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LIBRARY
REVIEW
at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine. still incenses me a bit.
Here it is: this drawing is about two feet across. That vertical The Local Medical History stuff is fascinating. There are pho-
line through the flea’s thorax is the fold in the page, made to
allow it to fit into the volume. tographs of physicians and hospitals, records of various local med-
ical organizations, and hand-written records by the physicians
The University Archives contain a fairly amazing mass of mis- themselves. I took a picture of the cover of one of Dr. George Cup-
cellaneous documents. Besides the things you might expect, ples’ casebooks, which you can see nearby: It is filled with hand-
such as historically important university records there are pub- written descriptions of individual cases, in great detail, including
lications, oral histories, correspondence, yearbooks and even a the patient’s demographic description, history of present illness,
complete set of a short-lived student newspaper, “The Organ etc. It isn’t easy reading, but it is fascinating.
for the Artificial Dissemination of Information,” which is where
I got my first experiences writing for publication. ‘The Organ” Someday, if you have the urge to see some medical treasures or
was suppressed in my senior year, just after our dean was fired. research something in your specialty from way back when, visit
The “Temporary Institutional Head,” a retired Army Medical the P. I. Nixon Library. It will be worth your time.
Corps general imported from Galveston, didn’t appreciate some
of our opinions and reporting and ordered us to stop. I still Fred H. Olin, M.D., is a semi-retired orthopaedic sur-
have the letter he sent to the various writers and our editor. It geon. He has never been either a woman or in prison. Per-
haps that’s why he was so taken by these books.
visit us at www.bcms.org 21
