Nope! We’re not trading these cards for anything!

Trade card (front) advertising Dr. Thomas’ Electric Oil, a remedy prepared by Foster, Milburn & Co., Buffalo, NY

When we say “trade cards,” what comes to mind?

Maybe those cards depicting baseball players, with all those tiny numbers on the back? The ones collected and traded by children of all ages?

It may surprise you to know that we have more than 2,600 trade cards! But they have nothing to do with baseball players, and we wouldn’t trade them for anything. They’re part of the Edward C. Atwater Collection of American Popular Medicine.

Trade card (back)

These late 19^th and early 20^th century cards advertise patent medicines, mineral waters, dietary supplements, and other health products; everything from breath freshener to Coca-Cola.

The rapid development of new consumer markets in the post-Civil War U.S. created a need for an effective national advertising medium, a need met by the lithographed trade card. Today, these colorful cards offer a glimpse of the society, culture, and economy in which 19th century Americans lived. The fact that these palm-sized pieces of paper have survived for over a hundred years in such excellent condition is amazing.

Over the last four years, we have been scanning the trade cards in this collection and uploading them into UR Research. (Enter Atwater Patent Medicine Trade Cards in the Search field at the top of the page.) All 2,600 cards haven’t been scanned yet, but we’re working on it. We just scanned and uploaded the two-thousandth card.

What’s UR Research?

UR Research is an institutional repository developed and hosted by the River Campus Libraries. It provides storage and access for dissertations, preprints, research data, and similar materials.

UR Research also can provide researchers with a private, secure workspace for collaboration with other researchers. Once you set up your own workspace, you can give controlled access to others.

For questions about UR Research: Use the Contact Us form

September Classes by Miner Library

Here are the classes offered by Miner Library for the upcoming month:

EndNote Basics

Date: Monday, September 18, 2017 Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm

Register

RefWorks Basics

Date: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 Time: 10:00am – 11:00am

Register

For a full list of Miner Library’s classes, visit our Classes page.

Have a question? Contact Miner Library’s Answer Desk @ 585-275-3361.

Take your cadaver with you!

Miner Library has recently purchased Visible Body, a resource that has 3D, easily rotatable images, just like in the movies!  You can check out the skeleton, muscles, circulation system, physiology and many move amazing visual guides to the body.

 

Visible Body is available on the desktop or your mobile device.  There are five mobile apps available for the iPad and three for the Android device user.

 

There are great animations for providers to show their patients how the body functions and moves.  This resource is especially useful for medical, nursing, and dental students to help them understand the human body.

 

Even if you just need to know which muscles help you smile, check out Visible Body.

 

Any more questions?  Contact your librarian.  We are always here to help.

Getting the Most from EndNote

You already know that EndNote is a citation management tool.  It’s invaluable when it comes to organizing your research. Plus, it saves you tons of time creating your in-text citations and bibliographies.

But did you know that you can use EndNote to automatically download PDFs of full text articles available through our current subscriptions?  It is easy to set up and even easier to use.

•Select the Edit tab and then click on the option for Preferences… (For Mac users: Click on EndNote  in the toolbar and then click on Preferences.) 

•From the EndNote Preferences window select the Find Full Text tab on the left hand side

•In the OpenURL Path: field enter http://openurl.lib.rochester.edu/find and under the Authentic with: URL: field enter https://login.ezpminer.urmc.rochester.edu/login

•You can also check the box next to Automatically invoke Find Full Text on newly-imported references to have EndNote add the full text PDFs every time you import new results into your library

•To locate PDFs of the full text for an article, highlight the article(s) you want, select the References tab, and then click on Find Full Text…

•You will be prompted to enter either your NetID or URMC Active Directory credentials (you can use this feature from home without using VPN)

•You will notice notifications on the left hand side of EndNote of how many PDFs EndNote was able to locate under Find Full Text heading

•You will see a paperclip icon next to an entries that now have a full text PDF attached, you can access the PDF from the right hand side of the EndNote window

•Select the tab from the right hand panel with the title of the PDF and click on the Open PDF button to the left to open the PDF.

To learn more about EndNote sign up for one of our classes or schedule a meeting with Daniel Castillo (275-6873).

August 2017 Classes by Miner Library

Here are the classes offered by Miner Library for the upcoming month:

Blackboard Basics for Academic Courses including Residencies

Date: Tuesday, August 8, 2017 Time: 10:00am – 11:30am

Register

RefWorks Basics

Date: Tuesday, August 8, 2017 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Register

For a full list of Miner Library’s classes, visit our Classes page.

Have a question? Contact Miner Library’s Answer Desk @ 585-275-3361.

The Founding Fathers and Medicine

As we head into the July 4 holiday, we thought it would be interesting and fun to take a look at the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) and their interactions with medicine at their time. And, even how their influence extends into modern medicine.

George Washington

In December 1799, George Washington awoke in the early morning with pain and shortness of breath. Before the day was over, Washington was dead. What caused this otherwise healthy and active man’s death? Could it have been his doctors? For his ailment, Washington was treated with bloodletting and enemas (common treatments at the time).

PBS Newshour: The Agonizing Last Hours of George Washington

Washington Papers at the University of Virginia

National Constitution Center – The Mysterious Death of George Washington

Thomas Jefferson

According to Monticello’s Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, Jefferson was deeply interested, though skeptical, of medicine. Despite his skepticism, he was an early advocate smallpox inoculation. Also, he actively developed medical education, supported measures for public health, and encouraged scientific research supported by the government without policy intervention. Jefferson was known to suffer from chronic headaches early in his life and later on was bothered by rheumatism.

Monticello: Medicine Contributions of Thomas Medicine to American Medicine

John and Abigail Adams

In 1776 the American colonies were fighting more than the British. A horrendous smallpox epidemic was brutalizing the Boston area. At the time, the smallpox inoculation was highly controversial. Abigail Adams made the agonizing decision to have her four children inoculated against the deadly disease. All of the children had some reaction to the procedure, ranging from mild to an extensive eruption, yet everyone recovered. John Adams would go on to become the second president of the United States and their eldest son, John Quincy Adams, became the nation’s sixth president.

Abigail Adams, Smallpox, and the Spirit of 1776

Benjamin Franklin

Inventor, author, businessman, politician, diplomat and all-around visionary, Benjamin Franklin’s influence extended to medicine as well. Franklin had a role in the development of the first medical school in the United States. He understood how the common cold was passed from person to person. He correctly understood the nature of psoriasis and was aware of the placebo effect. He also identified the dangers of lead. Franklin put his innovative mind to work and devised a flexible urethral catheter.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1299336/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18447203

http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg62f

On exhibit @Miner: Mental Health Portraits by Charmaine Wheatley

Be honest.

What words came to your mind when you read the title of this exhibit?

Maybe gloomy, depressing, boring?

Well, get ready to be surprised.

Because the exhibit is intimate, playful, spontaneous, and colorful.

Charmaine Wheatley is artist-in-residence at University of Rochester Medical Center. Her goal is to shift perceptions around mental illness. Through her art, Charmaine encourages understanding and provides hope to those who struggle. No labels; no condemnations; no stigma.

Wheatley’s portraits are a breath of fresh air. Her work is informal and intuitive. Each drawing is a pocket-sized 4” x 7-3/8.” She uses watercolor, ink, gel pen, graphite, and gouache on paper.

“De-stigmatizing happens through humanizing,” says Wheatley. So each portrait sitting involves an open-hearted discussion about living with the challenges of mental illness. Fragments of conversations are integrated within the portrait to create the final piece.

Sitters include people from University of Rochester, Strong Ties, Strong Recovery, Creative Wellness Opportunities, and St. Joseph’s Neighborhood Center. They include people experiencing mental health challenges themselves, and/or professionals actively engaged in helping others, like psychiatrists, mental health activists, peer advocates, counselors, and nurses.

After July 1, 2017, Wheatley will shift her focus to the HIV/AIDS community of Rochester.

For more information about the project, visit bit.ly/cwartistinresidence.

About the artist: Since graduating from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Wheatley has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts; Arts Nova Scotia; and Arts Newfoundland Labrador. During her on-going artist residency at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, she sat in the “Living Room” with museum patrons and employees. An installation of 104 of these portraits is on the view at the museum. Recent related portrait work includes two artist residencies with senior centers in Brooklyn in 2016 (Krakus Senior Center in Greenpoint; and the Hope Gardens Community Center in Bushwick).

 

Edward G. Miner Library is open Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.