Annual review : 1997/98 / Contemporary Medical Archives Centre and Western Manuscripts Department.
- Contemporary Medical Archives Centre
- Date:
- 1998
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: Annual review : 1997/98 / Contemporary Medical Archives Centre and Western Manuscripts Department. Source: Wellcome Collection.
13/50 page 6
![lectures on anatomy and physiology, copied by one George Henry France in 1849 (MS. 7627). This neatly complements an existing transcript of Power’s lectures on materia medica and therapeutics already in the collection (MS. 3965). Power was something of a pioneer in the provision of tutorial classes for medical students rather than formal lectures. His obituarist in The Lancet (1877) remarked that Power’s lecture notes, “which always kept pace with the advance of medical science, [were] still cherished and consulted as practical guides by many an old pupil”. Last year we mentioned the name of Philippe Pinel (1745-1826) among those files from the Autograph Letters collection which had been integrated into the main manuscripts sequence. In 1998 we were able to add three further letters by Pinel from the Haskell Norman collection, sold at Christie’s New York (MS. 7419/1-3). A pioneer in the humane treatment of the mentally-ill, Pinel anticipated various progressive trends in the history of psychiatry. His advice in 1813 on the care of a woman suffering from periodic melancholia is indicative: “Another essential aim consists in augmenting the patient’s diversions, so that she will not relax at any time without doing this or that. Since she is interested in drawing and music, let her practise those pleasant arts; but she must also do some daily physical exercise, walking, riding on horseback, dancing, playing badminton, gardening etc.” As in previous years, some of our most interesting Victorian acquisitions have related to the activities of British doctors overseas. Alfred Bowyer Barton (1825-1905) was one of those Victorian Englishmen who viewed the world as their oyster. Not for him the dismal round of provincial practice. According to his son, he signed up as medical officer to any likely looking expedition. The collection already housed Barton’s journals for 1853 —58, covering service as a P & O ship’s surgeon and in the Crimea (MSS. 5958-5963). To these we have now added Barton’s journals and sketches relating to the British Yangtze expedition of 1861, which had become separated from the rest (MSS. 7589-7592). Many of Barton’s sketches (he was a rather accomplished draughtsman) were used to illustrate the “official” record of the expedition, Five months on the Yang-Tsze, by Captain T W Blakiston (1862). But most of the ones we have acquired were not used, and consequently the collection now](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31847924_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
