food stamps in the United States, have not wished to use coin of the realm for fear that drink, or worse, might be purchased instead of nutrition. Such tokens m ay carry moralizing propaganda to let the recipient of the charity know about his benefactors; in these instances religious symbols, or those of a civic or military authority, manage to communicate to the needy the dependency of their status.

On the other hand, sometimes local advertising is desired. Dr. Stuart's Private Medical Establishment in nineteenth century Glasgow offering midwifery and nursing among other services is represented by a bare-breasted woman with an infant on her lap on one side of a half-penny token while the other side gives the street address and shows Dr. Stuart taking a seated man's pulse. Dr. Holloway's Pills and Ointments are promoted by a penny token (c. 1837) showing the doctor's head on one side and Hygeia fee ding a serpent on the other. Advertising tokens for local enterprises had to be attractive to potential customers, but would be useless if circulated too far from the business's location. They remained local and effective, as do all tokens, because unacce ptable in far away places.

Circulating media, coins or tokens, may become obsolete, or otherwise so geographically displaced as to become inoperative as bearers of value. However, like many other medical artifacts they continue to serve as souvenirs and memorabilia at a personal level, or as reminders of bygone days to inheritants. Ultimately, when examined systematically, studied, identified and catalogued, they may become part of the informational gridwork which is our past. Because they were once money, coins and tokens are r arely actually discarded; they are commonly relegated to desk drawers and being metallic tend to survive for years in good condition waiting to be handled and studied.

Medals

Medals are a much larger and diverse category of object than are coins and tokens. Whereas the latter are always in some sense official-coinage is the prerogative of sovereignty and counterfeiting has always been treated harshly by the law-medals, whet her of governmental, institutional or private issue, are rarely meant to have value as a circulating medium and so their manufacture is not so carefully controlled. Medallum, the Latin term, derives from metallum: a medal is normally metal. In the old num ismatic literature, ancient coins were also called medals, but for the last hundred and fifty years a medal has generally been understood to be a one or two-sided coin-like object (though often much larger than ordinary coins and not infrequently rectangu lar), which makes no pretense at having monetary utility.

In Rome, the emperor occasionally caused large coins to be prepared with special care and elegance for presentation as a mark of imperial favor to some person deemed worthy of such an honor. Beyond this type of special coinage, however, there were no m edals as we know them in antiquity. Italian Renaissance scholars rediscovered and then imitated many ancient usages and arts. They conceived of ancient Roman coins - which bear no specific denomination of value as we are today accustomed to - as fundament ally commemorative in nature, for indeed the Roman Imperium regularly used coins to celebrate victories, the dedications of temples, bridges and other great public works and personal accomplishments. Renaissance princes imitating, as they thought, the anc ient imperial custom caused medals to be made of themselves, typically with their profile portrait on one side and a symbolic or architectural expression of their power and sensibility on the other. However, where ancient coins had been between one half t o two inches in diameter, the Renaissance medal quickly grew to three or four inches since no fiscal function was intended and bronze, which became the favored metal for renaissance and later medals because of its durability and pleasing surface appearanc e, was inexpensive. To be sure, gold and silver might still be used in medal making, especially where high honor was intended for the recipient, but the use of bronze encouraged Renaissance princes, and as early as the 16th century even private individual s, to make multiple copies of their self-promotional medals and give them to peers and subordinates as tokens of favor and friendship. Thus coinage, the exclusive privilege of sovereigns and necessarily small of module and precious, came to be supplemente d as a replicative medium by the medal, which invited all manner of individuals and minor social organizations to imitate, fairly cheaply, the long prestigious usage of publishing their portraits, ideals and achievements in metal.

Coins had almost invariably been manufactured by engraving steel dies intaglio and then stamping or striking prepared metallic blanks of precise weight and shapes, thus assuring standard value per coin. This is an efficient way to produce large numbers of identical coins; most are still made this way today. Medals too maybe, and are, manufactured by this coining technique when large numbers are needed. However, when medals are to be produced in smaller numbers, engraving a die is a costly approach and so casting, the same technique used for making statues, may be preferred. An original model is made by the artist in wax, is then invested with fine clay and baked in an oven so that the wax runs out through vents and after cooling, the cast medal is comp lete. The casting method is also favored for large medals (greater than four inches) and particularly for the type of large one sided plaques which are affixed to institutional walls as quasi-permanent monuments. This sketch of the birth of the medal and the techniques of its manufacture may conclude with the observation that literally millions of different medals exist which have been issued by nations, smaller polities, public and private institutions such as colleges, hospitals and churches, whether tr ansient or long lived, conventions, societies, charities, businesses and private persons. The subjects treated on such medals, needless to say, and the purposes for which they may have been made, vary widely.

In considering medically-related medals the categories that come most quickly to mind are: Commemoratives: to honor a person or an event; Awards: that may simultaneously recognize the awardee, the issuing institution and/or a famous role model from the past; Religious, Amuletic, Alchemical orAstrological medals, which are believed to have inherent powers beyond mere artistry, commemoration or award; Advertisements: commercial, professional or academic; and the category of Badges or Insignia: these, whi le medallic in form, are really means of identification so that their wearers may be distinguished as members, officers or functionaries of organizations.

Highlights

The Academy's collection contains examples of all of these categories. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), physician, professor of medicine, signer of the Declaration of Independence and for fourteen years Treasurer of the United States Mint, all in Philadelphi a, is commemorated on a rare and valuable bronze medal of 1808. Despite Rush's career of public service this medal appears to be a private issue, though it was probably manufactured in the United States Mint. A portrait with old-fashioned queued hair reve als the sitter's advanced age on the obverse (the "heads" side), while the reverse (the "tails" side) shows the vicinity of Rush's home-named "Sydenham" in honor of his 17th century medical predecessor - and the motto "Read, Think, Observe," which formed the conclusion of one of Rush's medical lectures. Medals of New York physicians include those of Abraham Jacobi (1830-1919) issued in 1910 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his services to Mt. Sinai Hospital as a pioneering pediatrician, and of D avid Hosack (1769-1846), was issued about 1830 to honor this holder of six different professorial chairs at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Hosack founded and funded an internationally celebrated botanical garden located on the property now occupi ed by Rockefeller Center which then served as the pharmacology laboratory for physicians and medical students of the College. A common practice to honor distinguished living physicians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a banquet subsc ribed by colleagues and former students all of whom, along with the honoree, received a Cow of a commemorative bronze medal prepared especially for the occasion. The Jacobi medal falls into this category, as do others honoring William H. Welch in Baltimor e (1910) on his being elected President of the American Medical Association, William Osler (1905) sponsored by the Charaka Club, Fulgence Raymond in Paris (1910) on his retirement, Theobald Smith in Boston (1915) on his leaving Harvard, Maurice Letulle in Paris (1923), on his 70th birthday, Paul Ehrlich with his assistant S. Hata in Frankfurt (1910) on the discovery of salvarsan, and a fiftieth birthday tribute to Sigmund Freud (1906). Freud considered this latter medal his best likeness. Complementing th e portrait virtually always borne on one side by such personal commemoratives (whether the medal is traditionally round or alternatively rectangular, a form termed a plaquette) is a medical scene or allegory on the reverse side. Raymond, a neurologist, is seen elicting a biceps tendon reflex with a nurse in attendance, Letulle, a pathologist, is paired with a reverse showing science shedding light upon a cadaver laid out on the dissecting table. Erhlich and Hata are complemented on the reverse of their do uble portrait medal by a scene of the battle of Hercules against the many-headed Hydra representing syphilis. The reverse of Freud's medal depicts Oedipus confronting the Sphinx.

All of the aforementioned commemoratives were struck from dies, replicated for publication as a distributed to a substantial group. As a single example of a cast medal we may turn to a large, probably unique, plaque in the Academy's collection honoring Simon Baruch (1840-1921), a veteran confederate army surgeon who later had a distinguished career in New York after 1881 and who was the father of Bernard Baruch (1865 - 1960). Some sixteen inches in diameter and two inches deep, this uniface high relief medallion (a term, like plaque, often used for medals larger than may conveniently held in the hand) was cast in bronze and clearly intended for wall mounting (Figure 2). While no date is given and no provenance is immediately available, the medallion sh ows on its face a portrait of Simon Baruch, M.D., Pioneer of Free Municipal Bath Houses, which indeed he was. It is a fair inference that such an object dates from shortly after Baruch's death and, meant to honor him in situ, was at one time affixed to the wall of one of New York City's many municipal baths, likely since demolished. Such an artifact is, moreover, exemplary of the opportunity for further investigation presented by many items in the Academy's collection.

Awards

Metallic awards of merit are undoubtedly the most familiar category of medals. Most people have passed through enough schools, military service, contests or other judgmental situations to have at least once excelled and received as a reward some form o f medal, often suspended from a ribbon meant to be pinned to the breast. In fact, used without further modification today, the very word "medal" usually connotes such a wearable distinction or decoration. This usage, wearing a medal, derives from the mili tary custom, less than four hundred years old, of distinguishing by such marks of approbation meritorious individuals within a group otherwise uniformly clad who deserve special attention. Medically related wearable awards in this tradition derive, not su rprisingly, from military or public service contexts such as life-saving, epidemic relief, hygienic organizational work, and Red Cross service. From a practical point of view, medals to be worn on the breast or neck must be relatively light, usually less than two inches in diameter, and yet distinctive from afar. Colorful ribbons, enamel applied to the medal's front surface, and bold symbolism tend to enhance visibility and make such awards differ in appearance from the medals, coins and tokens previously considered which are meant to be held in the hand.

The dimensions common to most medical award medals, which are two to four inches in diameter and not meant to be worn, afford greater scope than the preceding for the depiction of portraiture, architecture, allegory and symbolism to say nothing of expl anatory or expostulatory texts, decorative embellishment, and a space for engraving the recipient's name. The overlapping categories of commemorative or reward medals, for they are similar in content, fabric and appearance, would total in the tens of thou sands but a very few representative illustrations will suffice to give a sense of the genre.

The William Cheselden (1688-1752) student prize of St. Thomas' Hospital, London was founded in 1829. Its medal simultaneously celebrates the eminent anatomist/surgeon (by presenting his portrait on the obverse or front side) and the nature of his achie vement (by a mortuary composition on the reverse side in which the cadaver of an ideally classical youth lies ready to contribute to scientific knowledge represented by a skull resting on a book and by the bones of a lower extremity for the description of which Cheselden was famed), the hospital sponsoring the award (named on the reverse) and the honoree (whose name would be engraved on the edge). This linkage of past models or ideals to present incumbents and institutions, especially in a format which is essentially a mini-monument intended to survive the present, is the special achievement of the medal of reward. Actually, the association of image, text, heft (a medal in hand is quite substantial), occurs in the beholder's mind and under his control. Tu rning the object over at will allows one to impose one's own sense of priority or sequence on the medal's content in an personal fashion quite different from that possible when, say, standing at arm's length from a painting or framed print, or addressing the fixed directionality of a book. Most remarkably, the compact art of the medal allows, encourages, the intake of information at a glance, framed within a circle or a rectangle. When the artist is successful, the experience of engaging a medal is intima te, immediate and harmonious. In terms of the Cheselden medal, the observer, awardee, sponsoring institution, Cheselden's persona and his achievement, all idealized yet momentarily tangible, are one.

The medal named for Jacob Harsen (18081862) of the College of Physicians and Surgeons also uses a portrait obverse, but here the reverse makes clear that the award is for clinical work; a physician is shown conducting bedside rounds in a composition, a pparently based upon a photographic image, which leaves little doubt as to the proper relationship between preceptor, junior colleagues and patient in a charity ward on the eve of the Civil War (Figure 3). The Academy's specimen of this medal, a quite rar e one because awarded to students of the College at the New York Hospital for only a very few years, bears upon its edge the engraved inscription "First Prize- James W. McLane A.B.,M.D." The Academy itself, of course, sponsors and awards a number of medals annually, among them that of the Section on Urology which commemorates and depicts Frederick C. Valentine (18511909), a founder of the American Urological Association who was elected a Fellow of the New York Academy in 1896.

Though medical awards commonly carry the name and image of some earlier scientific or professional notability this need not necessarily be the case. Awards to physicians from the eighteenth century onwards often depict and bear the authority of the sov ereign prince in whose name the accolade was given. Indeed private sponsors of prizes frequently displace both the more famous and the more powerful by virtue of their personal donation which pays for the award. A prime examples of this phenomenon is the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology which features an industrialist rather than a healer or scientist.

From the turn of the nineteenth century, when vaccination became a major ongoing public health project throughout Europe, vaccinators were rewarded with medals which characteristically even indeed logically were issued in the name of the state or commo nwealth. Whether the medal bore the image of the king of Belgium, Italy or Prussia, or of Napoleon in the case of an Academy specimen, the reverses were apt to signify the type of activity rewarded. Aesculapius, on the 1814 Napoleonic medal, comforts Venu s who is bandaged where vaccinated on the upper arm, while to the sides are illustrated a cow and opened thumb lances.

The conferrer of an award, since antiquity and the renaissance accorded the prestige of depiction upon the obverse or main side of the medal, may in many circumstances be impersonal. A coat of arms, mythologized genius or cityscape often epitomize a ci ty, a building may represent a school, hospital or learned institution, a heraldic emblem or flag may stand for an entire nation on such medals. Thus an award by the city of Portsmouth, Virginia to those instrumental in combating a local outbreak of yello w fever in 1855 combines several of these signs on its medallic obverse: The Portsmouth Naval Hospital, an American flag, an escutcheon with aesculapian caduceus, a trophy of banners, and the motto: "Palmam Oui Meruit Ferat" (May he bear the palm who has earned it). Here only noted in motto, depictions of actual palm branches, laurel and oak wreaths, bouquets of flowers and even of medicinal herbs, frequently are used to embellish awards and commemoratives, being placed, metaphorically, in proximity to th e name of the honored person, or around a text which explains the achievement.

The traditional sorts of religious medals and coins that serve as amulets or talismans, and the protective or healing powers ascribed to them, have already touched been upon. Alchemy and astrology too were the subject of "practical" medals made by prac titioners of these arts. Such natural philosophers presented such objects to clients and they would have been thought effective in quasi-medical contexts. Alongside the advance of more regular medical science in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, th ere also flourished a realm of pseudoscience equally well represented on medals. Thus, Franz Josef Gall, Anton Mesmer and Samuel Hahnemann are commemorated medalically with the same frequency and uplifting symbolism as their contemporaries, Antoine Lavois ier, Benjamin Rush and Carl Linnaeus. Furthermore, the awards of schools of eclectic medicine compete with those of university medical schools, and abstinence and temperance societies are promoted even as the medicinal value of tobacco and alcohol are sim ultaneously hailed. Not surprisingly, advertisements on medals and tokens, a cheap and popular way to broadcast information, reveal a high proportion of miracle healers and patent drugs as opposed to those practitioners or medicaments approved by the esta blishment. It may simply be that, particularly in the nineteenth century, there were more irregular practitioners proportionally, or perhaps more simply, their novel approaches required more advertisement in order to reach the public than did traditional or more established approaches. Pseudoscience even has a parallel to the religious medal as prophylactic or therapy. "Electric Batteries" are medalettes made as mosaics of differing metals (copper, silver, zinc, tin being favored) that when worn close to the body were expected to generate subtle currents beneficial to sufferers from rheumatism and other afflictions. Boyd's, Richardson's and Sangendorff's Batteries were, along with many European congeners of the mid-nineteenth century, patented and thus ma de to seem quite officially approved.

Badges

Brief mention is due of badges and insignia which indicate, at one and the same time, affinities and distinctions, depending upon one's point of view, but which are not, strictly speaking, accolades as were the wearable award medals previously mentione d. There are, quite familiarly, badges for attendees at medical congresses and institutional dedications, for donors to philanthropic causes locally, nationally or internationally.

There are insignia indicating membership, function or rank in service organizations, such as the Red Cross, military or ambulance corps, health inspection departments and charitable orders. Some of these emblems function as passes, enabling those displ aying them to enter areas otherwise restricted. Examples range from official name badges of metal, plastic, or what have you, to dedallic tokens that in former times allowed the functionaries of charitable or religious fraternities to gain access to the h ouses of the sick or of the dead after curfews, within ghettos, or in times of war, epidemic or other social catastrophes. Another type of medallic entry pass is that which represented matriculation in a course of study, often after payment of a fee; typi cal is the eighteenth century personalized medal which allows free entry to the Botanical Gardens of Amsterdam for the purpose of pharmacological study.

Badges and insignia connote an object worn in public, whereas a pass may be worn or else concealed and produced only for inspection by an authorized guard. Insignia are familiar in our daily lives what, apart from organizational information, do they ac tually signal? How does the viewer receive their message? Social context, of course, governs semiotics and that is well to remember in viewing insignia and badges out of context, in a drawer, for instance, instead of on a uniform. Thinking of more usual s ettings one easily envisions organizations or entire societies of such conformity that every positive differentiation is also a distinction and mark of pride for the wearer, even though the insignia may not have been intended as a reward for merit. Equall y, there are circumstances where external indications of rank are eschewed as crude as compared, for example, with verbal skill or some other personal characteristic or social behavior. Thus, insignia have been sources of embarrassment as well as of pride . This, again, is something to consider in analyzing the significance of the survival and ultimate donation of certain types of artifacts rather than others in an institutional collection.

In closing we may again briefly focus on the theme of group identity, usually to be considered in approaching all of the medallic forms under review. The profession of medicine has often been and to a considerable extent remains divided within itself. The university trained and the apprenticed practitioner, the faith-healer and the scientist, the generalist and the scientist, the physician and non-physician healthcare providers, who is to say that they share, or do not share, a common profession. Who s peaks for Medicine, who characterizes its identity? In the mid-nineteenth century, one hundred fifty years ago, the Academy's leadership adopted as their emblem, for their seal and for their medallion, a rounder that depicted Hippocrates, presented text o nly in Greek and Latin, and emphasized man's abstract aspirations and relationship to God ("Homines Deo Accedunt Hominibus Dando Salutem"). These were no doubt recognizable, legible, meaningful to our predecessors, perhaps even also to contemporary outsid ers who saw the medallion on the wall or the seal on a letterhead or diploma. As we approach the twenty-first century, the profession of medicine in general and the membership of the Academy in particular will no doubt continue to seek relevance in its tr aditions and try to project them both internally and externally. It will prove interesting from some future perspective to see reflected in a medallic mirror how we will have chosen to represent and epitomize ourselves.

-Ira Rezak, M.D.

Dr. Rezak is Professor of Clinical Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Associate Chief of Staff for Education, VA Medical Center, Northport, New York. He is a fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine and the American Numismatic Society.

Medal Bibliography

Bernhard, Oscar. Griechische und Roemische Muenzbilder in Ihren Beziehung zur Geschichte der Medizin. Zuerich/Leipzig/Berlin: Verlag Orell, 1926.

Crawfurd, Raymond. The King's Evil, Oxford: Clarendon, 1911.

Freeman, Sarah Elizabeth. Medals Relating to Medicine and Allied Sciences in the Numismatic Collection of the Johns Hopkins University: A Catalogue. Baltimore: The Evergreen House Foundation, 1964.

Holzmair, Eduard. Katalog der Sammlung Dr. Josef Brettauer Medicina in Nummis. Vienna: Kuratorium der Dr. Josef Brettauer-Stifftung,, 1937.

Mueller, Bernhard. Medaillen und Muenzen im Dienste der Religion. Berlin: Friedenau, 1915.

Penn, R.G. Medicine on ancient Greek and Roman Coins. London: Seaby/B.T. Batsford, 1994.

Storer, Malcolm, editor. Medicina in Nummis, a Descriptive List of the Coins-Medals Jetons Relating to Medicine, Surgery and the Allied Sciences. Boston, 1931.

"A PERPETUAL FEVER-NEST:" EPIDEMICS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY NEW YORK

The New York Academy of Medicine Library presents a new exhibition, "A Perpetual Fever-Nest: Epidemics in Nineteenth Century New York," from August 15 through November 15, 1996. New York during the nineteenth century suffered from epidemic diseases more than any other large city in the western world, and had a higher mortality rate than London, Paris, or any other American cities from the 1830s through the 1870s. The nineteenth century, however, was a period of remarkable advances in science, medicine, and public health, and by the end of the century, the causes, if not always the cures, of many epidemic diseases were understood and were acted upon in New York, often with significant success.

Many epidemic diseases came through the city with a sudden force, killing quickly and without warning, then disappeared for months or years at a time, such as Asiatic cholera and yellow fever. Still other diseases were epidemic, having a constant presence in the city, including pneumonia and tuberculosis, both of which together may have claimed as many new diseases combined.

Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, The New York Academy of Medicine and its members lobbied for public health reform and shared their findings with each other in the fight against epidemic diseases. In 1847, the Academy appointed a c ommittee to investigate and to report on a typhus fever outbreak in the city; decades later, Edward Livingston Trudeau, a fellow of the academy, founded the sanitarium movement in the 1890s to attempt a cure for tuberculosis. Sanitation and quarantine mea sures were debated and advocated by members of the Academy, and the Academy held conferences and published its findings in support of research into the roots of these diseases.

The exhibition includes a selection of printed books, artifacts, and manuscripts from the Academy's collections. Newspapers in nineteenth century New York often contained some of the most graphic imagery and commentary on epidemics, and the Library's H ealy Collection of Medical Images from Harper's Weekly and other popular journals will be featured prominently. Artifacts from the Academy's museum collections, such as a nineteenth century tracheostomy kit, which saved many lives from diphtheria, are als o on display.

ADOPTIONS

John E. Jacoby, M.D., has adopted A Treatise of the System of the World...Translated into English by Sir Isaac Newton (London: F. Fayram, 1728). This is the first English translation of De mundi systemate , Book III of Newton's renowned < i>Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica<, originally published in Latin in 1687. In the System of the World, Newton applies mathematical principles described in Book I of his Principia to astronomical and physical questions, including the movements of planets and their satellites, the motions of comets, and the phenomena of tides. The work is cited in Osler's medical bibliography, number 1025. The book will have its front board reattached, and a handmade box will be made to protect it.

Please call Lois Black at (212) 822-7311 for information to adopt-a-book from Historical Collections.

DR. RUSSELL VINER AWARDED THE 1996 PAUL KLEMPERER FELLOWSHIP IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE

Dr. Russell Viner has been selected as the recipient of the 1996 Paul Klemperer Fellowship in the History of Medicine. A Ph.D. candidate with a strong interest in the history of medicine for children, Dr. Viner is currently a Research Fellow of the Dep artment of Paediatrics of the University of Cambridge. He is pursuing doctoral studies at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine in Cambridge.

The Paul Klemperer Fellowship is offered each year to support historical research in residence in the collections of the Academy Library.

As the 1996 Paul Klemperer Fellow, Dr. Viner will explore the development of medicine for children in nineteenth-century America, focusing on the career and contributions of Abraham Jacobi. He will begin by tracing the professional and political path n egotiated by the immigrant socialist Abraham Jacobi in establishing a career and pioneering health initiatives for sick infants in nineteenth-century New York.

Dr. Viner's research will culminate with a seminar to be presented at the Academy this Fall.

THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE

PAUL KLEMPERER RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE

The New York Academy of Medicine offers the Paul Klemperer Fellowship each year to support historical research in residence in the collections of the Academy Library.

The Academy maintains one of the largest medical libraries in the United States with a collection of over 700,000 volumes, 275,000 portraits and illustrations and 183,000 pamphlets. The Historical Collections Department contains 49,000 volumes in the h istory of medicine, science and other health-related disciplines. Of these, rare materials dating from 1700 B.C. to A.D. 1800 number approximately 32,000 volumes. Especially well-represented are medical Americana and classic works in the history of Wester n European medicine and public health. Primary source materials include over 2,000 manuscripts, most notably the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, along with photographs and medical artifacts. Secondary sources include an extensive history of medicine referen ce collection and 95 current journal subscriptions in the history of the health sciences. In addition to the Academy's own archives, the collection also houses the archives of many health-related institutions and organizations, which serve as a primary re source for the history of health administration, public health, medical education, and medical practice in New York.

The New York Academy of Medicine is a not-for-profit educational institution established in 1847 to enhance the health of the public. With its membership of 2,700 leading practitioners, medical researchers, administrators, health sciences educators and other health care professionals, the Academy is a leader in addressing issues important to health in the United States, especially problems associated with urban environments.

The Klemperer Fellowship provides a stipend of up to $5,000 to support travel, lodging and incidental expenses for a flexible period of time between June 1, 1997 and December 31, 1997. In addition to completing the research in the Library, the Fellow w ill be expected to present a seminar at the Academy and submit a final report of the project.

Applications must be received by the Academy no later than February 1, 1997 and candidates will be informed of the results by May 1, 1997.

Application forms and requests for further information should be addressed to: Historical Collections Department, New York Academy of Medicine Library, 1216 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10029. history@nyam.org

"Making Choices: The History of Conflict in Medical Ethics" Fall Calendar of Events

The lecture series "Making Choices: The History of Conflict in Medical Ethics" resumes this season with lectures planned for the fall and winter. Please stay tuned for information about the winter portion of the program, which is sponsored in part by the New York Council for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities. All lectures are free and open to the public, beginning with 5:30 P.M. refreshments/ 6:00 P.M. lecture.

Alan R. Fleischman, M.D., Senior Vice President, The New York Academy of Medicine; Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology, and Social Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, "Health Care Decision Making for Gravely Ill Ch ildren."
Thursday, October 10, 1996.

Barren Lerner, M.D., M.A., Assistant Professor of Medicine, Center for the Study of Society and Medicine, Columbia University. "Public Health Versus Civil Liberties: The Use of Coercion for Patients With Tuberculosis."
Thursday, November 7, 1996.

Ruth Macklin, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "Who Decides?: A Look at the Recent History of the Doctor-Patient Relationship." (John K Lattimer Lecture)
Thursday, December 12, 1996.

PRESIDENTIAL TEETH LOANED FOR EXHIBITION

Not only is the Academy's exhibition program active at home, but artifacts from the collections are gaining acclaim abroad as well. This summer, the George Washington denture which is owned by the Academy was loaned to the National Museum of Dentistry at the University of Maryland at Baltimore for an exhibition. Crafted of hippopotamus ivory and human teeth, the denture was assembled in 1790 by John Greenwood, the well-known dentist in Colonial New York. The denture is significant in that it has a hole which was designed to fit over Washington's last remaining tooth. The first president's last tooth was retained by Dr. Greenwood in a glass-enclosed gold locket in his watch fob; Greenwood's gold watch and Washington's last tooth are also on display at t he National Museum of Dentistry. These artifacts share a specially designed Washington Room, with four other portions of Washington dentures which were assembled to celebrate the museums inauguration.

"The President is the Patient" will be exhibited at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia from October 1, 1996 through July 5, 1997. The Academy's two dental casts of the roof of President Grover Cleveland's mouth will be borrowed for inc lusion in the show. The casts, taken in 1893 and 1897 respectively, showing not only the results of the secret operation undertaken to remove a growth in the President's mouth, but also the notable healing and shrinkage which occurred around the wound.

We are delighted to make these unique artifacts available to visitors in other regions.

Staff Directory

Arthur Downing, Academy Librarian and Director of Information Resources

Rhonna Goodman, Associate Librarian

Lois Fischer Black, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts and Acting Head Historical Collections

Linda Gardin, Assistant to the Academy Librarian

Michael North, Historical Collections Librarian

THE MALLOCH ROOM NEWSLETTER is published three times a year by the Historical Collections Department, The New York Academy of Medicine Library, 1216 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10029. Phone: 212-822-7311. Fax: 212-722-7650; Internet: history@nyam.org. World Wide Web: http://www.nyam.org.

FRIENDS OF THE RARE BOOK ROOM - MEMBERSHIP UPDATE (1996)

*New Friends

The Library gratefully acknowledges the support it has received from both old and new Friends in 1996.

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