{"id":313,"date":"2021-07-14T15:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T19:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/?p=313"},"modified":"2021-07-14T15:01:38","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T19:01:38","slug":"in-this-rare-book-the-history-of-medicine-inspires-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/2021\/07\/14\/in-this-rare-book-the-history-of-medicine-inspires-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"In this Rare Book, the History of Medicine Inspires Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blog post by Dr. Sarah Ponichtera, Assistant Dean of Special Collections & the Gallery. See original post at the Special Collections & the Gallery blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

A beautifully bound medical text containing the research of the pioneering 19th century physicians Drs Corvisart and Auenbr\u0171gger was recently donated to Special Collections at Walsh Library by Anthony Valerio, a writer who used it in the research for one of his novels. One of the authors, Dr. Corvisart, was Napoleon I\u2019s private physician.\u00a0 Instead of joining Napoleon I\u2019s campaign to Italy, he stayed behind and translated his predecessor Auenbr\u0171gger\u2019s writings from Latin to French. Auenbr\u0171gger developed the percussive technique of physical examination, which led to the invention of the stethoscope.\u00a0 His father was a merchant, and young Auenbr\u0171gger played with his father\u2019s wine barrels as a boy, which made different sounds according to how he drummed them, inspiring his later discovery.\u00a0 These works \u2013 and the stories behind them \u2013\u00a0 inspired Valerio to write a novel depicting a similar medical breakthrough.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Valerio\u2019s novel tells the story of the Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmesweis, who did groundbreaking work in obstetrics.\u00a0 In Valerio\u2019s words, \u201cThe field of obstetrics, then, was relatively new. In Vienna\u2019s medical school, which Semmelweis attended, it was an elective of a few months. Dr. Skoda, a famed diagnostician and internist, was Semmelweis\u2019s mentor and teacher. Skoda taught Corvisart\u2019s work on the heart. Upon obtaining his medical degree, Semmelweis sought a job with Skoda but one was not open. Semmelweis then trained with famed surgeon Dr. Karl von Rokitansky, who performed all autopsies in the hospital. Semmelweis obtained a degree in surgery and sought a job with Rokindansky. Again, one was not open. But an assistant\u2019s job did open in a relatively new field,\u00a0 obstetrics. Semmelweis took this job at a time when childbed fever was the scourge of Europe, the pandemic of his time, women dying of this terrible disease at alarming rates. Theories were advanced as to its cause and means of prevention. Semmelweis rejected them all. He was determined to find those causes and means of prevention\u2014which journey I attempted to describe in detail in my book. Semmelweis did not know what he was looking for. His approach included his studies of Corvisart on the heart, Skoda\u2019s work on palpitation,\u00a0 Auenbr\u0171gger\u2019s work on the varied sounding of the human body with a stethoscope. Semmelweis read and researched after his daily tour of rounds, in his small room in the Vienna hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

This medical text and the literary novel it inspired demonstrate that literature can evolve from science, just as scientific advances can be derived from childhood games.\u00a0 Insight and inspiration know no disciplinary boundaries.<\/p>\n

To see this book in person, or investigate other Special Collections materials, our\u00a0Research Appointments<\/a>\u00a0page has details on how to proceed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blog post by Dr. Sarah Ponichtera, Assistant Dean of Special Collections & the Gallery. See original post at the Special Collections & the Gallery blog. A beautifully bound medical text containing the research of the pioneering 19th century physicians Drs Corvisart and Auenbr\u0171gger was recently donated to Special Collections at Walsh Library by Anthony Valerio, … Continue reading “In this Rare Book, the History of Medicine Inspires Literature”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4241,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,80,79],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-history-of-medicine","tag-seton-hall-university","tag-special-collections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ihsl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}