Medical Collections Not for the Faint of Heart

Earlier this year my peers and I in the Public History program had the opportunity to examine UWO's Medical Artifact Collection under the instruction of Dr. Michelle A. Hamilton. As all of us can attest, this collection was equal parts fascinating and grotesque; it was amazing to be able to get our (gloved) hands on 19th century medical artifacts and learn how to handle and examine them as true historians and/or museum curators would, but I'm sure few of us can forget the dried blood that remained on the blades of some of the saws and scalpels, even after nearly a century of disuse.

In my position this summer as the Archives Assistant at the Sunnybrook Health Science Centre Archives my first task was to catalogue all of the archive' s photographic holdings. The majority of the collection consisted of aerial views, interior and exterior shots of the hospital under construction and various departments, equipment and staff from the 1970s. To be honest, for the most part the photos were a bit of a snooze. Thankfully, every once in a while there was a photographic gem (like the black and white shot from the 1940s of an Italian prisoner of war who was undergoing physiotherapy after having one of his legs amputated from the knee down) to keep things interesting.

This week, however, I've moved on to cataloguing the archive's Medical Art Collection. While this means a fair bit of wading through past hospital brochures and stationary layouts for printers, it also means discovering some really beautiful and detailed anatomical sketches that were originally commissioned from the hospital's Art Department by doctors for teaching or learning purposes.

My favourite find so far - hands down - is the file of facial sketches that were done for a doctor that was about to undertake reconstructive surgery of a patient's nose. The file contains various reference materials (e.g. Polaroid's of a human skull, anatomical sketches from a textbook of the underlying structure of muscles, veins, etc. in a human face, and photographs of the actual patient before surgery). The artist then used those items to complete a series of sketches of the patient himself, what the patient's skull structure likely looked like and what certain nerve systems, veins and/or arteries looked like. The artist then layered all of these sketches over each other to complete a final sketch of the patient which showed all of these different parts in relation to each other.

After the drawings were complete, the doctor who had commissioned the sketches then added his own notes about the surgery overtop of them, indicating where arteries and veins were layered closely together, where certain systems were buried under deeper layers of tissue and cautioning himself to not "put the incision too close to the margin of [the] nostril."

As the title of this blog posts suggests, the final pieces of the file were considerably more graphic than pen and ink sketches and doctor's surgical notes and definitely not for the faint of heart or the squeemish: included in the file were photographs of the patient taken during the procedure when part of his nose had been removed and immediately post-op when stitches and bruising were evident.

To see the artist's process from beginning to end was fascinating enough on its own, but then it was also really neat to see evidence of the use to which the sketch was put. It definitely added another layer to my appreciation of medical art and how items from the archives could/should be used to educate and engage the public at the hospital. With its combination of art, education and enough of the "grotesque" to fascinate without sensationalizing or exploiting the patient (sometimes a thin line for the public historian to walk), the file in its entirety would make an excellent exhibit for one of the hospital's display cases. In fact, this might be exactly the type of public history-related project that I suggest to my supervisor that I take on by the end of the summer.

We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

[Note: Artwork by P. Cunningham, posted with permission from the Sunnybrook Archives]

Toronto Opens Its Doors

Last weekend 150 buildings of architectural, historic, cultural and/or social significance in the City of Toronto open their doors to the public for their 11th Annual Doors Open Toronto event. This year’s theme revolved around architecture within the city and offered the public a number of opportunities to focus their attention on the craftsmanship of some truly extraordinary local buildings and historic sites. And, if my own sore feet and sunburned head are any indication of the kind of time that everyone else had, I’d say that this year’s event was a rousing success.

In past years I’ve participated in Doors Open events solely as a spectator; clutching the Toronto Star Program Guide in one hand, I’ve targeted an area of the city with plenty of properties within walking distance of each other and set off (usually by myself) to enjoy a day of free sight-seeing, something people rarely take time to do in their own backyard.

This year, however, was a little different than most. As part of my internship with the Ontario Jewish Archives, I volunteered to help out at the OJA’s Doors Open Toronto site, the Pape Avenue Cemetery.

Established by Judah Joseph and Abraham Nordheimer in 1849 on a ½ acre of land on what was then Centre Street, the Pape Avenue Cemetery was Toronto’s first Jewish cemetery. As such, it is the final resting place of a number of the city’s first and most prominent Jewish residents, including Judah Joseph’s own son, whose illness first prompted Joseph and Nordheimer to seek out a more local Jewish burial site (in the 1840s the closest Jewish cemeteries were in Montreal and Buffalo, nearly a full day away by horse and buggy). Unfortunately, over the years many of the cemetery’s early stones, including the one for Joseph’s son, have toppled over and sunk into the ground so that they are no longer visible.

Due to space restrictions in the city, the cemetery was closed to new burials in the 1950s. Since then, the beautiful iron gates which lead to the property have rarely been open to anyone other than the property’s Christian caretaker and a thick cover of ivy on the gates have kept even the most curious Toronto resident from being able to sneak a peek. This year’s Doors Open event marked the first time in decades that the cemetery was open to the general public and as such generated quite a large interest from the public (a mention in both the Globe and Mail and the National Post as a site of special interest didn’t hurt either, I’d assume).

While a number of Doors Open sites allow the visitor to wander freely or provide them with a pamphlet of some sort, Ellen Scheinberg, Director of the OJA and one of my internship coordinators this summer, instead chose to organize a 15 minute tour of the site for visitors. This allowed members of the public to interact directly with or ask questions of knowledgeable volunteers and members of Toronto’s Jewish Community, including a representative of the Holy Blossom Synagogue (which is responsible for the site) and Susan Brown, a local artist and art teacher who was able to speak about the significance and history of the carvings on the headstones.

Throughout the day, my main role was to act as a gopher, helping to register visitors to the site, have them sign legal waivers before they could enter the cemetery and then organize them into manageable tour groups for the guides.

Although my role was a supporting one, it was very interesting to observe and talk to members of the public that came to this event. Through this, I was able to get a feel for the type of people in Toronto that are interested in local history and heritage, especially with that which is specific to the city’s Jewish community. As well, I was able to sit back and notice the types of people who were missing from the cross-section of visitors (mainly twenty-somethings) and think about ways for the Ontario Jewish Archives to engage this section of the population in future events. Finally, the event also exposed me to the realities of running this type of initiative and all of the work that most go into it months in advance in order to ensure that it is successful.

It was a long, scorching hot day, but a fun one nonetheless. I definitely can’t wait to do it again next year!