Items

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: Dr. Roger's Syrup
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Dr. Roger's Syrup, a cough remedy.
Manufacturer: Manhattan Medicine Co. (New York (N.Y.))
Language: English
ID: WH338
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: Hunt's Remedy [from verso]
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Hunt's remedy, "the best kidney and liver medicine."
Subjects (LC): Children
Manufacturer: Hunt's Remedy Co. (Providence (R.I.))
Language: English
ID: WH279
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: Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil: Mary Anderson
Description: Trade card advertising Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil featuring a portrait of a young woman. She is formally dressed in a gown with long gloves. She is wearing a hat that reads: "Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil" and has a feather in it. The back lists the ailments the Oil has cured.
Conditions Cured (LC): Asthma, Backache, Bronchitis, Burns And Scalds, Catarrh, Cough, Croup, Deafness, Diphtheria, Earache, Edema, Frostbite, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, Throat—Diseases, Toothache
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Clothing And Dress, Costume, Ethnic Costume, Hats, Portraits, Women
ID: WH366
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Sapanule: Sold By All Druggists
Description: Trade card advertising Sapanule featuring three figures and a dog. Towards the left is a boy courting a girl with a flower. In his right hand is a discus-type object. Between them is a dog holding a flower in its mouth. Towards the right is a boy lying down reading a book. He is wearing glasses and a small hat with a decoration on top. On the far right side of the card is a wreath of flowers and leaves. To its left is a thermometer. The back lists the ailments Sapanule can cure.
Conditions Cured (LC): Diphtheria, Inflammation, Neuralgia, Pneumonia, Rheumatism, Throat—Diseases
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Animals, Books And Reading, Children, Children's Clothing, Children's Hats, Costume, Dogs, Dress And Clothing, Eyeglasses, Flowers, Flying Discs (Game), Hats, Thermometers
ID: WH340
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: 19. Execution : a full and true account of the last speech and dying declaration of William Burke, who was executed at Edinburgh this morning, for murder, and his body given for dissection; also of his conduct and behaviour since his condemnation, and on the scaffold
Description: Illustrated broadside. Cut and mounted.
Language: English
Collection: The Resurrectionists

Title: Ayer's Sarsaparilla
Description: Trade card advertising Ayer's Sarsaparilla featuring an image of a man in a dressing gown holding a bottle of Ayer's Sarsaparilla and reading a paper advertising the medicine. A woman wearing a bonnet and a dress with lace cuffs and collar reads over his shoulder and clasps his arm. The back explains the product's health benefits and has an image of an animal intertwined with the word "MIND."
Conditions Cured (LC): Asthenia, Body Fluids, Catarrh, Eczema, Furuncle, Indigestion, Lymph Node, Rheumatism, Tuberculosis
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Bottles, Clothing And Dress, Lace And Lacemaking, Men, Men's Clothing, Sarsaparilla, Women, Women's Clothing, Women's Hats
ID: WH111
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Vaseline Chesebrough Manfg Co.
Description: Trade card primarily advertising Pure Vaseline featuring a beach scene with two children playing in the foreground. They are both wearing yellow hats and playing in the sand with shovels and a single pail. Behind them stands a woman with a parasol. She is in formal dress, with an overcoat, ruffled skirt, and yellow bow on her hip. There are various people on the beach and in the ocean as well is what looks like a cruise ship in the far background. The back contains a poem titled The Elixir Vitae and lists prices for various vaseline products.
Conditions Cured (LC): Asthma, Burns And Scalds, Cold (Disease), Croup, Neuralgia, Rheumatism
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Beaches, Boats And Boating, Bows, Children, Children's Hats, Clothing And Dress, Crabs, Hats, Parasols, Ribbons, Sand Pails, Sand Toys, Shovels, Water, Water Waves, Women's Hats
ID: WH369
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: Good For Man or Beast [from verso]
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Dr. Streeter's Magic Liniment, a remedy for cramps and aching joints. Trimmed
Subjects (LC): Drawings, Puzzles, Walking
Manufacturer: Dr. Streeter's Magnetic Liniment
ID: WH355
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: I's All Right Now!: In Constant Use Since 1795
Description: Trade card advertising Dr. Isaac Thompson's Eye Water featuring two girls in a red armchair. The older of the two is holding a bottle of what seems to be Dr. Isaac Thompson's Eye Water in her right hand. Her left hand is around the shoulders of the younger girl who is holding a tissue. They are both in dresses and have brown-blond hair. The back describes the meritous reputation of the Eye Water.
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Bottles, Chairs, Children, Children's Clothing, Clothing And Dress
ID: WH368
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Wheat Bitters
Description: Trade card advertising What Bitters featuring an image of a naked angel driving a cart with a large bottle of Wheat Bitters on it. The cart is pulled by two dogs, and two more naked angels run behind it. The back lists the curative properties of Wheat Bitters.
Conditions Cured (LC): Biliary Tract—Diseases, Constipation, Delirium Tremens, Fever, Indigestion, Jaundice, Malaria, Neuralgia, Paralysis
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Angels, Animals, Bottles, Carriages And Carts, Cherubs, Dogs, Folklore, Grasslands, Mythology, Stone Walls, Trees
ID: WH196
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound
Description: Trade card advertising Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, Lydia E. Pinkham's Liver Pills, and Lydia E. Pinkham's Blood Purifier featuring an evening, winter landscape in which one can see two figures walking over a bridge. The bridge is over a small body of water, and there is a full moon in the sky. The back lists the benefits of the items advertised.
Conditions Cured (LC): Asthenia, Backache, Body Fluids, Depression, Mental, Erysipelas, Headache, Indigestion, Insomnia, Neurasthenia, Peptic Ulcer, Rheumatism, Salt Rheum, Scrofula, Tumors
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Bridges, Nature, Snow, Trees, Water
ID: WH184
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Dr. A.C. Hoxsie's Certain Croup Cure
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Dr. A.C. Hoxsie's Certain Croup Cure, a remedy for coughs and colds.
Subjects (LC): Bouquets, Girls, Hats
Manufacturer: Dr. A.C. Hoxsie
Language: English
ID: WH277
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Ayer's Sarsaparilla Gives Health and Sunny Hours
Description: Trade card advertising Ayer's Sarsaparilla featuringan image of a woman in an elegant pink gown standing in a sunny field and balancing a young child on her shoulder. The back shows an image of a bottle of Ayer's Sarsaparilla with a wreath around its neck and text explaining its curative properties.
Conditions Cured (LC): Lymph Node, Tuberculosis
Subjects (LC): Children, Children's Clothing, Clothing And Dress, Nature, Sarsaparilla, Toddlers, Women, Women's Clothing
ID: WH110
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards