Items

Title: Invalid Ladies This Is For You [from verso]
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Burdock Blood Bitters as a remedy for diseases of womanhood.
Subjects (LC): Boats, Bridges, Rivers
Manufacturer: Foster, Milburn & Co. (Buffalo (N.Y.))
Language: English
ID: WH239
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: I Don't
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising un-named medicine [laxative?]. Poem on verso.
Subjects (LC): Children, Children crying
Manufacturer: Dr. Harter Medicine Co. (St. Louis (Mo.))
Language: English
ID: WH273
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Milk and Human Kindness
Description: This New York Milk Committee leaflet depicts a baby drinking milk from a bottle and advises parents to "keep baby well by keeping the milk clean, covered, and cold." The leaflet encourages the substitution of foods necessary for the war effort with dairy products. The back page includes portraits of 18 healthy babies and reminds parents that "The Nation That Has The Babies Has The Future...Save Them and Nourish Them Well." The front image was provided by the New York Evening Journal.
Subjects (LC): Milk, Infants, War--Economic aspects
ID: mk1e044m001
Geographic Subject: New York. New York City.
Collection: New York Milk Committee Ephemera Collection

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: La Tisane Cisbey [from verso]
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Tisane Cisbey as a remedy for digestive ailments and skin disease.
Subjects (LC): Castles and palaces
Manufacturer: Laboratoire Cisbey (Paris (France))
Language: French
ID: WH248
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Dirt in Loose Milk Shops
Description: This postcard produced by the New York Milk Committe's Committee for the Reduction of Infant Mortality reprints a July 26, 1911 NY Evening Post article entitled, "Dirt in Loose-Milk Shops." The article recounts the findings of the Committee's investigations, in coordination with the New York City Department of Health, into the bacterial contamination of milk sold in bulk. On the postcard verso a photo of sickly baby fed on contaminated milk is contrasted with the photo of a healthy baby under the question,"Is It Worth the Difference?"
Subjects (LC): Milk, Food adulteration and inspection, Infants, Milk hygiene, Food contamination, Food spoilage
ID: mk1e013
Geographic Subject: New York. New York City.
Collection: New York Milk Committee Ephemera Collection

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.

EXPLORE COLLECTION ON DCMNY →

Title: Les Veillées—La Soirée Musicale
Description: Trade card featuring druggist John H. Sheehan & Co. featuring five formally-dressed figures playing music in a well-furnished house. One girl is playing the piano while another figure plays a stringed instrument. There are flowers in blue vases atop the piano. The back lists the company advertised and its address.
Subjects (LC): Advertising, Bows, Children, Children's Clothing, Costume, Domestic Scenes, Ethnic Costume, Fans, Flower Vases, Flowers, Girls, Musical Instruments, Piano Ensembles, Ribbons, Rugs, Stringed Instruments
ID: WH210
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: If You would have a darling Ride, Try the Catville Toboggan Slide
Description: Trade card advertising Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil featuring a cat on a toboggan. It has a red blanket over the bottom half of its body and is reaching for its kittens who seemingly fell off the ride. A crescent moon and stars are in the sky. The back lists the ailments the Oil can cure.
Conditions Cured (LC): Backache, Burns And Scalds, Cold (Disease), Cough, Deafness, Earache, Hoarseness, Throat—Diseases, Toothache
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Animals, Blankets, Cats, Moon, Nature, Sleds, Snow, Toboggans, Trees
ID: WH365
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Seeing New York
Description: Addressed to students attending summer school at Columbia University and NYU, this folded circular produced by the New York Milk Committee asks students to pay attention to a novel New York attraction -- the successful reduction of summertime infant mortality. From July 1-29, 1911 ,the Committee's efforts were bolstered by educational outreach, the cleanliness of milkmen, nurses, applied hygene, and the activities of the "Little Mother's League." Statistical data and a range of photographs accompany an assesment of the goals and accomplishments of the Committee's infant mortality reduction program. Information pertaining to the location of educational seminars and the methodology employed when recording facts is also provided. Labeled "Efficient Citizenship No. 460" on the final page.
Subjects (LC): Milk, Mothers, Infants, Health, Summer, Poetry, Health, Hygiene, Hygiene, Girls
ID: mk1e007
Geographic Subject: New York. New York City.
Collection: New York Milk Committee Ephemera Collection

Title: Recipe book : manuscript, 1700s
Description: This manuscript consists of 113 medical receipts and 178 culinary recipes. The culinary and medical recipes are in different sections, written from opposite ends of the book, and both sections start with numbered indexes. The medical receipts include plasters, waters, salves, purges, and other preparations for the treatment of green sickness, burns, worms, palsy, dropsy, stones, women's complaints, and other ailments. Of the culinary recipes, approximately 100 are banqueting or dessert dishes and wines. Fruit preserving, sweet wines, puddings, pickled dishes, small breads, pancakes, and fritters are well represented. The remaining culinary recipes include dinner and supper dishes, beer, mead, possets, and caudles. Three hands are evident.
Subjects (LC): Cooking, English, Medicine -- Formulae, receipts, prescriptions -- Early works to 1800, Traditional medicine -- Formulae, receipts, prescriptions, Cooking, English, Manuscripts, English -- 18th century

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

READ MORE→

Title: Who's Afraid...

Title: Dr. White's Celebrated Cough Drops [from verso]
Description: Trade card advertising Dr. White's Cough Drops featuring a sailboat in a body of water at sunset. To the left is a a rocky outcrop with a lighthouse. At the top of the card are a bunch of pansies. The back lists the ailments the Cough Drops can cure.
Conditions Cured (LC): Cold (Disease), Cough, Hoarseness
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Boats And Boating, Flowers, Lighthouses, Nature, Ocean, Pansies, Rocks, Sailboats, Sunset Phenomena, Water
ID: WH379
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

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: Gessner's Unicorn
Description: The Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner's 4,500-page encyclopedia of animals, the Historia Animalium, makes even the prolific Gilderoy Lockhart look like a slouch. Part fantasy, part observation, Gessner's dense and exuberant animal kingdom included creatures real and imaginary, running the gamut from sea monsters and whales to diminutive tabby cats. Of the unicorn, Gessner writes that its horn marrow, cut with a little wine, could heal a man who'd eaten a poisoned cherry, and could cure a number of ailments. All the better to keep young wizards out of the Hogwarts hospital wing.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Compliments of John S. Shaffer & Co., Druggists, Dealers in Dr. C. McLean's Liver Pills and Vermifuge
Description: Trade card advertising Dr. C. McLane's Liver Pills and Vermifuge featuring a bunch of pansies tied together with a red string. The back contains a customer testimony.
Conditions Cured (LC): Helminths
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Bouquets, Bows, Flowers, Pansies, Ribbons
ID: WH297
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: If you feel irritable take Cas-car-ria [from verso]
Description: Trade card advertising Cas-car-ria featuring a young girl with a dog running devil-esque creatures, presumably representing the ailments listed next to their bodies, into the water. The girl is wearing a bright pink dress and holds a switch in her hand. The dog is large and brown and white. The back quotes a piece by Henry Ward Beecher.
Conditions Cured (LC): Asthenia, Rheumatism
Subjects (LC): Advertising—Medicine, Animals, Children, Cliffs, Demonology, Devil, Dogs, Folklore, Grasslands, Mythology, Staffs (Sticks, Canes, Etc.), Trees, Water
ID: WH246
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

LIBRARY DIGITAL COLLECTIONS & EXHIBITS

Warning message

Pages

Pages