October is Archives Month! Along with archives from across the country, we’re celebrating the value of historical records and the preservation of the past.
We have special events planned on Wednesday, October 5. Visit us in the Library 5th floor Reading Room from 12noon-1pm to view historical collections, tour library exhibits, and meet archives staff. Also, tweet your questions all day @ucsf_archives using #AskAnArchivist. RSVP preferred for the open house – sign up here.
We’ve been cataloging additions to our Historical Medical Artifact Collection recently. It’s always fun diving into the over 1,000 objects in the collection. This treasure is the Ortho-Fusor, a Bausch & Lomb product for “Modern Visual Training.”
Ortho-Fusor, 1941. Artifact Collection, item 1157.
The Ortho-Fusor, dated 1941, includes Polaroid 3D glasses, a reference manual, and a spiral-bound booklet with vectograph images and exercises. A vectograph is a type of stereoscopic image composed of two superimposed, polarized pictures that produce a 3D effect when viewed through polarizing spectacles. Think of it like going to a 3D movie, except you are viewing stills.
Ortho-Fusor booklet, 1941. Artifact Collection, item 1157.
Ortho-Fusor booklet, 1941. Artifact Collection, item 1157.
The Ortho-Fusor exercises, which involve refocusing your eyes on various points in the image, were designed for “re-educating and training visual skills” for the “modern need.” As noted in the reference manual, “the world of modern occupations has drawn many more thousands of us into factories, offices, libraries, schools, shops, and laboratories. Here for hours at a time we perform sustained and precise tasks with our eyes, frequently at very close distances…The precise teamwork of the eyes is a matter of coordination and habit.” The reference manual encourages 30 minutes of use a day, in five to ten minute intervals.
Ortho-Fusor Reference Manual, 1941. Artifact Collection, item 1157.
Ophthalmologists and optometrists, let us know what you think of these visual exercises and the Ortho-Fusor’s medical claims!
This is a guest post by Sophia Lahey, UCSF Archives and Special Collections Intern.
Recently, as part of a larger UCSF Archives and Special Collections digitization project, over 200 medical journals from various state medical associations were digitized and added to the Internet Archive. In order to ensure scan quality, I sifted through thousands of pages to make sure everything was clear enough so that the search function would work properly. As long as the scans are clean, you can search for any word in the entire collection! For instance, I searched the words “alcohol” and “prohibition” and came up with some fascinating results.
The first items that struck me when I started to read through the journals were the ads. In addition to the articles, the ads serve as evidence for historians about how people lived, what was socially acceptable, and what they were interested in buying. In these journals, most of the ads were geared towards doctors, advertising things like medicine, medical instruments, insurance, and even computer management systems.
This ad for Dentocain Teething Lotion is from the 1950s. The infant teething medication advertised is 70% alcohol and includes chloroform! By modern medical standards, this product would definitely raise some red flags. As I kept looking through more journals, I noticed that the older ones featured alcohol in many of the medicines advertised.
In this ad, though the ingredients aren’t listed, you can see on the bottle that the medicine contains 7 1/2% alcohol. The ad was published in 1927, during prohibition. So how could medicine contain alcohol when it was illegal? Well, alcohol could still be prescribed by a doctor. Like other medications, a doctor had to fill out a prescription in order for a patient to get items, like whiskey, for medicinal reasons.
Some doctors wrote prescriptions for liquor off record and for a profit. This created a controversy – government legislation vs. the rights of the practitioner to prescribe as much as he or she felt was needed. This lead to court cases as well as strongly worded opinion pieces about said court cases and ethics in the medical community. These opinion pieces as well as other news stories can be read in the medical journals in the UCSF collection.
Our Medical Artifact Collection includes some pretty amazing items. For instance, the 19th-century medical kits always impress, with their vibrant satin and velvet linings and beautifully crafted (though not necessarily sanitary) instruments.
One highlight is this 19th-century skull and brain surgery kit created by Arnold & Sons, a London-based surgical instrument manufacturer. The kit includes a trephine (with multiple saw bits), forceps, bone brush, and head saw known as a Hey’s saw.
Skull and brain surgery kit, 19th century. UCSF Artifact Collection, item 441.
A trephine is a T-shaped, hand-operated drill saw with a cylindrical blade. It would have been used to bore holes in the skull, allowing for the removal of bone and access to the brain. This kit includes multiple saw bits of different sizes.
Detail of trephine, bone brush, and Hey’s saw. UCSF Artifact Collection, item 441.
A Hey’s saw is a double-bladed instrument that, thanks to its unique design, allows for variously angled cuts. It is named after William Hey, an English surgeon who helped refine the tool.
If you would like to see this, or any of our artifacts, in person, please make an appointment with the UCSF Archives and Special Collections.
Our extensive Historical Photograph Collection includes some really fascinating images. Check out these from the UCSF Radiology Department.
Verso: “Interior of University of California Hospital; Equipment used for the extraction of radon – an element formed by the disintegration of radium,” 1924. Photograph by H.J. Armstrong. Photograph collection, SM, Department of Radiology.
Cobalt machine, 1963. Instrument used to administer radiation therapy, often used for cancer treatment. Photograph by Cal-Pictures. Photograph collection, R, Radiology Therapy.
Students Debbie Modeiros and Nat Rutherford, in the Radiologic Technology Training School, practicing with doll, 1969. Photograph collection, R, Radiology Technology School.
EMI Scanner, 1975. Verso: “The EMI scanner is an example of recent technological advances that reduces patient X-ray exposure while providing more accurate diagnosis than obtainable with older X-ray machines. Here technician Mary McNally and secretary Penny Foster, as patient, demonstrate the giant 2 1/2 ton machine which diagnoses brain disorders.” Photograph by Juan Saenz. Photograph collection, R, Radiology CT and EMI scanning.
This is a guest post by Kristin Daniel, UCSF Archives and Special Collections Intern.
Dear Reader, you may not be aware of the fact that most—if not all—archives must deal with the looming specter of unprocessed legacy collections haunting their vaults. Hark, what’s that I hear? The sound of researchers gnashing their teeth at the thought of virgin cartons, brimming with knowledge, just beyond their reach? In the name of Science and History, what can be done?
I’ll tell you good Reader! An expedition is being undertaken at this very moment to survey those hidden but not forgotten boxes of lore that reside in the vault of the UCSF Archives. Possessing the requisite skills and patience, archivist David Uhlich and myself (your plucky and adroit, intern) are making our way through shelf after shelf of material – opening boxes, checking contents, and conferring with the notes of archivists gone by.
Sometimes we find what’s on the shelf matches what information we have, but sometimes we come across half-created records or material lacking adequate description. Despite these setbacks, we roll up our sleeves and soldier on, updating existing records with new information about content and location, or creating shiny new records of our own.
It’s a long process, but it is important work. Fear not, gentle Reader, for although the task seems Sisyphean in magnitude, the brave souls of the Archives and Special Collections are determined to succeed!
Another installment in our blog series that explores artifacts related to health practices now considered inaccurate or fraudulent. Check out Carl Baunscheidt’s Lebenswecker.
Baunscheidt’s Lebenswecker, circa 1850. Instrument pictured with cap on and off. Item 436, UCSF Archives Artifact Collection.
The Lebenswecker, translated as the “Life-Awakener” or the “Resuscitator,” was developed by German inventor Carl Baunscheidt in the mid-19th century. The small instrument included over 30 thin, spring-loaded needles concentrated at the end of an ebony staff.
Detail of Lebenswecker. Item 436, UCSF Archives Artifact Collection.
According to Baunscheidt, the Lebenswecker was designed to quickly puncture the skin, creating “artificial pores.” The “pores,” i.e. puncture wounds, were then covered with a proprietary irritating oil called “Oleum Baunscheidtii” that produced blisters. As another option, the practitioner could dip the needles in the oil before application, thus creating a more concentrated injection. As the blisters formed and drained, Baunscheidt claimed, the “health-destroying morbid matter” in the body naturally escaped.
Illustration of Adonis and Aphrodite with “most generally appropriate” areas of the body on which to use the Lebenswecker. From Baunscheidtism, or a New Method of Cure, 1865.
Baunscheidt developed a health philosophy around the Lebenswecker known as Baunscheidtism. His inspiration, as detailed in his book Baunscheidtism, or a New Method of Cure, came from his experience watching mosquitoes bite his rheumatic hand. As he writes, “it seemed as if the pains he had suffered, had fled with the flies…the inflicted sting caused an opening in the epidermis just large enough for the fine, volatile, but pathogenic substances lodged in the skin to exude.”
Detail of illustration from Baunscheidtism, or a New Method of Cure, 1865.
Baunscheidt claimed that the Lebenswecker could cure everything from sleeplessness to measles to epilepsy. Baunscheidtism practitioners, like John Linden, made similarly broad claims. As Linden noted in his work, Manual of the Exanthematic Method of Cure, the Lebenswecker could eliminate a tapeworm because, after repeated applications, “the unwelcome guest will soon become disgusted with his quarters, and be compelled to vacate.”
Order sheet fixed inside John Linden’s Manual of the Exanthematic Method of Cure, 1882.
Baunscheidt’s philosophy, backed by personal testimonies included in his publications, achieved a measure of popularity in the 19th and early 20th century, especially in Germany and the United States. Today, his treatment is widely discredited.
Two different designs of Lebenswecker. Items 436 and 242, UCSF Archives Artifact Collection.
We house two different “Life-Awakeners” in the UCSF Archives and Special Collections and a similar instrument developed by Baunscheidt called an artificial leech. Please contact us if you would like to come in and see the artifacts! We also have editions of John Linden and Carl Baunscheidt’s writings or you can read Baunscheidtism, or a New Method of Cure online in our digital collection.
We are pleased to announce that the J. Michael Bishop Papers digital collection is now available publicly on Calisphere.org. Bishop is a Nobel Prize-winning researcher and UCSF Chancellor Emeritus. The digital collection features hundreds of pages of material and photographs selected from Bishop’s papers housed in the UCSF Archives and Special Collections (MSS 2007-21).
J. Michael Bishop college portrait, Gettysburg College, circa 1955. MSS 2007-21, box 1, folder 4.
J. Michael Bishop portrait with molecular model, circa 2000. MSS 2007-21, case D, folder 1.
J. Michael Bishop, MD, joined the UCSF faculty in 1968. He was appointed director of the GW Hooper Research Foundation in 1981 and named UCSF Chancellor in 1998, a post he held until 2009. He continues to serve as Hooper’s director and as professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
J. Michael Bishop email to Harold Varmus regarding Bishop’s University of California, San Francisco Chancellor appointment, 1998-02-06. MSS 2007-21, carton 18, folder 43.
In 1989, Bishop and his research partner, Harold Varmus, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in cancer research. Bishop and Varmus discovered the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes. Their work helped clarify the processes that convert normal cellular genes into cancer genes and impacted our understanding of the genesis of human cancer.
J. Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus at Nobel Shindig, a county-western themed dinner party given by Varmus and Bishop in celebration of their Nobel Prize award; held at DeMarco’s 23 Club, Brisbane, California, 1989. MSS 2007-21, carton 8, folder 41.
The digital collection features selections from Bishop’s laboratory research notebooks and professional papers, including article drafts, correspondence with other scientists, and teaching and lecture material. Also included are photographs and draft figures created by Bishop for his publications.
Purification of Annealed Product Gd RNA graphs. Selected page from a laboratory research binder of J. Michael Bishop, circa 1970. MSS 2007-21, carton 18, folder 3.
The Life Cycle of Rous Sarcoma Virus diagram drawing (1) by J. Michael Bishop; created for Bishop’s article “Oncogenes” published in Scientific American, 1982. MSS 2007-21, carton 2, folder 2.
You can view the digital collection on Calisphere.org. If you would like to visit the UCSF Archives and work with the complete physical collection, please check out the detailed inventory available on the Online Archive of California and make an appointment with us.
We don’t know much about this doctor’s bag. It was manufactured by the Feick Brothers medical supply company, probably in the late 19th or early 20th century, in a manner common to the bags that family doctors carried during that time, but much beyond that remains a mystery. We aren’t sure whose bag it was, or how it came into the possession of UCSF Archives & Special Collections. Beyond being a doctor’s bag, we don’t know if it has any connection to UCSF at all.
Even the tools inside the bag invite more questions than give answers: Were all these tools original to this particular bag, or were more tools added after it fell out of use? Is that a bullet extractor scoop, a curette spoon, or a lithotomy instrument? And it seems to have a lot of instruments related to gynecology and child birth—could it perhaps have been the bag of some nameless OBGYN?
For archivists, who rely on provenance to establish historical context, these types of questions can be a little uncomfortable. Yet despite all its mysteries, this doctor’s bag remains a fascinating artifact—and it definitely has some very interesting things inside. It’s almost like unwrapping a gift to discover it is actually a puzzle!
Written by David Uhlich.
This is a guest post by Kristin Daniel, UCSF Archives & Special Collections Intern.
The UCSF Archives is pleased to announce the official addition of the Helen Fahl Gofman papers. This collection, spanning several decades between the 1950s and the 1980s, details a woman who was a much loved teacher, mentor, doctor, and leader. Dr. Gofman’s affiliation with UCSF pediatrics began in 1945 when she graduated from the School of Medicine and also completed her internship and residency on campus. Gofman received faculty status in 1953 and worked in various programs until her retirement in 1983. Gofman is best remembered as a founding member, and then director, of the UCSF Child Study Unit (CSU).
Helen Gofman playing the bass, circa 1950. MSS 2014-17, Gofman papers.
Helen Gofman was, by all accounts, a passionate and cheerful woman. She was dedicated to the care of the “total patient”—not just the physical or mental condition of the child, but also how that condition impacted their social, emotional, developmental, and behavioral well-being. Considered a national leader in the field of behavioral pediatrics, Gofman was involved with UCSF’s Child Study Unit (now known as the Division of Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics) since its inception in 1948.
Helen Gofman and child, circa 1980. Photograph collection, portraits, Gofman.
Dr. Gofman and the rest of the CSU staff of doctors, nurses, social workers, speech pathologists and special education experts sought to help children whose conditions might have otherwise been misdiagnosed or gone untreated (including cases of dyslexia or ADHD) by other healthcare professionals. The goal of the CSU was not only to help these children and their families, but also to develop a new generation of pediatric health professionals; the CSU trained clinicians to value their patients and focus on finding personalized treatments that take into account all aspects of the child’s life, not just their condition.
Helen Gofman at her retirement party, 1984. MSS 2014-17, Gofman papers.
The Helen Gofman papers (MSS 2014-17) include research subject files, restricted patient files, and personal correspondence. Also included are some of Dr. Gofman’s published works, such as The Family is the Patient: An Approach to Behavioral Pediatrics for the Clinician, which is considered a classic work in the field. Multimedia artifacts (such as lecture slides, teaching toys, and film reels) are also included. The Archives is proud to house this material and make it available to researchers.
