From the Collections: Harriet

She became famous at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, generations of medical students consider her part of their alma mater(s) and she's even been considered an off-the-beaten-track tourist attraction - but who was 'Harriet?'

Hahnemann Medical College in the 1880s was still very much a homeopathic institution - but that did not mean its professors overlooked basics such as anatomy. Enter Dr. Rufus B. Weaver, Professor of Anatomy. Weaver was an 1865 graduate of Penn Medical College, a institution that lasted from 1853-1880, and also known as the Penn Medical University - incidentally, it was co-ed from the start, as were a few other eclectic medical schools of the era. It was a purely homeopathic school which shared a founder with Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (although a few early graduates later became homeopaths, teaching at Woman's Med was always allopathic) in Dr. Joseph Longshore.

Weaver joined the Hahnemann faculty in 1869, first as a 'demonstrator' of Anatomy ('demonstrator' was a common job title for medical school faculty members in the nineteenth century), and later as a full professor. At some point during his career there in the 1880s, he crossed paths with Harriet Cole, an African-American cleaner at the College (you can find her described in more colorful fashion, as it were, by Time Magazine in the 1930s). When she died of tuberculosis in 1888, she willed her body to the College (although it's equally possible that there was some opportunism at work on Weaver's part). He set about dissecting her nervous system, a process that took him over five months of full-time work, and mounted it for display. While the intent was to employ Harriet (or, more accurately, what was left of her) as a teaching aid, the results were considered so tremendous that she was later submitted for display at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, winning a number of prizes.

Harriet returned to Hahnemann as first 'worked' as a teaching tool, and later as a museum piece; restored by Hahnemann-trained cardiologist Dr. George Geckeler in the 1960s, she became part of the fabric of the institution and greeted medical students at Hahnemann's Center City Philadelphia campus - even through mergers and related administrative upheavals.

Harriet remained in Center City until a recent renovation to the Hahnemann Library - she moved to Drexel University College of Medicine's Queen Lane campus in 2008. While she is no longer part of the curriculum, Harriet still oversees current medical students; she is posted just outside the bookstore in the Student Activities Center.

While some who see Harriet in passing do not realize she was part of a real person, Weaver's groundbreaking work with 'Harriet' continues to be referenced in medical journals - even as recently as 2005. While we know very little about Harriet Cole's life, hopefully this sheds a little light on someone who made Weaver's scientific efforts a success - and who deserves more than a brief footnote in his biography.

From the Collections: Correspondenzblatt der Homoeopathischen Aerzte

We’re in the process of expanding our digital collections and one of the upcoming additions is the Correspondenzblatt der Homoeopathischen Aerzte, a small journal published from 1835-1836 by the North American Academy of the Homeopathic Healing Art (which was known as the Allentown Academy, having been located in Allentown, PA).

Homeopathy is a therapeutic system based on the law of similars, “Similia similibus curentur” or, let likes be cured by likes. In 1835 the practice of homeopathy was just getting a foothold in the United States.

The Correspondenzblatt der Homoeopatischen Aerzte (Correspondence Paper of Homeopathic Physicians) is from the Hahnemann Collection and was the first homeopathic journal published in the United States, created by and for homeopathic practitioners who submitted case notes, observations and questions about their patients. Constantine Hering, one of the founders of the Academy and considered to be the “father of American Homeopathy”, served as the journal’s editor.

The issues are short but dense, running 4-8 pages each (with a total of 16 issues in its short life) and are packed with detailed case studies on ailments being treated homeopathically. In aggregate, they illustrate the holistic approach used by homeopaths in treating minor and major illnesses, from toothaches to measles. More than a few of the case studies detail the use of homeopathy to treat animals, including pigs, horses and cows. Some descriptions are graphic and should be avoided by the faint of heart.

The original publication is mostly in German with a few entries in English. We’ve had the entire run translated to English which we’ll post along with the digital facsimiles of the paper. Some translated excerpts:

M.W. a brunette woman nearly 40 years old reported to me on April 11, 1836 the following complaints: tearing in the right arm and in the sinews, worse with motion, pulls down into the hand, with heat in, so that the veins swell. –

Poorly-handled or neglected skin burns cured by ars. Xo in many cases.

The eyes of an old, corpulent daily drinker were severely inflamed, burning with pain – the flow of tears – red blood vessels on the zygoma and nose – allopathic remedies had been applied in vain for a long time – nox. vom. in several doses cured despite the continued enjoyment of holy drinks.

The homeopathic substances are abbreviated throughout. The remedies here refer to Arsenicum Album (ars.) and Nux Vomica (nox. vom.) but the abbreviations aren't always consistent. We're still working out exactly how we'll match abbreviations to fully-termed substances in the digital version.

In his role as editor, Hering encourages the practice and growth of homeopathy and cajoles his readers to contribute and share.

“Everything which the individual discovers must become the common good of all! That is the great noble principle that ensures the new art its position.”

Plots and Plans

Details about the move tend to hover around the edges of our day-to-day work; we try to fit in planning meetings where and when we can. Yesterday's edition was all about furniture - whose budget will it come out of? Are we getting new furniture at all? Will our existing furniture fit in the new offices? What are we forgetting? What happened to things that went into storage after the last move? Of course, we had not gotten very far in making our furniture lists before we had to move on our next engagement - training on our new overhead camera system (PDF warning) and the CaptureOne software that powers it.

We obviously have a lot to learn about it, but we are starting to get to grips with it just in time - requests came in for a number of oversized items to be digitized, and happily we could meet those needs in-house (although I'm sure we will be tweaking things for some time to come). We also experimented with some of our smaller photographs to see just how much detail we could get out of them - (and also because we needed to digitize them quickly - it was serendipitous timing) this one of Constantine Hering from the Hahnemann collection was one of our first guinea pigs, with the finishing touches only added this morning.