Archives Talk: What Will It Take To End AIDS?

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Polina Ilieva

Date: Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Time: 12:30 pm – 1:45 pm
Presenters: Pulitzer Center supported journalists Jon Cohen, Amy Maxmen, and Misha Friedman
Location: Parnassus campus, N-217, 513 Parnassus Ave, San Francisco, CA 94143

REGISTRATION REQUIRED: calendars.library.ucsf.edu/event/3017095

This event is organized and hosted jointly by UCSF Archives and Special Collections and the Department of Anthropology, History & Social Medicine. The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.

Join UCSF Archives & Special Collections for an afternoon talk with Pulitzer Center supported journalists Jon Cohen, Amy Maxmen and Misha Friedman as they discuss their reporting on HIV/AIDS around the globe featured in the ebook, To End AIDS (this book is available free on iTunes, Amazon, and Atavist). Once on the brink of ending AIDS, we have entered a period in which the virus is offering a stern warning to the human host: the consequences of complacency are great.

Jon Cohen tailors his decades of expertise to explain a nuanced issue in the movement to end AIDS: supply chain management of antiretroviral therapies, from pharmaceutical companies through patient adherence. Amy Maxmen reports from South Africa, where scientists are aiming to break a cycle of infections by providing HIV drugs for young women before they even contract the virus. Misha Friedman’s work epitomizes in-depth reporting: he has spent years documenting the crisis in Eastern Europe and recently returned to South Africa to interview and photograph HIV-infected subjects he first photographed three years ago.

Each journalist illuminates previously under-covered areas of HIV/AIDS reporting and aims to help us think critically. Please join us in a panel discussion to explore just what it will take to end AIDS.

jon-cohen A reporter for Science since 1990, Jon Cohen has covered the HIV/AIDS epidemic for the magazine in more than three dozen countries. He also has written for the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, Slate, and many other publications. His books include Shots in the Dark (W.W. Norton, 2001), Coming to Term (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), Almost Chimpanzee (Holt/Times Books, 2010), and Tomorrow Is a Long Time (Daylight Books, 2015). Cohen’s books and articles have won numerous awards and have been selected for The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2008, 2011).

amy-maxmen Amy Maxmen is a science journalist who covers the entanglements of evolution, medicine, policy and of people behind research. Her stories appear in a variety of outlets, including Wired, National Geographic, Nature, Newsweek, and the New York Times. Her feature on the origin of humanity is anthologized in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015. In 2016, she won a Science in Society Journalism Award from the National Association of Science Writers and the Bricker Award for Science Writing in Medicine. Prior to writing, she earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

misha-friedman Misha Friedman is a documentary photographer with a background in international relations and economics. His analytical approach to storytelling involves trying to look beyond the facts, searching for causes, and asking complex and difficult questions. Misha regularly collaborates with international media and non-profit organizations, including the New Yorker, Time Magazine, Spiegel, GQ, Le Monde, Bloomberg Businessweek, Sports Illustrated, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and others. His widely-exhibited work has received numerous industry awards.

Happy Holidays (and 2016/17 Winter Closure)

Posted on December 19, 2016 by Polina Ilieva

The archives team is grateful to our blog subscribers (please also check our Twitter and Tumblr channels), supporters, and users! The UCSF Library team recently redesigned our website to better serve your needs: https://www.library.ucsf.edu/archives/, please take a few moments to review it and send us your comments via this email: libraryarchives@ucsf.edu.
This holiday season we would like to share with you a recipe from “The Fraus’ Favorites,” a cookbook compiled by spouses of the School of Medicine class of 1953 students (AR 2012-22) :

Rose Fujii recipe from “The Fraus’ Favorites” cookbook, 1953

The Archives and Special Collections will be closed from Friday, December 23, 2016 through Monday, January 2nd, 2017. We will reopen on Tuesday, January 3rd.

The Archives team wishes you all a Happy New Year!

Exploring the Bio Files

Posted on December 14, 2016 by Kelsi Evans

This is a guest post by Joshua Dela Cruz, UCSF Archives Intern.

For the past few months, I have been working as an amateur archivist. My duties in the UCSF Archives and Special Collections have ranged from everything from processing projects to moving heavy boxes filled with books and manuscript collections.

An example of one of my projects is to help inventory the bio files. For this project, I look through a large collection of biographical files of people who have been affiliated with UCSF. These people range from professors, students, physicians and researchers to donors and people who helped build the physical school itself. As I search through what appears to be a never ending collection, I record each person’s name, birth and death dates, profession, notable facts, and their affiliation to the school.

Bio file drawer in the UCSF Archives and Special Collections.

One of the bio file drawers in the UCSF Archives and Special Collections.

The purpose of this project is for the UCSF archivists to have a digital record of the enormous collection of profiles. Additionally, in the long run, they will be able to display the information on an online database where the general public can access it. The project helps the archivists easily locate biographical information and the unique archival material inside the folders.

Bio file of Ichitaro Katsuki, UC School of Medicine graduate, 1896.

Bio file of Ichitaro Katsuki, 1896 UC School of Medicine graduate.

This project has been especially interesting to me because I’m considering a career in the medical field. Half of the bio files project includes reading about the lives of the people, many of them physicians, and their achievements. As a result, I found myself learning about the history of medicine, UCSF, and the school’s amazing physicians and students. Oftentimes, I would read entire biographies or even search more information about the people and work that fascinated me.

Bio file of Benjamin Gross.

Although the work can be repetitive and meticulous, I have enjoyed my time as an intern. After learning about and working behind the scenes of an archive, I have gained a great appreciation for the profession and the people. It has been a very enlightening experience for me, especially in regards to my possible career paths in the future, and I am thankful for the archivists who welcomed and guided me these past few months.

Searching Tobacco Archives: Sports and Chewing Tobacco

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Kelsi Evans

This is a guest post by Allen Smoot, UCSF Archives Intern.

As an intern for the UCSF Archives, I’ve been working on digitized state medical society journals and tobacco control collections. At UCSF, the Archives and the Industry Documents Library both house immense collections of tobacco-related material. In the Industry Documents Library there are millions of documents from tobacco companies about their manufacturing, marketing, and scientific research. I narrowed in on chewing tobacco and how it became popular in the sporting world.

Image from “The case against smokeless tobacco: five facts for the health professional to consider,” September 1980, page 4.

Smokeless tobacco gained popularity in the United States in part because many jobs prohibited workers from smoking on site. Advertising also played a role; for example, an article in 1980 outlined the various ways that tobacco companies targeted college campuses and youths through their advertising for chewing tobacco. A report in 1984 cited that in Atlanta, 11% of sample elementary and high school students regularly used snuff.

In the sports world, the numbers could be higher. The same 1984 report, for instance, noted that in a Texas sample, one in every three varsity college athletes on baseball or football teams took two to eight dips per day. Sports idols like Sparky Lyle, former ace pitcher for the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers, contributed to chewing tobacco usage by serving as spokespersons for tobacco companies. Lyle promoted Levi Garrett pouch chewing tobacco on TV by claiming, “Most ball players dream about making it to the Hall of Fame, but I’d be satisfied for people just to remember me as the guy with the great chewing tobacco.”

Image from “The case against smokeless tobacco: five facts for the health professional to consider,” September 1980, page 3.

Smokeless tobacco was advertised as “macho” by sports figures which led to the increase in use by younger people (“Smokeless tobacco is ‘burning’ young athletes,” 1981).

You can read more documents related to smokeless tobacco online in the Industry Documents Library and in the State Medical Society Journals Collection. You can also visit the UCSF Archives and view the Tobacco Control Archives.

World AIDS Day – Documenting the Epidemic

Posted on December 1, 2016 by Polina Ilieva

Mount Zion hospital AIDS support group, 1987

The UCSF Archives & Special Collections started building the AIDS History collection almost 30 years ago, in 1987. Early on, the archivists decided to create a collection development policy that would allow researchers to examine diverse aspects of the AIDS epidemic, including political, social, economic, cultural, and biomedical aspects.

The AIDS History Project holdings at UCSF currently include 39 collections; all of them are cataloged and 32 are processed and have detailed inventories. The recently-acquired seven new collections, comprising a total of 373 linear feet, are not yet processed, and the archives are working to secure funding to arrange and describe them. In the past year we added the following collections to our holdings:

John S. Greenspan papers

—John Greenspan, BDS, PhD, and Deborah Greenspan, DSc, BDS, ca. 1984

A faculty member at UCSF since 1976, John S. Greenspan is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Oral Pathology in the Department of Orofacial Sciences. He is a Director-Emeritus of the AIDS Research Institute, which he led from 2003 to 2012, and is the founding Director of the UCSF Oral AIDS Center, as well as UCSF AIDS Specimen Bank. He was the Director of the UCSF AIDS Clinical Research Center/California AIDS Research Center from 1992 to 2005.

His research interests include the global health aspects of AIDS. His own work is rooted in studies of oral aspects of AIDS and the role of viruses in oral epithelial and salivary gland lesions. He and his colleagues have made major contributions to HIV research and care, notably the discovery of the lesion hairy leukoplakia, its association with EBV, and the significance of this and other oral lesions in the natural history of HIV diseases. His papers include correspondence, presentations, lectures, research data and notes, teaching materials, records related to administration of the AIDS Research Institute and AIDS Specimen Bank.

Don Francis papers, MSS 2015-01

Donald P. Francis

As an infectious disease trained pediatrician and epidemiologist, Dr. Francis has over 30 years of experience in epidemic control and vaccines. He spent 21 years working for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) focusing on vaccine-preventable diseases. Dr. Francis has worked on HIV/AIDS since its emergence in 1981. He initially directed the AIDS laboratory at the CDC and worked closely with the Institut Pasteur to identify the causative virus. His early efforts to call attention to the threat of AIDS and warn of the inadequacy of the public health response were chronicled in the book by Randy Shilts And the Band Played On. In 1992, he joined Genentech to spend full time developing vaccines, while he also helped found what became the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). Dr. Francis co-founded VaxGen, which completed the world’s first Phase III trials of two candidate HIV vaccines in 2003. His papers include correspondence, news-clippings, research data and notes, conference and presentation materials, and ephemera.

AIDS Treatment News, MSS 94–28 – 2015 addition

This recent donation of more than 68 linear feet complements the ATN records that were transferred to the archives in 1994.

Title page of AIDS Treatment News, Issue #3, May 9, 1986

AIDS Treatment News (ATN) was a biweekly newsletter that reported on both orthodox and experimental treatments of AIDS-related conditions. AIDS Treatment News was frequently the first publication to investigate and write about potential new treatments, clinical trials, and the politics involved in government sanctioned and alternative therapeutics. It was a primary resource for community-based organizations and government agencies, and was also read by many physicians and scientists involved in AIDS research and care. These records include correspondence, telephone logs, presentations, minutes of meetings, photographs, and news clippings.

The mission of the UCSF AHP has broadened from the initial goal of identifying, surveying and describing at-risk records of educational and professional institutions, non-profit service organizations and ad hoc community-based organizations that emerged in San Francisco in the early years of AIDS epidemic.

The multifaceted and multidisciplinary approach to collection development has led UCSF Archives & Special Collections to create a complex and comprehensive AIDS history research collection that documents not only medical aspects of the epidemic, but also changes in cultural values and shifts in policy and social response. UCSF Archives is continuing to build an inclusive AIDS history research collection where patients, activists, researchers, clinicians, journalists, and community based organizations’ perspectives will be preserved and will allow current and future generations of researchers to examine and learn from these materials.

UCSF Archives poster (designed by Mark McGowan)

The need to preserve and provide access to these materials was reinforced by two recent initiatives:

Dan Royles posted a call to action in the October issue of the AHA’s Perspectives on History to teach AIDS history to undergraduates: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/october-2016/silence-death-its-time-to-teach-aids-history

The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory organized a meeting, “HIV/AIDS Research: Its History & Future” that brought together more than 125 pioneering scientists and clinicians who discussed the key scientific, epidemiological, and clinical discoveries that created this field and stressed the importance of preserving the past to find ways to address and control epidemics in the future: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/10/gathering-hivaids-pioneers-raw-memories-mix-current-conflicts

The archivists are collaborating with the UCSF AIDS Research Institute on collection development and public outreach efforts and today, to commemorate the World AIDS Day, we will be presenting two posters at the amfAR HIV Cure Summit at Mission Bay campus.

The UCSF Archives is open to anyone regardless of institutional affiliation, to make an appointment to see these materials, please use this contact form.

Archives Talk 12/2/2016: Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Polina Ilieva

Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon book cover.

Date: Friday, December 2nd, 2016
Time: 12 pm – 1:15 pm
Lecturer: Paul Blanc, MD, MSPH (UCSF)
Location: Lange Room, 5th Floor, UCSF Library – Parnassus
530 Parnassus Ave, SF, CA 94143

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.
REGISTRATION REQUIRED: http://calendars.library.ucsf.edu/event/2941746

Join UCSF Archives & Special Collections for an afternoon talk with medical historian and author Paul Blanc MD, MSPH, as he discusses the toxic legacy of viscose rayon portrayed in his new book, Fake Silk. Dr. Blanc poses a basic question: When a new technology makes people ill, how high does the body count have to be before protective steps are taken? His work tells a dark story of hazardous manufacturing, poisonous materials, environmental abuses, political machinations, and economics trumping safety concerns. It explores the century-long history of “fake silk,” or cellulose viscose, used to produce such products as rayon textiles and tires, cellophane, and everyday kitchen sponges. His research uncovers the grim history of a product that crippled and even served a death sentence to many industry workers while also releasing toxic carbon disulfide into the environment.

Viscose, an innovative and lucrative product first introduced in the early twentieth century, quickly became a multinational corporate enterprise. Blanc investigates industry practices from the beginning through two highly profitable world wars, the mid-century export of hazardous manufacturing to developing countries, and the current “green-washing” of viscose as an eco-friendly product. This work brings to light an industrial hazard whose egregious history ranks with those of asbestos, lead, and mercury.

Paul Blanc, MD, MSPH

Dr. Blanc holds the Endowed Chair in Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the UCSF, where he has been a faculty member since 1988. Blanc received his BA from Goddard College (Plainfield, Vermont), where he first became interested in health and the environment, later training at the Harvard School of Public Health (in industrial hygiene), the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, and Cook County Hospital (in a joint Occupational Medicine and Internal Medicine Residency). He was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at UCSF and later a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He also has been a resident scholar at the Rockefeller Bellagio Center (Bellagio, Italy) and the American Academy in Rome. In 2013-4, he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Blanc is the author of How Everyday Products Make People Sick (University of California Press, 2009) also writes a blog, “Household Hazards,” that is hosted by the magazine Psychology Today. Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon is published by Yale University Press.

UCSF Archives & Special Collections launched this lecture series to introduce a wider community to treasures and collections from its holdings, to provide an opportunity for researchers to discuss how they use this material, and to celebrate clinicians, scientists, and health care professionals who donated their papers to the archives.

St. Joseph College of Nursing

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Kelsi Evans

Recently, we’ve been adding material to our digital collections on Calisphere.org. One highlight is the St. Joseph College of Nursing Collection.

Nuns gathered around an iron lung. St. Joseph College of Nursing collection.

The digital collection includes selected images from the St. Joseph College of Nursing papers and Alumni Association records. St. Joseph College of Nursing was established in 1921 as an affiliate of St. Joseph’s Hospital. The hospital was founded in San Francisco in 1889 by five Catholic sisters of the Order of Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Though the hospital and school closed in the late 1970s, the Alumni Association continued activity until 2015.

Promotional cards for St. Joseph’s Hospital, San Francisco. The hospital and college buildings were located on the 300 block of Buena Vista Avenue East. St. Joseph College of Nursing collection.

Sister M. Frida and researchers in the Pathology Laboratory, circa 1939. St. Joseph College of Nursing collection.

The collection documents the educational activities of the school as well as the patient care and research performed by the sisters and students. Visit the digital collection to view more images or make an appointment with us to view the material in person.

Nurse with child in St. Joseph’s Hospital Pediatric Ward, circa 1940-1960. St. Joseph College of Nursing collection.

St. Joseph’s Hospital Pharmacy, circa 1940-1960. St. Joseph College of Nursing collection.

Remembering Base Hospital 30 of the First World War

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Kelsi Evans

This is a guest post by Cristina Nigro, UCSF History of Health Sciences graduate student.

Benjamin Ide Wheeler. Photograph Collection, Portraits.

In his Annual Report of the President of the University to the then-Governor of the State of California, UC President Benjamin Wheeler outlined the part of the university in the Great War:

On February 13, 1917, in view of the increasing probability of the United States entering the European War, the Board of Regents, at the instance of the President of the University, formally offered to the National Government the entire resources of the University for use in meeting whatever needs should arise in prosecuting the war.

The American Red Cross and the Department of Medicine at the University of California Medical School were quick to respond to President Wheeler’s February 1917 call to action. In March, they began organizing plans for Base Hospital #30. According to Wheeler:

The Medical School has furnished the equipment and many of the members of Hospital Unit 30, under Dr. Kilgore. Of the 25 physicians, 23 are from our Medical School, 13 of them graduates. There are also 10 enlisted men among our medical students. Eight of the 65 nurses are from the University Hospital.

In June, the Base Hospital #30 Unit marched up Market Street as part of the Liberty Loan Parade. But the orders for mobilization to Fort Mason did not come until late November, and the unit had to spend the next three months outfitting and equipping the hospital.

Nurses and soldiers, World War I, circa 1917. From the H.M. Fishbon Memorial Library, UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion.

The nurses of Base Hospital #30 left Fort Mason on December 26, 1917, arriving in New York Harbor on January 1, 1918. On January 25 the nurses were split up and sent to various Atlantic Coast camps. Eager to be deployed, Acting Chief Nurse Arabella A. Lombard recalled:

The camps were all in sore need of nurses at that time, and after the first huge disappointment at not being able to go directly to France, each one felt glad to be able to do some work in her own country, and in many, if not all instances, much valuable experience was gained from the nursing on this side.

The men of Base Hospital #30 left aboard the S.S. North Pacific on March 3, 1918. After a brief sojourn in New York, the entire unit set sail for Brest, France aboard the USS Leviathan. Following a forty-six hour train ride from Brest, they arrived in Royat, France on May 10, 1918.

Nurses of Base Hospital No. 30, 1918-01. University publications, The Thirtieth.

The first trainload of patients—half British and half American—arrived in Royat on June 12, 1918. Lieutenant-Colonel Eugene S. Kilgore, M.C. remembered feeling unprepared for that first trainload. Of the 369 patients, two thirds of them went to the surgical ward. The second train arrived on June 18, 1918. Kilgore recounted:

We were somewhat, though not much, better prepared for the second trainload of 461 cases from the Chateau Thierry fight. The train commander stated that this was the worst trainload he had ever seen. There were dozens of cases of terrible skin, lung and eye poisoning from mustard gas, and the staff worked night and day trying to keep up with the work of dressing the enormous burns.

Of the 461 new patients, 278 had to be carried in on stretchers.

U.S. Army Base Hospital No. 30, World War I, circa 1917. University publications, The Thirtieth.

Fifteen more trains would arrive at Royat by November 13, 1918, amounting to 4,827 casualties. In the five months between June and November 1918, Base Hospital #30 treated 7,562 patients and grappled with typhoid fever and “a very serious epidemic of respiratory disease.” A train arriving on September 22, 1918 brought 232 men suffering from acute respiratory infections to the base hospital. By the end of September, thirty to seventy influenza patients were admitted to the hospital daily.

On November 11, 1918 the Allies and Germany signed an armistice, ending the fighting on the Western Front. Beginning on December 6, patients were evacuated from the hospital in waves. Reminiscing about her time at Base Hospital #30, nurse Lombard reflected:

After the first train bearing wounded came in on June 12 until some time after the armistice was signed we were very busy most of the time, with only an occasional lull in the work. At times it seemed almost like a night and day proposition. The wounded and sick were wonderfully courageous and our only regret was that we were unable to do more for them. It was all very much worth while, however, when one met a stretcher coming to the ward and heard some splendid American lad, perhaps minus an arm or a leg, say “Gee, but it’s good to see an talk to an American girl.

The unit sailed from France on April 13, 1919, arriving back home in San Francisco on May 15, 1919. Although formally demobilized on May 26, Base Hospital #30 would revive two decades later, ready to serve the wounded soldiers of World War II.

To learn more about UCSF’s role in World War I, save the date for our upcoming exhibit on Base Hospital 30 and the Great War, opening April 2017 at the UCSF Library.

New Faces in Archives: Fall 2016

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Polina Ilieva

We are continuing our collaboration with the University of San Francisco and in particular, Dr. Kathryn Nasstrom, chair of the History Department and her students. This fall semester we are hosting Joshua Dela Cruz and Allen Smoot who are enrolled in the History Internship Program. This program allows students to gain valuable real-world experience and course credit while helping archives staff to accomplish numerous projects that will benefit our patrons and general public.

Joshua Dela Cruz

Joshua Dela Cruz
Joshua is currently working on several projects including organizing and creating a metadata of a manuscript collection of AIDS periodicals and updating and digitizing a photograph collection of portraits. He has also assisted in smaller tasks such as taking inventory, organizing a digital list of metadata, and taking a survey of various other collections and items kept here in the archives.
Joshua is a 4th year undergraduate student from the University of San Francisco, who will be graduating in the upcoming Spring semester. His strong interest in old artifacts and ancient stories, but also in medicine and the natural sciences has lead him to pursuing a Bachelors of Arts degree in History along with a Natural Science Minor and a Chemistry Minor.
His hobbies are playing video games, watching anime, playing the piano, learning Japanese, and a little bit of creative writing. Although considering pursuing a career in medicine, Joshua plans to take a gap year. During that time, he intends to expand his experience in health care, to do research, to explore his other fields of interest, or possibly go to Japan.

Allen Smoot

Allen Smoot
Allen Smoot is a senior undergrad student at the University of San Francisco. He will be helping with collection processing, cataloging, and researching. Allen looks forward to working on arranging and processing smaller collections, such as Tobacco Control and photograph collections. Allen is also interested in learning the basics of archival theory and practice as well as digitalization and metadata creation. He will also be conducting quality control for digitized materials for the Medical Heritage Liberty state medical journals project.
Allen is a US history major while also playing baseball at the University of San Francisco. He was raised in Moraga, CA. Some of his hobbies include hanging out with friends, watching the San Francisco Giants, and Golden State Warriors. Allen is excited to begin working at the UCSF library and learning from the full time archivists.

The Flying Death and Other Adventures in Anesthesia

Posted on October 31, 2016 by duhlich

It is amazing to think that curare, a poison sometimes known as “The Flying Death” and used on the tips of darts and arrows by indigenous people of South America, could prove to be an important stepping stone in the path to modern anesthesia. But then again, curare is not a simple poison, but actually a powerful muscle relaxant; after injection, an animal that has been shot with a curare-tipped dart can actually be kept alive through artificial respiration. More importantly to the native tribes—as they would not have needed to resuscitate their dinners—curare brings about paralysis and asphyxiation when injected (either by dart, arrow, or needle), but is not poisonous if ingested.

A native tribesman demonstrating his prowess with a blowgun typically used with curare darts. Clip taken from Richard Gill’s film “White Water and Black Magic”.

Curare was first brought to the United States by Richard Gill, an American living in Ecuador, in 1938. Gill had become interested in the medicinal uses of curare after falling off his horse and developing neurological symptoms including spasticity. After being told about curare by his neurologist, Gill sought out and befriended a tribe who used the arrow poison. The indigenous people then showed him how to procure and use it, and Gill eventually returned to the US with approximately 25 pounds of curare paste.

Richard Gill sitting with a native tribesman while watching another tribesman cook down curare. Clip also taken from “White Water and Black Magic”.

Medical experiments with curare began as early as the 19^th century, but its use in anesthesia didn’t start until the mid-20^th century, after Gill had introduced it in the US. One of its first uses was to prevent bone fractures brought about by spasms during electro-convulsive therapy. Since it is such a powerful muscle relaxant, curare proved helpful for tracheal intubation, and in keeping the patients’ muscles relaxed during operative procedures. It also lessened the need for the use of deep general anesthesia during highly invasive operations, like abdominal or thoracic surgeries.

1943 cartoon by Clark Haas depicting Richard Gill visiting native peoples to obtain more curare. Arthur Guedel collection, MSS 2016-03.

Despite its usefulness in relaxing patients, curare has no analgesic (painkilling) or anesthetic qualities. This was proven in the 1940s, after curare was given to some infants and children as the sole anesthetic agent during operative procedures. The patients who were old enough to communicate complained that they had felt everything during the surgery but were unable to move or cry out about the excruciating pain they were feeling. Upon hear this, anesthesiologist Dr. Scott Smith volunteered to take the drug in order to test whether curare did have any pain-relieving qualities. He became paralyzed but reported that the reduction of painful sensations was not impacted. Like the young patients before him, Smith had felt everything, but had not been able to move to stop it.

Brought to Light

Stories from UCSF Archives & Special Collections