Rare Books, Washington's Denture and Skulls Part of Undiscovered New York

Located on the mezzanine floor of the New York Academy of Medicine’s neo-Romanesque building on Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street, is the Malloch Rare Book Room, constructed in 1933. With its richly carved dark wood walls, chandeliers embellished with early printers marks and floor to ceiling bookshelves, the rare book collection contains some of the most important works in the history of medicine and related subjects, dating from circa 1600 BCE to the present.

The Rare Book Room houses treasures such as the oldest extant cookbook in the west, a mid-9th century copy of a 2nd century Roman text. The manuscript was penned on vellum at the Benedictine monastery at Fulda, Germany, probably by young monks training to become scribes.

The Rare Book Room at NYAM houses unexpected treasures.

Also of note are three first edition copies of De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543) by Andreas Vesalius, who is widely regarded as the father of modern anatomy. The book is heavily illustrated with exquisite woodcuts by Jan Stephen of Calcar, who was Titian’s favorite student. The central illustrations in the book are seventeen full-figures of skeletons, muscle men and figures that show the layers of the muscles as they are stripped away, all set against a landscape panorama. The rest of the text contains numerous illustrations detailing the various parts of the body, including organs, nerves, veins and arteries.

The oldest item in the rare book collection is the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, the oldest existing document on surgery. The papyrus describes the treatment of forty-eight different surgical cases, including head injuries, broken bones, dislocations and sutures. Since 2005, the papyrus has been on long-term loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was the centerpiece of an exhibition on early Egyptian medicine.

In addition to more than 32,000 volumes of rare books, the collection includes manuscripts, ephemera and some artifacts. Among these can be found George Washington’s lower denture, a bezoar, which is a hairball removed from one of the stomachs of a cow in 1862, a presentation medallion made by Alexander Fleming from the first penicillin culture, and casts of pre-Columbian human skulls showing evidence of trepanation.

As part of a continued mission to bring to highlight some of these treasures and more, NYAM will host a free event on May 18 at 6:00 pm at which Chester Burger will speak about his new book, Unexpected New York: 87 Discoveries in Familiar Places. Burger takes you to New York City places you thought you knew and surprises you 87 times with true stories you’ve never heard before. The New York Academy of Medicine is included as one of these hidden treasures of the city.

Please join us for this informative talk. To make an appointment to visit the Malloch Rare Book Room for a tour or to do research, please call Miriam Mandelbaum, the Curator, at 212-822-7310 or Arlene Shaner, the Assistant Curator, at 212-822-7313 or email history@nyam.org.

Posted on May 15, 2009

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Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org

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