History

History of Dental Education in Louisiana Libguide

Follow the History of Dental Education in Louisiana in a newly published LibGuide. Discover the history from its start at the New Orleans Dental College, read the 1905 Commencement from the New Orleans College of Dentistry, view the class of 1924 from the Tulane School of Dentistry, check out the long history of the Loyola School of Dentistry, and finally understand how dental education came to LSU. Check out the LibGuide here: https://libguides.lsuhsc.edu/denthistory.

Book Talk on the Evolution of Algiers General Hospital – Wednesday, September 28th

On Wednesday, September 28th, Frank Wagner, M.D., SoM Class of 1961, will present his book “Two Men and a Hospital: the Evolution of Algiers General Hospital Via Henry A. LaRocca, M.D. & Ernest A. Schiro M.D.” in the Moreau Center at the University of Holy Cross.

The book details, in part through personal interviews and illustrations, how Algiers got its first hospital after 200 years of existence due the efforts of two men, including Dr. Henry A. LaRocca, who was part of LSU School of Medicine’s first graduating class in 1933.

The presentation is being hosted by the Blaine S. Kern Library at the University of Holy Cross. For more information, email schaubhut@uhcno.edu.

Medical School Portraits on 3rd Floor of Isché Library

The LSUHSC New Orleans Medical School departments of Obstetrics/Gynecology, Urology, and Dermatology have loaned portraits of former department heads to the John P. Isché Library.

The portraits are located on the 3rd floor of the library near the faculty publications display, the reference desk, and the printing station.

These portraits are being displayed on a temporary basis. Come visit the library and take a look!

  1. Abe Mickal, MD
    Department Head, 1959-1981
    Department of Obstetrics/Gynecology
  2. Gilbert Tomskey, MD
    Department Head, 1962-1980
    Department of Urology
  3. Silas O’Quinn, MD
    Department Head, 1968-1973
    Department of Dermatology
    School of Medicine Dean, 1973-1977
  4. Barret Kennedy, MD
    Department Head, 1953-1968
    Department of Dermatology
  5. (Left)
    James K. Howles, MD
    Department Head, 1937-1953
    Department of Dermatology
  6. (Right)
    Lee Nesbitt, MD
    Department Head, 1989-2004
    Department of Dermatology

 

 

 

 

 

Killer wallpaper?

Earlier this month, the National Library of Medicine announced they had finished digitizing the popular and possibly deadly book Shadows from the Walls of Death: Facts and Inferences Prefacing a Book of Specimens of Arsenical Wall Papers.  It is now available for free to the public at no risk of our lives.

 

Shadows from the Walls of Death, printed in 1874 and measuring about 22 by 30 inches, is a noteworthy book for two reasons: its rarity, and the fact that, if you touch it, it might kill you.” (Zawacki, 2018)  Dr. Robert M. Kedzie a professor of Chemistry at Michigan State Agricultural college (now MSU) created the book in an attempt to call attention to the dangers of arsenical pigments that were extremely popular in wallpaper at the time.  The book contains 84 samples of wallpaper colored with arsenical pigment (especially the vivid green colors Scheel’s Green or Paris Green) which he legally purchased from leading wallpaper dealers all over Michigan.  At the time, it was known that arsenic was poisonous when eaten but no one knew that the pigment would shed microscopic dust that when inhaled or ingested would slowly poison the inhabitants of the home.  Dr. Kedzie created 100 copies of Shadows from the Walls of Death and sent them to public libraries across the state – only 4 are known to exist currently.  The other three surviving copies are located at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Harvard University. (Take a look at this great article from Atlas Obscura in 2018.)

 

 

In addition to the fascinating subject matter of this book, it is interesting to note the procedures the National Library of Medicine had to follow in order to digitize the content. NLM worked with NIH Department of Occupational Health and Safety (DOHS) and using equipment at the Smithsonian Libraries, developed a workflow that protected the library personnel and the book during the digitization process.  The process and more on the history of arsenic-pigments are described in a three part post in NLM’s blog, Circulating Now: From the Historical Collections of the National Library of Medicine. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

 

 

Happy NOLA Tricentennial

 

Today officially marks New Orleans’ 300th year. The actual founding date is a bit murky but this is the date picked by the city for this anniversary kickoff!

Every Necessary Care and Attention: George Washington and Medicine

NLM Banners

 

LSUHealth – New Orleans Libraries is proud to present Every Necessary Care and Attention: George Washington and Medicine. The display includes six banners from the National Library Medicine as well as local articles, books, and archival material. The display will be at Isché Library November 13 – Dec 1 and the Dental Library Dec 4 – Dec 21.

 

 
Local Materials for Review and Checkout

Happy 70th to the CDC

We’re just over a month late, but July 1 was the anniversary for the founding of the Centers for Disease Control. The Center was founded in 1946 from the Malaria Control in War Areas, a program within the U.S. Public Health Service. Enjoy this timeline of their history.

Blast from the Past: IBM punched card

1960s Computer Punch Card, name removed

1960s Computer Punched Card, name removed

The Isché Circulation Staff found an old IBM punched card in a book this morning. The card was for a medical student who graduated in 1969. Now if we only knew what it was used for…registering for classes, or getting a student ID, or taking a test, or ???

History of Louisiana Medicine Collection

HLMC

The Isché Library has created a mini-collection highlighting the History of Louisiana Medicine. This collection is located on the 3rd floor near the copy machine and is available for checkout.

Photogrammar – WPA photos

FSA (Farm Security Administration) dentist and migrant child in the FSA dental trailer at the FSA camp for farm families. Caldwell, Idaho (November 1941) - Russell Lee

FSA (Farm Security Administration) dentist and migrant child in the FSA dental trailer at the FSA camp for farm families. Caldwell, Idaho (November 1941) – Russell Lee

Yale University and the National Endowment for the Humanities have indexed the 170,000 photos created by the US Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information. All photos were created from 1935 through 1945. Photogrammar organizes the photos so they are searchable via map location, photographer, classification tags (medicine and health for instance), and eventually by treemap, metadata dashboard and colorspace.

Timeline Leading to UMCNO

Here’s a quick timeline of the various hospitals grouped together as New Orleans Charity Hospital condensed from John Salvaggio’s History of Charity Hospital (available in print in the Isché Library) with additions since its 1992 publication.

The first Charity Hospital was the provisional Ursuline Convent at Bienville and Chartres in 1736 and was called L’Hospital des Pauvres de la Charité or Hospital of St. John.

The second (built 1743 and destroyed 1779 by hurricane) and third, San Carlos Hospital or Hospital of St. Charles, (built 1785 and destroyed 1809 by fire) hospitals were built near Basin St.

The fourth hospital opened in 1815 at State House Square (Canal, Common, Philippa and Baronne) or roughly the location of the Roosevelt Hotel.

The fifth hospital was completed in 1833 and was designed to house 400 – 550 patients. The Daughters of Charity took over the administration of the hospital in 1834.  A photo of this location from the 1921 resides in the Library Commons.

The sixth hospital (Big Charity) opened its doors in 1939 and closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The seventh hospital, the Interim LSU Hospital, functioned from 2006 through 2015.

University Medical Center New Orleans, which opened on August 1st,  is the 8th hospital in a direct line from that first hospital over 275 years ago.

1949 US Public Health Service Film on Diabetes

Thanks to Circulating Now, NLM’s historical blog, I learned about the Story of Wendy Hill, created by the US Public Health Service in 1949.

Happy National Diabetes Month!

It Came From the Stacks

In honor of everyone using their time this summer to study for their board exams, this month’s “It Came From the Stacks” post is about a board review text.  However, you might not want to use it for your boards as it was published 107 years ago.

Underwood & Gabell’s Aids to Dental Surgery is one volume in their “Student’s aids series.”  The book is small and as the author states in his preface, “condense(s) into a concise form that department of the science of dental surgery which is capable of such treatment.”  Underwood states that the books concentrates on matters which are likely to be included on examinations.  “If the book smooths the path of any of the large body of dental students, with whose education and welfare my daily work has been and is so largely concerned, I shall feel that its object has been accomplished.”

Within this slim, 126 page book, the authors cover the breadth of dental science including bacteriology, hygiene, injuries and illnesses of the pulp, periosteum, mucous membrane, and jaws, extraction of teeth, and diseases arising from diseases of the teeth and gums.

aids to dental surgery

LSUHSC-NO Libraries is lucky enough to hold one of only 12 copies of this work in the world.  If you’d like to come take a look at this book or any of our more recent board review materials, please contact us or stop in to see us.

Uncovering more truths about Richard III

"Richard III, uncle of Elizabeth of York, great uncle of Henry VIII by Lisby in House of York, List of English monarchs, Richard III of England on Fotopedia - Images for Humanity " by lisby1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

“Richard III, uncle of Elizabeth of York, great uncle of Henry VIII by Lisby in House of York, List of English monarchs, Richard III of England on Fotopedia – Images for Humanity ” by lisby1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Richard III reigned as King of England from 1483 until he was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, thus closing the final chapter of the decades-long Wars of the Roses and ushering in the age of the Tudors. He is one of more infamous monarchs in British history, with opinions ranging from him as the hunchback usurper who had his nephews murdered as popularized by Shakespeare, to that of a trustworthy person who was simply caught up in the battle for control of the English crown.* Aside from his interest to scholars and drama enthusiasts, we are finding more and more about Richard III the man and his medical conditions as a result of the discovery and continuing analysis of his remains.

As a defeated monarch, Richard III was not treated to a royal burial after his death. Rumors persisted throughout the centuries as to the fate of his body, and, incredibly, remains discovered during an archaeological dig under a car park in the city of Leicester and subsequent DNA analysis confirmed that Richard III had been found.

One of the most recent discoveries in the ongoing analysis of the remains affects the portrayal of his being a hunchback as described in Shakespeare’s Richard III. An article published in the May 31, 2014, issue of Lancet by Appleby, et al, reports that Richard suffered from adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, but not to such an extent to cause him to appear as the physically deformed monster of the play. According to the analysis, his mobility would not have been affected by the condition, and a clever tailor could even have compensated for any noticeable traces of it in his appearance.

For more information about Richard III, discovery of his remains, and the continuing analysis, please see:

*Full disclosure: the author of this post studied the pardons granted during the reign of Richard III and tends to take a sympathetic view of his legacy.

 

 

Nursing Postcards

The National Library of Medicine houses the Michael Zwerdling Nursing Postcard Collection of nearly 2500 postcards, “published in the United States and internationally, depicting the nursing profession, the social history of nursing, the perception of nursing in various cultures, the role of military nurses, and other related themes.” The cards date from between 1893 and 2002. Approximately 600 of the postcards have been digitized by the Images from the History of Medicine section of the History of Medicine Division of NLM.

 

National Organizations of Nurses of the United States. New Orleans 1916 (http://ihm.nlm.nih.gov/luna/servlet/view/search?q=D05931)

National Organizations of Nurses of the United States. New Orleans 1916 (http://ihm.nlm.nih.gov/luna/servlet/view/search?q=D05931)