Upcoming Lecture: Heightened Expectations

Date: Tuesday, May 17th, 2016
Time: 12 pm – 1:15 pm
Lecturer: Aimee Medeiros, PhD (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/2544252

Join UCSF Archives & Special Collections for an afternoon talk with author Aimee Medeiros as she discusses her book Heightened Expectations: The Rise of the Human Growth Hormone Industry in America.

Heightened Expectations: The Rise of the Human Growth Hormone Industry in America

Heightened Expectations is a groundbreaking history that illuminates the foundations of the multibillion-dollar human growth hormone (HGH) industry. Drawing on medical and public health histories as well as on photography, film, music, prose, and other examples from popular culture, Aimee Medeiros tracks how the stigmatization of short stature in boys and growth hormone technology came together in the twentieth century. Historical materials from the UCSF Archives collection were used in the research for this book.

Aimee Medeiros, PhD

Aimee Medeiros, PhD

Aimee Medeiros is an assistant professor of the history of health sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.

About the UCSF Archives & Special Collections Lecture Series
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.

Lecture now online – History, Science, and Art of Ocular Prosthetics

The lecture History, Science, and Art of Ocular Prosthetics given by Robert S. Sherins, MD, in the UCSF Library on May 28th is now available free online.

lecture

This lecture, and the current exhibition on the fifth floor of the library, feature the Danz ocular pathology collection. The beautiful collection of glass eyes was exhibited several times during the past 50 years, however many historic details about this donation were lost. This unique artifact is used to tell the story of family traditions continued through the centuries on two continents. Through partnership with several members of the Danz family – ocularists: Phillip Danz of Sacramento; William Danz of San Francisco; and William Randy Danz of Ridgewood, New Jersey; as well as the author/lecturer, Dr. Robert Sherins, ophthalmologist, UCSF School of Medicine Alumnus Class of 1963; and UCSF archivist, Polina Ilieva, this exhibit demonstrates the evolution of skillful craftsmanship of Müller-Uri and Danz families, as well as the science and art of ocular prosthetics.

Please use this link to view Dr. Sherin’s presentation in full. More information about the story of the Danz collection can be found here.

About the UCSF Archives & Special Collections Lecture Series
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.

Upcoming Lecture & Exhibit: History, Science and Art of Ocular Prosthetics

Lecture & Opening Reception
May 28, 2015,  3 – 5 pm
Lecturer: Robert S. Sherins, MD (UCSF, School of Medicine, Class of 1963)
This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.
REGISTRATION REQUIRED: tiny.ucsf.edu/lecture528
Lange Room, 5th Floor, UCSF Library – Parnassus
530 Parnassus Ave, SF, CA 94143

According to the United States Eye Injury Registry, each year there are more than 2.5 million eye injuries, from which 50,000 people permanently lose all or part of their vision, often leaving them severely disfigured. Through the centuries there had been many attempts to create safe, cosmetically pleasing and comfortable ocular prostheses. However, past devices were not designed well enough, fit poorly due to the gross sizing of the prosthetic samples and most of them were certainly irritating due to the use of unsuitable materials that were available at the time.

Illustrations for Hypoblephara (top) and Ekblephara from a book by Ambroise Paré, "The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey...," 1649.The digital copy of othis book is accessible online through the Medical Heritage Library: https://archive.org/details/workesofthatfamo00par.

Illustrations for Hypoblephara (top) and Ekblephara from a book by Ambroise Paré, “The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey…,” 1649, p. 576-577. The digital copy of this book is accessible online through the Medical Heritage Library and the original can be viewed at the UCSF archives.

Often called the “father of ocular prosthesis,” French surgeon Ambroise Paré in 16th century invented a device (Ekblephara) consisting of a leather-covered metal base with a painted eye, lid and lashes that was worn over the eyelid. Later on, Paré developed a metal accessory (Hypoblephara eye) that was inserted under the eyelid into the socket over the remaining atrophic eye.

Ludwig Müller-Uri (center) with his sons Albin and Reinhold, ca. 1875.  Courtesy of Museum of Glass Art Lauscha.

Ludwig Müller-Uri (center) with his sons Albin and Reinhold, ca. 1875. Courtesy of Museum of Glass Art Lauscha.

Modern methods of creating ocular prostheses can be traced to the ingenuity of Ludwig Müller-Uri, a Glasbläser (glassblower) from Lauscha, Province of Thuringia, Germany. The town’s craftsmen also were known for their Christmas glass decorations, glass marbles, utilitarian housewares and doll’s eyes. After training with Prof. Heinrich Adelmann, an ophthalmologist in Würzburg, Müller-Uri became an “Augenprothetik” (prosthetic eye-maker) or ocularist. He improved the artificial eyes by individually fitting each prosthetic. Müller-Uri created the iris details using special tools to apply the pigments he blended to most realistically resemble the natural eye. By 1835, he began using a better quality glass from the local factory. It was not until 1885 that the best cryolite glass became available, which was crucial for the patient’s tolerance of the prosthesis since they became lightweight, corrosion-resistant and more lifelike. It became the standard material for making ocular prosthetics and is still used in Germany, whereas acrylic plastic has replaced cryolite glass in the U.S.
The Müller-Uri family working with the ophthalmologist from the Netherlands, Hermann Snellen designed the “Snellen eye” or “Reform-Auge” (“reform eye”) – prosthesis that consists of two connected shells with a hollow space between them and that can be worn by a patient with the enucleated eye.

Left to right: ocularists: Phillip Danz of Sacramento and William Danz of San Francisco, and Dr. Robert Sherins, ophthalmologist, UCSF School of Medicine Alumnus Class of 1963 holding the Danz collection of ocular pathology specimens during their visit to the UCSF Archives and special Collection in January, 2015.

Left to right: ocularists: Phillip Danz of Sacramento and William Danz of San Francisco, and Dr. Robert Sherins, ophthalmologist, UCSF School of Medicine Alumnus Class of 1963 holding the Danz collection of ocular pathology specimens during their visit to the UCSF Archives and Special Collections in January, 2015.

During the 1880s, Amandus Müller manufactured approximately 13 eye-kits consisting of ocular pathology specimens – the hand-blown glass eye models depicting diseases. He sold the kits to European medical schools where they were used as teaching aids. Amandus Müller was a grand uncle of Gottlieb Theodore Danz, Sr. In 1915, Gottleib T. Danz, Sr. immigrated with his family to New York and brought one of his uncle’s kits to America. Later on, he moved his office to San Francisco. After the death of Gottlieb T. Danz, Sr., his widow gave that kit to her grandson, Phillip Danz (also an ocularist). In 1963, Phillip donated the kit to Professor Michael Hogan, MD, then Chairman of the UCSF Ophthalmology Department. Eventually the kit was given to the UCSF Archives, where it remains preserved today.

Specimen #34 from the Danz ocular pathology collection.

Specimen #34 from the Danz ocular pathology collection. It shows massive traumatic scleral and corneal lacerations, dislocation of the entire lens, severe inflammation and herniation of the vitreous gel.

This beautiful collection was exhibited several times during the past 50 years. However, many historic details about this donation were lost. The purpose of the upcoming lecture and comprehensive exhibit is to use this unique artifact to tell the story of family traditions continued through the centuries on two continents. Through partnership with several members of the Danz family – ocularists: Phillip Danz of Sacramento; William Danz of San Francisco; and William Randy Danz of Ridgewood, New Jersey; as well as the author/lecturer, Dr. Robert Sherins, ophthalmologist, UCSF School of Medicine Alumnus Class of 1963; and UCSF archivist, Polina Ilieva, this exhibit will demonstrate the evolution of skillful craftsmanship of Müller-Uri and Danz families, as well as the science and art of ocular prosthetics. The UCSF Library is grateful to the Danz Family and Dr. Sherins for their continuing support.

Lecture now online – The Forgotten Epidemic: HIV/AIDS in Women and Children

The lecture The Forgotten Epidemic: HIV/AIDS in Women and Children given by Dr. Arthur Ammann in the UCSF Library on February 26th is now available free online.

IMG_2928_ebolalessons

Beginning in 1981 researchers at UCSF defined some of the most important features of the emerging AIDS epidemic – the cause of AIDS, the clinical features of AIDS, populations at risk for HIV infection, methods to prevent and treat HIV, and discovery of HIV. Working closely with community activists, advocates, scientists and policy makers, UCSF distinguished itself as a model of successful collaboration. The first discovery of AIDS in infants and children and blood transfusion associated AIDS at UCSF were instrumental in defining the extent of the epidemic. The scientific advances in HIV/AIDS that occurred over the next two decades were remarkable resulting in the near eradication of HIV in infants in the US and transforming an acute and fatal infection in adults to a chronic and manageable one. But even as these advances occurred benefiting many millions of people worldwide, women and children were too often excluded, resulting in a global epidemic that is now composed of over 50% women and children and a secondary epidemic of AIDS-related orphans that numbers in the tens of millions.

Please use this link to view Dr. Ammann’s presentation in full.

About the UCSF Archives & Special Collections Lecture Series
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.

Lecture now online: Karl F. Meyer: California’s Forgotten Microbe Hunter

The lecture Karl F. Meyer: California’s Forgotten Microbe Hunter given by Mark Honigsbaum, PhD at UCSF last month, on December 5th, is now available free online via the Internet Archive.

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In the 1930s California’s rapid population growth and the incursion of agricultural settlers into valleys and deserts teeming with exotic pathogens resulted in outbreaks of “new” infectious diseases. To divine the cause of these outbreaks and trace the epidemics to their source, health officials turned to San Francisco’s premier “microbe hunter,” Karl Friedrich Meyer.

Drawing on Meyer’s papers at the UCSF and Bancroft libraries, this talk reviews Meyer’s feats of microbial detection and his pioneering investigations of disease ecology. Dr. Honigsbaum views Meyer as an important bridge figure in mid-20th century medical research who sought to link microbial behavior to broader environmental and social factors that impact host-pathogen interactions and the mechanisms of disease control.

 

About the UCSF Archives & Special Collections Lecture Series: This lecture series was launched 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.

Find out more about upcoming lectures, past presentations, and links to more lecture videos here! And please, join us for the next one– coming soon in 2015!

Lecture now online: Shimkin’s “Lost Colony” (1947-1953)

The lecture Shimkin’s “Lost Colony” (1947-1953): Early Interdisciplinary Cancer Research at UCSF presented by Michael Thaler, MD, MA last month on October 13th is now available online free via the Internet Archive.

[iframe src=”https://archive.org/embed/ShimkinsLostColony1947-1953EarlyInterdisciplinaryCancerResearchAtUCSF” width=”640″ height=”480″ frameborder=”0″ webkitallowfullscreen=”true” mozallowfullscreen=”true” allowfullscreen]

(It seems that Polina’s microphone wasn’t turned on; just be patient, the sound is fine for Dr. Thaler’s presentation.)

The Laboratory of Experimental Oncology (LEO) was the brain child of Michael B. Shimkin, a career U.S. Public Health Service physician and cancer research at the National Cancer Institute. LEO was established in 1947 at Laguna Honda Hospital at Laguna Honda Hospital, jointly administered by the NCI and UCSF. Speaker Michael Thaler, MD, MA explains how Shimkin created one of the first combined interdisciplinary clinical and basic science research units embedded in a medical school. In this setting, Shimkin introduced the patient release form and was instrumental in the establishment of universal guidelines for the ethical conduct of experiments with human subjects.

Dr. Thaler spoke as part of our ongoing UCSF Archives & Special Collections Lecture Series which serves to introduce a wider community to our holdings, provide an opportunity for researchers to discuss how they use this material, and celebrate clinicians, scientists, and health care professionals who have donated their papers to the archives.

Next, we will welcome Mark Honigsbaum, PhD to discuss Karl F. Meyer: California’s Forgotten Microbe Hunter on Friday, December 5th at noon in the Library’s Lange Room. Please join us!

Archives Lecture Series: Early Interdisciplinary Cancer Research at UCSF, October 13th, 2014

Join us on Monday, October 13th as M. Michael Thaler, M.D., M.A. (Hist.) gives a lecture in a series launched by UCSF Archives & Special Collections.

Date: Monday, October 13th, 2014
Time: 12 pm-1:20 pm
Location: Lange Room, UCSF Library, 530 Parnassus, 5th floor
This lecture is free and open to the public.
Please RSVP to reserve a seat.

Shimkin’s “Lost Colony” (1947-1953): Early Interdisciplinary Cancer Research at UCSF

Michael B. Shimkin

Michael B. Shimkin, Director of the Laboratory of Experimental Oncology at UCSF, 1947-1953

The Laboratory of Experimental Oncology (LEO) was established in 1947 at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco as a “colony” of the National Institutes of Health, to be jointly administered by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and UCSF. The LEO was the brain child of Michael B. Shimkin, a career U.S.P.H.S. physician and cancer researcher at the NCI. Shimkin was a native San Franciscan, having successively graduated from Lowell High School, UC Berkeley and UCSF. After 8 years at the NCI and war service, Shimkin returned to his native city and alma mater as ideal environments for a “combined” interdisciplinary clinical and basic research unit embedded in a medical school and staffed by full-time research teams of M.D.’s and Ph.D.’s. These unprecedented ideas directly challenged the traditional separation between patient care and laboratory research. Shimkin introduced a ‘release’ form that fully informed patients with terminal cancer admitted to the LEO about the incurable nature of their illness, and clearly distinguished between therapeutic and experimental procedures. This prototypical “informed consent” approach met with mounting resistance from the clinical faculty. In response, Shimkin organized a symposium at UCSF in October 1951 on the subject on human experimentation. In his presentation, Shimkin became the first American physician to draw on the injunctions from the recently concluded Nuremberg trials against German physicians who had conducted medical experiments in Nazi concentration camps, as a source of universal guidelines for the ethical conduct of experiments with human subjects. The LEO treated 500 patients and generated over 130 publications before being replaced by the Moffitt-based Cancer Research Institute in 1953.

About M. Michael Thaler

M. Michael Thaler, M.D., M.A. (Hist.)

M. Michael Thaler, M.D., M.A. (Hist.)

Michael Thaler received his M.D. from the University of Toronto, trained in pediatrics, pediatric pathology and internal medicine, and completed research fellowships in cell biology at Washington University and in developmental biology at Harvard University. As professor of pediatrics at UCSF, he established the first academic division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition in North America, was awarded the first NIH Research Career Development Award in Pediatric Gastroenterology, and was P.I. of the foundational NIH Research Training Program grant in Pediatric Gastroenterology. He also directed the Laboratory of Pediatric Hepatology and served as associate director of the UCSF Liver Center.  His publications include approximately 200 clinical and basic research articles on perinatal bilirubin metabolism, infantile cholestasis syndromes, Reye’s syndrome, and bile salt metabolism. As professor emeritus, he earned a M.A. degree in History of Health Sciences at UCSF in 1998, and received appointments as Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center for Bioethics, and Research Associate at the Stanford Center for History and Philosophy of Science.  For the next 12 years, he taught undergraduate courses on the history of medical sciences as Visiting Professor of History at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley. He continues to lecture at the Osher Life Long Learning Institute in Berkeley, and for the fellowship program in Pediatric Gastroenterology at UCSF.  His awards include the UCSF Chancellor’s Faculty Award for Public Service and the Shwachman Lifetime Achievement Award in Pediatric Gastroenterology. He presently serves as president of   the UCSF Emeriti Faculty Association.

About the UCSF Archives & Special Collections Lecture Series

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.

UCSF Archives Lecture Series presents Laurie Garrett, February 21, 2014

Join us on Friday, February 21st as Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist and researcher, gives a special presentation at UCSF. This is the inaugural lecture in a new series from UCSF Archives & Special Collections.

Lecture: Tracking Disease, Forecasting Futures
Presenter: Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Council on Foreign Relations
Date: Friday, February 21, 2014
Time: 10:00 am – 11:15 am
Location: Toland Hall Auditorium (U142), University Hall, 533 Parnassus, 1st floor
This lecture is free and open to the public.

Laurie Garrett

Laurie Garrett

About Laurie Garrett
As a medical and science writer for Newsday in New York City, Laurie Garrett became the only writer ever to have been awarded all three of the Big “Ps” of journalism: The Peabody, The Polk (twice), and The Pulitzer. Laurie is also the best-selling author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance and Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. In March 2004, Laurie took the position of Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on global health with a particular focus on newly emerging and re-emerging diseases; public health and their effects on foreign policy and national security. Learn more.

About the UCSF Archives & Special Collections Lecture Series
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.

The second lecture “Remembering the first years of AIDS epidemic” is scheduled for Wednesday, April 16th  from 12 pm-1 pm at the Lange room in the Library and will feature Drs. Volberding, Cooke, Greenspan, Abrams.