2014 Winter Holiday Closure

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Polina Ilieva

The Archives and Special Collections will be closed from Wednesday, December 23, 2014 through Thursday, January 1st, 2015. We will reopen on Friday, January 2nd.

Gingerbread version of The Anatomy of Human Body: Illustrated in One Hundred & Fifty Eight Plates by the UCSF Library 5th floor staff.

For our entry into the UCSF Library staff gingerbread house contest we used the pieces of the house to create a rare book in a cradle, specifically, we made a tastier version of Andrew Fyfe’s The Anatomy of the Human Body: Illustrated in One Hundred and Fifty Eight Plates, 1830, that we showed you earlier this fall on the blog

Happy holidays again! See you in the new year!

Got questions? October 30 Is #AskAnArchivist Day!

Posted on October 27, 2014 by Polina Ilieva

On October 30, archivists around the country will take to Twitter to answer your questions about any and all things archives! This day-long event, sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, will give you the opportunity to connect directly with archivists in your community—and around the country—to ask questions, get information, or just satisfy your curiosity.

Postcard depicting the Affiliated Colleges, San Francisco, California, ca. 1900s

We are eager to respond to diverse questions you have about archives and archival work. Not sure what to ask? Here are a few sample questions we commonly get…

•   Who was the first chancellor of UCSF?
•   When the university was officially named UCSF?
•   How to archive a website?
•   What’s the most unusual thing you’ve come across in your collections?
•   How can I see you collections?
•   How can I volunteer in the archives?
•   Can you help me digitize VHS tapes?
•   I have old dental school yearbooks, can I donate them to archives?

#AskAnArchivist is open to everyone—all you need is a Twitter account! To participate, just tweet a question and include the hashtag #AskAnArchivist in your tweet. Your question will be seen instantly by archivists around the country who are standing by to respond directly to you.
If your questions are specifically for the UCSF archives, be sure to tweet them to @ucsf_archives using the hashtag #AskAnArchivist on October 30th from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
We may not know every answer right away, but we will get back to you after we’ve had the chance to do some digging.
The archives team will be on-hand to answer your questions. Click here to tweet.

The Anatomy of the Human Body: Illustrated by One Hundred & Fifty Eight Plates

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Maggie Hughes

We bring you some images from the rare book collection to kick off your October:

Fyfe, Andrew, The Anatomy of the Human Body… 1830, Tab. I.

I like to think of it as “Dancing Skeletons.” Doesn’t it look as though they’re mid-twirl?

Andrew Fyfe (1754-1824) was a Scottish anatomy professor at Edinburgh University where he lectured and performed dissections. He later went on to create anatomy textbooks and engravings. The above volume, The Anatomy of the Human Body: Illustrated in One Hundred & Fifty Eight Plates, was published after Fyfe’s death in 1830. It’s comprised solely of detailed engravings of human anatomy.

This book, along with 1,316 others, were digitized during the UCSF Google Books Project and is now available in full on HathtiTrust.

A few more– the thoracic cavity,

Fyfe, Andrew, The Anatomy of the Human Body… 1830, Tab. XVII.

teeth and jaw,

Fyfe, Andrew, The anatomy of the human body... 1830, teeth.

Fyfe, Andrew, The Anatomy of the Human Body… 1830, Tab. LXXII.

nerves and muscles on the neck and head,

Fyfe, Andrew, The anatomy of the human body... 1830, nerves.

Fyfe, Andrew, The Anatomy of the Human Body… 1830, Tab. CV.

the brain,

Fyfe, Andrew, The Anatomy of the Human Body… 1830, Tab. LII.

and last but not least, a child skeleton and skulls on books. Now, who is ready for Halloween?

Fyfe, Andrew, The anatomy of the human body... 1830, child skeleton.

Fyfe, Andrew, The Anatomy of the Human Body… 1830, Tab. XXVII.

Fyfe, Andrew, The Anatomy of the Human Body… 1830, Tab. IX.

Eric L. Berne exhibit marks the conclusion of the first phase of Eric Berne Papers Processing Project

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Polina Ilieva

The UCSF Archives & Special Collections would like to announce the opening of the new exhibit, “Eric L. Berne Archive: The Birth of Transactional Analysis.” This exhibit marks the conclusion of the first phase of the Eric Berne Archive Processing project.
Eric L. Berne (1910-1970) was a practicing psychiatrist, lecturer and author. Best known for his development of the theory of Transactional Analysis, Berne published dozens of scholarly articles in the field of psychoanalysis and was the author of eight major books, including the bestseller Games People Play.

Advertisements for Games People Play, the New York Times Book Review, August 14, 1966. Eric L. Berne papers, MSS 2005-08, box 4, folder 21 UCSF Archives & Special Collections.

The materials in the Archive were created by Dr. Berne (1910-1970) and by the organizations he founded: the San Francisco Social Psychiatry Seminars (SFSPS) and the International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA). The Archive holds Berne’s personal and professional papers, including correspondence, writings, notes, conference programs, administrative records, photographs, and audio-visual recordings.

In the past nine months (September 2013-May 2014) project archivist, Kate Tasker has been working diligently to process six existing collections and two recently added accessions. As a result of this effort six detailed finding aids for the Eric Bern Archive consisting of 77 boxes or 41.8 linear feet were added to the Online Archive of California. Kate also organized and compiled an inventory for the Eric L. Berne Rare Book collection that includes over 300 books from Berne’s personal library and copies of his published works. With the help of our cataloger, Bea Mallek, these volumes were added to the UCSF Library catalog and can be consulted in the Archives & Special Collections reading room.

Costume party, August 1959.Eric L. Berne papers, MSS 82-0, box 2, folder 10 UCSF Archives & Special Collections.

Another important achievement was the digitization of more than 400 unique documents, containing Eric Berne correspondence (including letters from significant figures such as Alfred C. Kinsey, Paul Federn, and Karl Menninger), writings, educational records, lecture drafts, announcements and publications from the SFSPS and the ITAA as well as photographs. The Eric L. Berne digital collection, an educational portal containing information about Eric Berne, his studies and writings is now accessible to researchers and general public worldwide.

Announcement card for the opening of Berne’s San Francisco office, undated. Eric L. Berne papers, MSS 2003-12, box 3, folder 4, UCSF Archives & Special Collections.

The exhibit highlights selected artifacts, photos and documents from the Eric L. Berne Archive at UCSF.
The visitors will be able to view Berne’s correspondence concerning the design and promotion of the board game “Games People Play” and a fully intact game set, edited typescript of his first book The Mind in Action, his glasses, an announcement about the opening of his practice in San Francisco, a selection of English and foreign language
editions of his book Games People Play and numerous photographs.

mss2005-08_4_20_gamespeopleplaygame_ca1967

Photograph of the components of the Games People Play board game, based on Eric Berne’s best-selling book of the same title. Eric L. Berne Papers, 1929-1970, MSS 2005-08, box 4, folder 20, UCSF Archives & Special Collections.

The Eric L. Berne Archive is housed in the UCSF Archives and Special Collections. Detailed processing and digitization for these materials were made possible by generous support from 23 TA Associations worldwide and many individual donors through the ITAA. The UCSF Archives will continue working with the ITAA and its supporters to secure funding for the digitization of additional items.
Please view the online companion for this exhibit on the UCSF library website.
The exhibit will be on view on the 5th floor of the Parnassus Campus Library, beginning August 8th, 2014.

Bartholin’s treatises on snake poisons

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Maggie Hughes

As it’s the height of summer, that time of year when many of us head outdoors a bit more often, we thought we’d highlight a first edition from our rare book collection that addresses a potential hiking hazard– snake bites.

Dissertatio prima [et secuna] de theriaca in officina Christophori Heerford Sen. Pharmacop. was published by Matthias Godicchenius for Petrus Hauboldus in Copenhagen, 1671. The volume is composed of two dissertations on snake poisons and their antidotes, issued from the laboratory of two Copenhagen pharmacists. The manner in which Bartholin approaches the topic is of particular significance as it assumes that blood circulates throughout the body. He was one of the earliest advocates of Harvey’s theory of blood flow.

Thomas Bartholin was no slouch himself. He discovered the lymphatic vessels, contributed to anesthiology research, and came from an utmost scientific family that can boast pioneering work in the olfactory nerve, light ray double refraction, and discovery of Bartholin’s gland.

We hope you’re all enjoying the summer. Be safe and remember that even breeches and stockings may not protect you from everything.

DASHM adopts Jacob Bigelow’s American Medical Botany

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Maggie Hughes

We’re pleased to announce that two of our books have been adopted!

The UCSF Department of Anthropology, History, & Social Medicine has chosen to conserve American Medical Botany. Read more about the book from the perspective of Sarah Robertson, a PhD student in the department.

Additionally, the always supportive Bay Area History of Medicine Society has graciously taken De humani corporis fabrica libri septem under its wing.

Adopt-a-Book: Help Us Restore and Preserve 150 Rare Books

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Polina Ilieva

UCSF’s Rare Book Collection contains more than 15,000 volumes, including items from the 15th century, collected over the past 150 years through donations and gifts from faculty, alumni, and friends of the Library. Over time, many books have deteriorated so that additional use would add further damage to their condition. As a busy research library, it is important that we keep these materials accessible to present and future researchers.

A conservator at the UC Berkeley Library conservation lab.

In honor of UCSF’s 150th Anniversary, UCSF Archives & Special Collections has launched the Adopt-a-Book program, which aims to fund the restoration of 150 books that were published before 1864, the year that UCSF was founded. Your generous donations will support the work of conservators that will stabilize the books and prevent future damage, in addition to paper restoration, cleaning, and some cosmetic treatment.

Bartolomeo Eustachi; Bernardi Siegfried Albini, Explicatio tabularum anatomicarum, 1744. One of the books that is featured on the Adopt-a-Book website.

The Library is very grateful to the members of the Bay Area History of Medicine Society, who have already donated money to restore a copy of De Humani Corporis Fabrica, 2nd edition (1555), written by Andreas Vesalius.

Interested in adopting a book from this exceptional collection? Learn more about the Adopt-a-Book program. We sincerely appreciate your generosity and continued support!

Eric Berne Rare Book Inventory Completed

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Kate Tasker

The Eric L. Berne collection includes over 300 rare books from Berne’s personal library. Published between 1829 and 1984, these volumes illustrate Berne’s study of medicine, psychology, philosophy, folklore, and therapeutic techniques, as well as his published work. The researcher will find medical textbooks from Berne’s student days at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, practical manuals from psychiatric clinics and hospitals, popular “self-help” books of the 1950s and 1960s, and weighty tomes on psychoanalysis by major thinkers like Freud, Erikson, and Federn. Many books are underlined and annotated in Berne’s handwriting.

Cover of Berne’s medical school textbook “The Autonomic Functions and the Personality” by Dr. Edward J. Kempf, 1921

Berne’s annotations in “The Autonomic Functions and the Personality”

The collection also includes copies of Berne’s published works. His 1964 best-seller Games People Play was translated into nearly twenty different languages, and the Italian, German, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Hebrew, Chinese, Norwegian, and Dutch editions are represented on the shelves. Working copies and first editions of The Mind in Action, A Layman’s Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis, The Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups, Principles of Group Therapy, Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy: A Systematic Individual and Social Psychiatry, and What Do You Say After You Say Hello? are available, as well as works by other contemporary and later practitioners of Transactional Analysis.

Cover of Dutch edition of Games People Play (Mens erger je niet)

The rare book collection will soon be searchable through the UCSF Library catalog, and is available to researchers in the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room.

Season’s Greetings!

Posted on December 12, 2013 by Maggie Hughes

We’ve no shortage of stunning, interesting, and unique images in our collections. The task of choosing an image to feature on the library’s holiday card brought up a wealth of options. The winner? The lovely Magnolia below.

Magnolica Glauca, Plate XXVII

The Magnolia glauca, or small magnolia, comes to us from Jacob Bigelow’s American Medical Botany, 1817-1820. According to Bigelow, Magnolias “are distinguished by their rich, smooth foliage, large fragrant flowers, and aromatic bark… They begin to flower in different parts of the United States in May, June and July. The flowers are highly fragrant, and may be perceived by their perfume at a considerable distance.” The text goes on to classify Magnolia as an aromatic tonic that is most effective in treating chronic rheumatism.

Published as a three volume set in Boston, American Medical Botany is a compendium of plants and their medicinal uses. Each plant is illustrated and described in detail. American Medical Botany was one of the first botanical books printed with color. (The other, also in our collection, is Benjamin Barton’s Vegetable Materia Medica of the United States of the same year.) To avoid the time-consuming process of hand-coloring each of the sixty plates in each printing, Bigelow invented a mechanical method of printing the engraved plates and tinting them simultaneously. Read on to see more beautiful prints!

Continue reading →

Treating the plague in 1500

Posted on December 6, 2013 by René Radusky

The Archives and Special Collections at UCSF Library maintains an extensive collection of rare books in many fields of health sciences. Due to their unique and often fragile nature, rare books are available for use only under supervision. One of the most interesting books in the collection is Liber pestilentialis de venenis epidemie, written in German by Hieronymus Brunschwig and published in Strassburg in 1500. This first edition book was acquired in October 1955 from a rare bookseller in New York City, for a mere $650.00. A transaction note in the book indicates it to be an excessively rare book, especially given its good and complete condition.

Hieronymus Brunschwig, Liber Pestilentialis de venenis epidemie,1500

This book is an example of incunabula – books printed between the 1450’s and January 1501, using metal type attributable to the transformative printer, Johann Gutenberg. You can note the black and angular gothic print, popular at the time. And as was the convention of the time, the parchment used was known as vellum made from calfskin that is bleached. The book includes 23 large woodcuts, and printed “pointed hand” nota marks in the margins. The book constitutes 40 leaves, or what we would call 80 pages today.

Hieronymus Brunschwig, Liber Pestilentialis de venenis epidemie,1500

This particular book is considered to be one of the most important documents of its time for the history of contagious diseases, in particular its devotion to means of avoiding and treating the plague. While little is known about the author, army surgeon Hieronymus Brunschwig, he is known to have been a scholar in the field of surgery and credited for having taken advantage of the recently invented printing press to gain influence. He is best known for his first book, Buch der Cirurgia, Hantwirckung der Wundartzny, which served as a guidebook for surgeons and those in training. Also notable for its woodcuts and early specimens of medical illustration, this book draws extensively on Brunschwig’s own experience, and contains the first detailed accounts of gunshot wounds in medical literature.

For more information, please refer to these sources:

Dawn of Western Printing. (2004). Incunabula. http://www.ndl.go.jp/incunabula/e/index.html

Tubbs, R. S., Bosmia, A. N., Mortazavi, M. M., Loukas, M., Shoja, M., & Gadol, A. A. C. (2012). Hieronymus Brunschwig (c. 1450–1513): his life and contributions to surgery. Child’s Nervous System, 28(4), 629-632.

Waife, S. O. (Ed). (1976). Notable medical books. Lilly Research Laboratories.

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Category Archives: Rare Books