By Philip Montgomery Head of the McGovern Historical Center In 2015, the Houston Academy of Medicine, Texas Medical Center Library will celebrate 100 years of providing medical knowledge to Texas physicians. However, the year before the library was created in 1915 was a momentous year for the world and Houston. 1914 marked the beginning of […]
Texas Medical Center Library Centennial: Pellagra in a nutshell
by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant Today’s post combines history, medicine, and food. We’ll start with the Harris County Medical Society Bulletin, Volume 3, Number 4, August 1912[1], and an excerpt about pellagra (this image has been photoshopped so that it would fit in one space. These are from pages 12 and 13): Nineteen-twelve was a […]
Medical World News: Conjoined Twins
by Sandra Yates, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian The Medical World News Collection is one of the largest and most interesting in the McGovern Historical Center. Comprised of over 80,000 photographic prints, slides, and negatives, it offers an expansive visual tour of medical advances from 1960-1994. For most, if not all, of the images in […]
Dr. E. Trowbridge Wolf's Notes
by Sandra Yates, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian Have you ever wondered what four years of medical school looks like? Or maybe even wondered about the courses, material, and techniques taught in medical schools in the 1930s? Well, you’re in luck! I came across six volumes of notes taken by Edward Trowbridge Wolf during his […]
Texas Medical Center Library Centennial: Doctors and their cars
By Alethea Drexler Archives assistant Next year is the centennial of the Texas Medical Center Library. The Library started out as the library for the Harris County Medical Society, which was founded in 1903[1], so it predates the Medical Center by several decades. In celebration, The Black Bag is going to include a series of […]
Life and Limb
By Philip Montgomery Archivist The Texas Medical Center Library is hosting a National Library of Medicine exhibit called Life and Limb: The Toll of the American Civil War. Here Sandra Yates, archivist/special collections librarian, arranges lancets and an 18th century bleeding bowl as part of the items on display from the McGovern Historical Center. Creating […]
Hanger Artificial Legs and Arms
By Sandra Yates Archivist and Special Collections Librarian We all know how amazing old magazine advertisements are. I found this gem in a June 1938 issue of the Texas State Journal of Medicine. Looks to me that the Hanger artificial limbs are easier to wear than wrapping a robe around a négligée! What do you […]
Feigning neurological illness
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E. Cullen and the Texas Medical Center
By Philip Montgomery Head of the McGovern Historical Center There is a street named for Ezekiel Cullen that runs past the Texas Medical Center Library. Since, Cullen died in 1882, according to the Handbook of Texas, I wondered why his name is linked to the medical center, which wasn’t founded until the 1940s. The answer […]
Thingamajig: The Mystery Scissors
by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant The past few months have brought us several donations that were heavier on artifacts than they were on paper. That’s a little unusual for an archive but not necessarily a bad thing. Honestly, artifact donations are often very entertaining. The heirs of a Fort Worth-area nurse named Senorita (that was […]