Professor of Prosthodontia photographs, early 1900s

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Maggie Hughes

William Fuller Sharp, DMD, DDS, was the first alumni of the Dental Department of the Affiliated Colleges of the University of California (later UCSF School of Dentistry) to be placed on the faculty– where he remained for over fifty years. Sharp joined the school as an instructor in 1894, later becoming Professor of Mechanical Dentistry in 1899, Professor of Prosthetic Dentistry, Professor of Clinical Prosthodontia, and Professor of Prosthodontia, Emeritus in 1921. Sharp served as Acting Dean from 1926-1927 while Guy S. Millberry was on leave.

WF Sharp, Photograph collection, undated

Above, Sharp with dental prostheses, undated.

WF Sharp, Photograph collection, 1906

WF Sharp’s office, operating room, April 18, 1906.

WF Sharp, Photograph collection, 1906

Sharp in his office, April 18, 1906.

Collections in the Media

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Maggie Hughes

We’re proud to tell you about two new documentaries that used material from our collections and are hitting screens big and small near you.

Ken Burns’ new 3-part documentary, Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, premieres on PBS tonight, March 30. The film “examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective and a biographer’s passion. The series artfully weaves three different films in one: a riveting historical documentary; an engrossing and intimate vérité film; and a scientific and investigative report.” It’s based on the book written by physician and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee and published in 2010, described as a “biography of cancer.”

[Note for UCSF Library fans: Mukherjee is married to Sarah Sze, the artist who created the mirror polished stainless steel sculpture in the front stairwell of the Parnassus library.]

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The film Merchants of Doubt, by the filmmakers of Food, Inc., is now playing in theaters in San Francisco (and elsewhere). It’s “the troubling story of how a cadre of influential scientists have clouded public understanding of scientific facts to advance a political and economic agenda.” The team was on-site for several days, interviewing UCSF Professor Stan Glantz in our reading room and filming in the vault.

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Let us know if you’re able to see either film! What did you think?

And, of course, contact us anytime via our online contact form to submit a question or comment. You can also email us directly at libraryarchives@ucsf.edu.

Women’s History Month – Ellen Brown

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Maggie Hughes

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re spotlighting a few of the many talented and trailblazing women who have been important in the history of UCSF and you may not have heard of before.

Today, read a little about the remarkable life and career of Ellen Brown, MD. We are fortunate to have Brown’s manuscript collection, MSS 87-42, and her oral history in the UCSF Archives & Special Collections.

Ellen Brown was born in San Francisco in 1912. She and her older brother Fred were raised by her parents, Warner and Jessie Brown, in Berkeley. Jessie was a high school teacher and botanist and Warner was a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. Fred died at the age of 16 of respiratory complications of polio. His death had a lasting impact on Brown– she dreamed of becoming a doctor as a child.

Ed Fong, Tesauro, and Brown in June, 1939.

Brown attended University High School in Oakland and went on to study at the University of California Berkeley, graduating with a bachelors degree in 1934. She continued to the UC Medical School’s San Francisco campus and graduated with her medical degree in 1939. In a class of 63 students, she was one of a handful of women.

Following graduation, Brown became chief resident under William J. Kerr, UC Chair of Medicine, from 1939-1943. The two worked closely for years– prioritizing cardiovascular research at UCSF. Brown helped to found the , which opened in 1958. Kerr was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI), procuring the space on the 13th floor of Moffitt Hospital and funding from both UCSF and the National Heart Institute. The CVRI opened in 1958 with Brown as a co-founder and, later, a senior staff member. (Check out some of the CVRI’s milestones here.)

Ellen Brown at Harvard Medical School, 1946

Brown’s academic appointment at UCSF began with clinical instructor, 1943-1944, moved to associate professor, 1946-1959, and became professor of medicine in 1959. In 1944-1946 she was a Commonwealth Fund fellow in the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School (see photo above) and in 1958 she was a Guggenheim Fellow at Oxford University.

Brown operated a lab on campus for peripheral vascular research though the 1960s and 1970s. Concurrently, she worked on improving teaching techniques in predoctoral medical classes, initiating the “Introduction to Clinical Medicine” course and later serving as a residency evaluator for the School of Medicine.

This quote, from Brown’s oral history, demonstrates her zeal for education, enthusiasm for change in curriculum, and sense of humor: “The wonderful thing was how interested all these people in the non-medicine departments were. An ophthalmologist would sit down with a bunch of absolute nerds, and come and do that, four or five times, and teach them. The hardest thing to learn to do is to see in an ophthalmoscope. It is for most doctors. It’s one of the last things you feel comfortable about. That and a pelvic exam, I guess.”

Over the course of her illustrious career, Brown’s research interests included capillary pressure and permeability, blood volume and vascular capacity, cardiac failure, cardiac complications of pregnancy, and peripheral circulation in relation to pain syndromes and vascular diseases.

photocoll_portraits_brown_sanfrancisco1960

Brown on Edgewood Ave behind the CVRI on May 29, 1960.

When Brown officially retired from UCSF in 1979, she became a professor emeritus of medicine. Ten years later, in 1989, Brown received UCSF’s highest honor, the UCSF Medal, for outstanding personal contributions to the University’s health sciences mission.

Brown and Francis Sooy, UCSF Chancellor 1972-1982, at the time of her retirement.

Brown passed away in October of 2006 at the age of 96. At that time, she gifted over $100,000 to the UCSF School of Medicine for the improvement of teaching for medical students.

Browns’ numerous contributions over the course of fifty plus years can still be felt today– through her impact on cardiovascular research as well as her in her insight and refinement of medical education.

Contact us if you have any questions or would like to learn more. And please don’t hesitate to use the calendar on the right to make an appointment to come in and use the collections!

Accessions & Additions

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Maggie Hughes

We’re always busy accepting new collections and pushing through our backlog to make as many collections available for research as possible. This long list of new catalog records includes materials relating to tobacco control, UCSF, neurology, nursing education, HIV/AIDS organizations, pharmacy, medical librarianship, pediatric diabetes, and more. Click on the titles below to learn more the contents, subjects, and size of these collections.

Contact us if you have any questions or would like to learn more. And please don’t hesitate to use the calendar on the right to make an appointment to come in and use the collections!

Our catalog updates over the past six months:

Exploring the Archives for 150: Dr. Mary Olney’s Summer Camp for Children with Diabetes

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Kelsi Evans

In preparation for UCSF’s 150^th anniversary celebration exhibits, we’ve been doing a bit of exploring in the vaults. For the next several months, I’ll be posting some of the treasures we’ve discovered!

In 1938, UCSF pediatrician Mary B. Olney founded the first wilderness camp in California for children with diabetes. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Dr. Olney believed that diabetic children could live active, healthy lives through proper disease management. Dr. Olney, known as “Doc” to her young patients, provided a fun, supportive space and encouraged campers to take control of their health. Bearskin Meadow Camp is still active today thanks in large part to the tradition of care and empowerment fostered by Olney.

Dr. Mary Olney on a hike, ca. 1940. MSS 98-64, box 1, folder 6

Dr. Olney graduated from UCSF in 1932. She completed her training in pediatrics at San Francisco General Hospital and was later appointed Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at UCSF. At the time of her death in 1993, Olney had served the UCSF community for over fifty years.

A postcard filled in by Dr. Mary Olney while at camp Bearskin Meadow. It is addressed to her father, 1961. MSS 98-64

A camp postcard filled in by Dr. Mary Olney while at Bearskin Meadow. It is addressed to her father, 1961. MSS 98-64, box 1, folder 27

Olney’s first group of campers attended a two-week session at Los Posados in Napa County. The camp eventually developed into Bearskin Meadow, a permanent campsite located near Kings Canyon National Park. The camp welcomed boys and girls and provided coeducational activities. Diabetes management instruction focused on diet, exercise, and proper insulin administration.

Dr. Mary Olney teaching nutritional information to campers. MSS 98-64

Dr. Mary Olney teaching a nutrition class for campers. MSS 98-64, box 1, folder 6

Camp staff performing urinalysis. Photograph with original caption, perhaps from a deconstructed scrapbook. MSS 98-64

Camp staff performing urinalyses. Photograph with original caption, perhaps from a deconstructed scrapbook. MSS 98-64, box 2, folder 45

Olney and the counselors, many of whom were medical students, taught a holistic system of care that campers could take home with them.

Camp staff and counselors, ca. 1941. MSS 98-64, box 1, folder 34

Alongside nutrition classes and medication instruction, campers took nature hikes, learned to swim, played sports, and sang campfire songs. As Olney later noted in a 1988 interview in the UCSF Alumni Faculty Association Bulletin, this physically robust approach to diabetes management differed dramatically from older systems. Olney remembered that when campers first arrived, they often “didn’t know they could do hiking because the old way of treating diabetes was to let the child go from school to home and sit in a chair until suppertime and then go to bed.”

Camp announcement noting the different activities and a typical camp day, 1962. MSS 98-64

Camp announcement noting the different activities of a typical camp day, 1962. MSS 98-64, box 2, folder 77

UCSF continues to honor and support Olney’s work through the Mary B. Olney MD / KAK Chair in Pediatric Diabetes and Clinical Research. In the archives, we house the Mary B. Olney papers, MSS 98-64. The collection includes camp photographs, correspondence, meal plans, and publicity and fundraising material. It also contains records relating to the Diabetic Youth Foundation, an organization created by Olney and her longtime partner Dr. Ellen Simpson to help administer the camp and other services.

The cover image of Bear Facts, vol 11, no. 6, a publication created by campers and counselors at Bearskin Meadow. The Mary B. Olney collection includes numerous issues of Bear Facts.

The cover image of Bear Facts, vol II, no. 6, a publication created by campers and counselors at Bearskin Meadow Camp. The Mary B. Olney collection includes numerous different issues of Bear Facts. MSS 98-64, box addition 3, folder 4

To view more items from the Mary B. Olney papers, visit our digital collections!

Through the Eyes of an Intern

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Maggie Hughes

Hi everyone, my name is Armani Fontanilla and I am an undergraduate student at the University of San Francisco interning at the UCSF Archives & Special Collections.

At the archives, I am currently tasked with the processing of small box collections, or the creation of box level inventories and the digitizing, and creation of, metadata for the archives that have yet to be placed into the virtual catalog. Other projects that I am potentially tasked with are research for the upcoming 150^th Anniversary of UCSF on the level of researching stories, scanning images, and looking for documents, as well as helping with the vast inventory of the Medical Artifacts collection.

It’s restricted for a reason. We can’t reveal why. All you need to know is Maggie has the really cool “restricted” stamp. It’s actually really cool.

And wow is our inventory big… Get it? Because the texts are big?

Even though the potential projects are only potential projects, my senior co-workers, Maggie and Kelsi have both taught me a lot in the projects that I am currently working on. For example, Kelsi has taught me about her work with the Medical Artifacts collection: How the UCSF catalogs have changed from one form to another, and that cross-referencing catalogs with each new edition that has come through the library archives since 1864, one also has to decipher the writings and annotations of previous archivists, as well as come up with new ways to reorganize the collections in our possession.

Maggie, on the other hand, has taught me how to do the projects that I am currently doing, as opposed to the potential projects that Kelsi lets me shadow every so often. She has taught me proper labeling procedure, and storage techniques, as well as projects that mirror the one that Kelsi is currently doing, which would be creating catalogs for documents in storage.

Cataloging kind of like this, but more modern.

Finally, the first project (that I am still working on when I’m not being taught by Maggie or Kelsi, is the creation of a digital inventory of UCSF affiliates and members. Fortunately, most of the physical inventory is in English, and it is all on-site. Unfortunately, the physical inventory itself is not backed up – folders that are not archival standard need to be replaced, labels need to be printed out because of the inconsistent handwriting of previous archivists (and this intern’s), and more files need to be created for the ever expanding role of UCSF affiliated persons who are recognized in the news worldwide – from China, to America, to Brazil, to the Philippines, UCSF’s impact on the world is growing. And my first, and current job, is to help sort the files so that we can keep track of them for people to use and peruse in the future.

Before this data can hit the internet, I need make sure they’re all in order.

Within these jumbled folders, however, lie treasures that I am so excited to find. While often the files just contain one or two articles, some contain as many as ten plus! And these articles are often varied – they come in the form of obituaries, photocopied documents, magazine clippings, newspaper articles, biographies, and more! But instead of letting me describe them, let me show you some examples.

A button with 1989 Nobel Prize Winners Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus.

Brown, Leatha. School of Nursing, Class of 1928.

Holt A. Cheng, 1904. He was the first Chinese to be licensed to practice medicine in California after graduating from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in San Francisco. After returning to China, he established the Guang Hua Medical Society, the first medical college of western medicine established by the Chinese, for the Chinese, and the first medical school to accept female applicants.

And finally, the UCSF archives are not only home to just Western schools of thought in medicine, but include Eastern Thought as well. On site and in a state-of-the art archival room, various Eastern texts in Chinese and Japanese are stored, either purchased by the Head Archivist, donated to UCSF, or willed by their owners.

Chinese medical texts in the archival room.

Japanese medical texts.

Armani Fontanilla

Armani is currently a senior majoring in History with an emphasis on European and Asian Studies in the University of San Francisco (USF) public history program. After he graduates, he hopes to be able to earn a teaching position at his old high school, Bellarmine College Preparatory, and eventually pursue a Masters. In choosing the UCSF archives through the USF internship program, he hopes to not only practice skills that can only be found through working at an established institution but to also enhance his ability to do archival work and explore history of Western medicine at the archives.

Commemorating UCSF Dental Alumni WWI Veterans

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Maggie Hughes

In honor of Veterans’ Day this year, we bring you a scrapbook from our collection, titled Dental College Alumni Serving in the First World War, 1917-1919. The scrapbook is filled with letters written to Dr. Guy S. Millberry by both former and on-leave students during their military service. Millberry began working at UCSF in 1906, was appointed Professor in 1910, and became Dean of Dentistry in 1914– a role he continued in for twenty-five years.

The collected letters were written from a variety of places– Camp Greenleaf, GA; Camp Fremont, CA; Vancouver, WA; Royat, France; Oakland, CA; Camp MacArthur, TX; San Pedro, CA; Camp Lewis, WA; Khabarovsk, Siberia; New York, NY; Fort D.A. Russell, WY; Camp Greene, NC; Camp Shelby, MS; Camp Lee, VA; La Ferte, France. They were sent from forts, camps, ships, submarines, and hospitals. Most of the the letters are handwritten, a few are typewritten.