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- Title
- Nearly 50 Years the Favorite: Piso's Cure a Medicine for Coughs, Colds Etc.
- Description
- Trade card advertising Piso's Cure featuring a woman pulling a red-headed boy over a wooden fence by the back neck of his shirt. His hat is falling off, and he is barefooted. She is blond and is wearing a small, brown hat. There are fruit trees on the woman's side of the fence. The back is a blank template for a postcard.
- Conditions Cured (LC)
- Cold (Disease), Cough
- Subjects (LC)
- Advertising—Medicine, Clothing And Dress, Fruit Trees, Hats, Nature, Trees, Wooden Fences
- ID
- WH330
- Collection
- William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards
- Title
- Nearly 50 Years the Favorite: Piso's Cure a Medicine for Coughs Colds Etc.
- Description
- Trade card advertising Piso's Cure featuring a scene of two men constructing or deconstructing a wooden dock on the Allegheny River. A red-wheeled wheelbarrow on the bank holds wooden planks. There is an island in river that has a red-and-white house. There are forested hills on the farther shorelines. The back is a blank template for a postcard.
- Conditions Cured (LC)
- Cold (Disease), Cough
- Subjects (LC)
- Advertising—Medicine, Carpenters, Carts And Carriages, Hats, Housing, Islands, Marshes, Nature, Trees, Water, Woodworkers
- ID
- WH329
- Collection
- William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards
- Title
- Recipes and Remedies: Manuscript Cookbooks
- Description
-
The Library holds about 40 manuscript receipt books in its collections. Many of the manuscripts contain a combination of culinary recipes, home remedies, and recipes for things like cosmetics and substances that would be used to accomplish general household tasks such as cleaning and polishing. Others are solely medical, containing formularies for the compounding of various remedies. This digital collection contains eleven English-language manuscript receipt books that were compiled between the seventeenth and the late nineteenth centuries in which the majority of the collected recipes are culinary in nature, but many recipes for home remedies are discoverable here as well.
Funding for the conservation and cataloging of the 31 culinary manuscripts was provided by the Pine Tree Foundation in 2012. Funding for the digitization of this group of English-language manuscripts was provided by the Pine Tree Foundation in 2019.
- Title
- Educational Materials
- Title
- Parker's Ginger Tonic: the Best Health and Strength Restorer
- Description
- Trade card advertising Parker's Ginger Tonic, Parker's Hair Balsam, and Floreston Cologne featuring a text-based panel flanked by two images of men. The one on the left features a man bending over in what seems to be a coughing fit. The one on the right features a man at peace who seems to have just taken the Tonic being advertised. The back lists the benefits of each item advertised.
- Conditions Cured (LC)
- Cough, Dandruff, Indigestion, Rheumatism
- Subjects (LC)
- Advertising—Medicine, Clothing And Dress, Men, Men's Clothing, Men's Hats
- ID
- WH180
- Collection
- William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards
- Title
- Anatomy and Surgery
- Description
- A collection of texts on anatomy and surgery, covering the anatomical atlas, anatomical proportions, illustrations of the arteries, surgical procedures, and treatment of head wounds.
- Title
- Mother Swan's Worm Syrup
- Description
- Trade card advertising Mother Swan's Worm Syrup, Wells' Complete Cure, Wells' May Apple Pills, Wells' Health Renewer, and Buchu-Paiba featuring various illustrations related to the different items advertised. There is a picture of a swan with its children, a picture of a dead rat, and a picture of a man leaning his head back and opening his mouth. The back is a blank template for a postcard.
- Conditions Cured (LC)
- Agitation (Psychology), Biliary Tract—Diseases, Constipation, Fever, Helminths, Impotence, Indigestion
- Subjects (LC)
- Advertising—Medicine, Animals, Rats, Swans, Water
- ID
- WH376
- Collection
- William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards
- Title
- Carte de Visite Collection
- Description
-
The collection consists of 223 late 19th and early 20th century photographs of national and international figures in medicine and public health. It was digitized by the Metropolitan New York Library Council's (METRO) Culture in Transit project and is part of the Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York (DCMNY) website.
This collection contains portraits both of lesser known individuals and of famous New York physicians, such as Abraham Jacobi, Lewis Albert Sayre, Willard Parker, Stephen Smith, Emily Blackwell, and Valentine Mott, as well as of many with international reputations: Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur, Hermann von Helmholtz, Rudolf Virchow, and others. New York photographers took a number of the photographs; others were created by the New York offices of such establishments as Mathew Brady, as well as by photographers in Paris, Berlin, and London.
- Title
- Parker's Ginger Tonic
- Description
- Trade card advertising Parker's Hair Balsam and Parker's Ginger Tonic featuring a formally-dressed man sitting in an armchair defending himself against devilish creatures with an oversized box of Parker's Ginger Tonic. On the creatures' wings are written various ailments the Tonic cures. There is a broken crutch by the man's feet. The back describes the ailments the Balsam and the Tonic cure.
- Conditions Cured (LC)
- Body Fluids, Cold (Disease), Cough, Dandruff, Diarrhea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Itching, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, Tuberculosis
- Subjects (LC)
- Advertising—Medicine, Clothing And Dress, Costume, Crutches, Demonology, Devil, Domestic Space, Folklore, Men, Mythology
- ID
- WH318
- Collection
- William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards
- Title
- Tabulae Selectae
- Description
- The Tabula Selectae, a portfolio of 40 loose plates, illustrates the human skeleton and muscular system through Andreas Vesalius’s iconic skeletons, muscle men, and flayed men. The plates are from Vesalius’s anatomical atlas, De humani corporis Fabrica, which was originally published in 1543. The illustrations come from 227 original wood blocks that were re-discovered at the University of Munich’s library in 1932. However, during a bombing in 1944, these wood blocks were destroyed, making this item very rare. They are all approximately 56.6 centimeters high by 41.9 centimeters wide
- Title
- Facendo Il Libro: The Making of Fasciculus Medicinae, an Early Printed Anatomy
- Description
-
The collection includes five editions of the Fasciculus Medicinae printed between the years of 1495 and 1522. The Fasciculus medicinae—literally, the “little bundle of medicine”—is a small group of independently-authored medical treatises and illustrations first printed in 1491. Remarkable as one of the earliest illustrated medical books to be printed, the Fasciculus was reprinted in dozens of different editions and translated into the major European vernacular languages into the 1520s. The Fasciculus also serves as an important witness to a dynamic period of change, reflecting both medieval medical ideas and new advances spurred by the humanistic surge associated with the Renaissance. This is perhaps best illustrated by the inclusion of the first printed scene of human dissection, an indication of the growing importance of empirical investigations of the interior. The images attached to the Fasciculus are a blend of diagrams copied from medieval manuscripts alongside newer, narrative-based scenes demonstrating the modern taste for classical styles in figures and interiors.
EXPLORE OUR NEW ONLINE EXHIBIT TO LEARN MORE →
This digital collection was made possible by generous support from The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.
- Title
- Hanson's Magic Corn Salve
- Description
- Trade card advertising Hanson's Magic Corn Salve featuring a man in a three-piece suit holding a bouquet of flowers. His mustache is pointed at the ends, and he is framed by flowers that resemble Morning Glories. The back warns customers against counterfeit products.
- Conditions Cured (LC)
- Bunion
- Subjects (LC)
- Advertising—Medicine, Bouquets, Clothes And Dress, Costume, Eyeglasses, Flowers, Mustaches
- ID
- WH271
- Collection
- William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards
- Title
- William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards
- Description
-
The William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards contains approximately 300 colorful pharmaceutical trade cards produced in the U.S. and France between 1875 and 1895 that were used to advertise a wide range of goods in the nineteenth century; although introduced (in the mid-eighteenth century) as an ephemeral form of advertisement, they soon became collectors' items and were mass-produced in collectible 'series' comparable to those produced by sports teams in the twentieth century. They are now regarded as some of the best source material for the study of advertising, technology and trade in the post-Civil War period.
The collection was donated to the Academy Library by Mr. Helfand (one of the nation's leading collectors of medical ephemera) in a series of individual gifts between 1986 and 1992. The collection includes a number of duplicates, some of which are useful for scholarly study (e.g. bearing the stamps of different distributing pharmacists).
Scope Note: A collection of approximately 300 trade cards, ca. 1875 - ca. 1925 (bulk ca. 1875 - ca. 1914). Almost all advertise patent medicines or herbal remedies; a few deal with cosmetics, chocolate, or veterinary products. The collection includes a small number of French, German, Italian and Spanish cards; however, the bulk of collection is from the United States. Some of the companies represented manufactured the medicines and products advertised on the cards; others are local pharmacies which had their names printed onto cards advertising products they distributed. Many of the medicines and remedies claim to cure almost any complaint, or to address generalized conditions such as weakness, nervousness and general debility. Others address specific conditions or groups of ailments. Only a few cards list the printer or lithographer responsible for producing the image; very few indicate a date of publication or copyright.
Historical Note: Trade cards are small illustrated advertisements that were distributed for free by manufacturers and retailers from the 17th century to the early 20th century. Following the Civil War, trade cards became enormously popular in the United States and were the most effective mass advertising medium until the end of the 19th century. Late 19th century American trade cards were typically small pasteboard cards printed with illustrations in multiple colors. These cards were either custom-produced for one firm or store, or issued as stock cards. Stock cards allowed a manufacturer or retailer to have printed or stamped their advertisement and/or name and address on the front or back of an existing illustrated card, thus avoiding the expense of having one specially made.
- Title
- Pond's Extract Co.
- Description
- Trade card advertising Pond's Extract featuring two autumnal-colored leaves. The back warns against counterfeits and lists the ailments Pond's Extract can cure.
- Conditions Cured (LC)
- Asthma, Bruises, Burns And Scalds, Catarrh, Diphtheria, Furuncle, Headache, Hemorrhage, Hoarseness, Inflammation, Neuralgia, Peptic Ulcer, Rheumatism, Sprains, Throat—Diseases, Toothache
- Subjects (LC)
- Advertising—Medicine, Leaves, Nature
- ID
- WH332
- Collection
- William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards
- Title
- Vegetine: The Great Blood Purifier
- Description
- Trade card advertising Vegetine featuring two young children and a basket of animals. Within the basket are a lobster, who is pinching the left-most child's clothing, and a duck or goose. The right-most child is liftng the top off of the basket that contains the animals. The back has testimony from a satisfied customer.
- Subjects (LC)
- Advertising—Medicine, Animals, Baskets, Children, Children's Clothing, Children's Hats, Clothing And Dress, Costume, Ducks, Hats, Lobsters
- ID
- WH371
- Collection
- William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards
- Title
- Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound
- Description
- Trade card advertising Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, Lydia E. Pinkham's Liver Pills, Lydia E. Pinkham's Blood Purifier, and Lydia E. Pinkham's Sanative Wash featuring a square image of a sailboat in profile with a shadowed fleet behind it. The foregrounded boat has a red flag at the tip of its mast. The square image is framed by overlaid leaves and red, white, blue, and purple flowers. The back describes the ailments the items can cure.
- Conditions Cured (LC)
- Asthenia, Backache, Constipation, Depression, Headache, Indigestion, Inflammation, Insomnia, Neurasthenia, Peptic Ulcer, Tumors
- Subjects (LC)
- Advertising—Medicine, Boats And Boating, Flowers, Nature, Ocean, Sailboats, Water
- ID
- WH327
- Collection
- William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards
- Title
- Vesalius’s De humani corporis Fabrica
- Description
-
Andreas Vesalius’s De humani corporis Fabrica of 1543 is probably the most beautiful anatomical atlas produced in the 16th century. Vesalius, the 28 year old professor of anatomy at the University of Padua at the time of the book’s publication, spared no expense in hiring extraordinary craftsmen to create the woodblocks to illustrate his monumental atlas and we know that some of the drawings that were transferred to the blocks were made by Jan Stephen van Calcar, a Venetian artist working in Titian’s studio, although the block cutters themselves are unidentified. Despite Vesalius’s attempt to protect the images in the Fabrica through the acquisition of various royal privileges, they immediately became extremely popular and were widely reproduced in many other publications.
In 1932, Samuel Lambert, who had been the Academy's 32nd president, began raising money for the publication of the Icones Anatomicae, an edition of all of the images from the two editions of the Fabrica (1543 and 1555) and some of Vesalius’s other publications. Lambert studied and wrote about the historiated initials that appeared in the Fabrica, and a colleague suggested to him that the original wood blocks might still survive. He wrote to Dr. Willy Wiegand of the Bremer Press in Munich, asking if he would do some investigation. Wiegand visited the library at the University of Munich and a search turned up a box containing 227 of the blocks used in the production of the Fabrica and its companion publication from 1543, the Epitome (but none of the blocks for the initials). In light of this felicitous discovery, Lambert approached the Academy with the idea of publishing an edition of the rediscovered images.
Lambert envisioned a very ambitious and beautiful book, which is described at length in the Prospectus. After the discovery of the blocks, Lambert began raising money for a Library Publication Fund, and amassed over $15,000 from various donors by the end of 1932. The University of Munich agreed to co-publish the volume with NYAM, and Willy Wiegand, the head of the Bremer Press, was engaged as the printer. As we can see from the information in the Prospectus, no expense was spared in the creation of the book. Fine handmade paper with a special watermark was created especially for the volume, and photographic reproductions of the missing blocks were made and subtly marked in the descriptive tables.
Four hundred copies of the Icones Anatomicae were printed and sent to NYAM; an additional 295 copies were printed for the European market. At the same time, a small number of portfolios of 40 loose plates, the Tabulae Selectae, was printed as well. For years, individuals wrote to the NYAM librarians requesting individual images from the Tabula, which were sold at a very modest price. The portfolio was also available as a complete set. The title pages of both the 1543 and the 1555 editions of the Fabrica are included in the Tabula, along with a number of the skeletons, muscle men and flayed men that are some of the Fabrica's most iconic images.
Sadly, both the woodblocks and all of the copies of the German edition of the Icones were destroyed during the bombing of Munich in the summer of 1944, so NYAM has the distinction of being the organization that was responsible for the final inking and printing of the beautiful 16th century blocks.
Vesalius, Andreas. [Icones anatomicae, tabulae selecta]. Munich, 1935.
Photography by Ardon Bar-Hama courtesy of George Blumenthal.
- Title
- NYAM Lectures Broadcast by WNYC
- Description
-
Forty lectures on medicine and society that NYAM produced and WNYC-FM broadcast in the 1950s. Digitized from the original lacquer disks.
- Title
- Defense Against the Dark Arts
- Description
-
Harry’s scar serves as a constant reminder that it is a dangerous world out there, with powerful wizards capable of great destruction. Familiarize yourself with these Defense-Against-the-Dark-Arts protections, and you’ll feel a little more confident about facing He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named…or at least develop some strategies for making it through class unscathed.
Disclaimer: This exhibition is not licensed or endorsed by Warner Bros. or J.K. Rowling.