Items

Title: Chocolat de l'Abbaye d'Igny
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising chocolate manufactured in France.
Subjects (LC): Surgery
Manufacturer: Chocolat de l'Abbaye d'Igny
Language: French
ID: WH219
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Lawrence and Martin's Tolu
Manufacturer: [Lawrence and Martin], [s.l.]
Language: English
ID: WH293
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Everybody says the Botanical Preparations are the Best
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising herbal remedies produced by the Excelsior Botanical Company.
Subjects (LC): Children playing
Manufacturer: Excelsior Botanical Co. (Boonville (N.Y.))
Language: English
ID: WH263
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: A Simple Catechism [from verso]
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Slaven's Effervescent Fruit Salt, a remedy for digestive ailments.
Subjects (LC): Dolls, Monocles, Top hats
Language: English
ID: WH353
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: H.R. Steven's Family Balsam
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Familine, a cure-all remedy.
Subjects (LC): Roses
Manufacturer: H.R. Stevens (Boston (Mass.))
Language: English
ID: WH265
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Nature's Pleasant Laxative
Description: Folded trade card printed on two sides advertising Syrup as Figs as a laxative. Edges are decoratively trimmed.
Subjects (LC): Fig trees, Harvesting, Orchards
Manufacturer: California Fig Syrup Co (San Francisco (Calif.))
Language: English
ID: WH242
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title

Recipes and Remedies: Manuscript Cookbooks

Description

The Library holds about 40 manuscript receipt books in its collections. Many of the manuscripts contain a combination of culinary recipes, home remedies, and recipes for things like cosmetics and substances that would be used to accomplish general household tasks such as cleaning and polishing. Others are solely medical, containing formularies for the compounding of various remedies. This digital collection contains eleven English-language manuscript receipt books that were compiled between the seventeenth and the late nineteenth centuries in which the majority of the collected recipes are culinary in nature, but many recipes for home remedies are discoverable here as well.

Funding for the conservation and cataloging of the 31 culinary manuscripts was provided by the Pine Tree Foundation in 2012. Funding for the digitization of this group of English-language manuscripts was provided by the Pine Tree Foundation in 2019.

READ MORE ABOUT THE MANUSCRIPTS →

Title: Educational Materials

Title: Horsford's Acid Phosphate
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Horsford's Acid Phosphate "for mental and physical exhaustion, dyspepsia, etc."
Subjects (LC): Accordions, Children dancing
Manufacturer: Rumford Chemical Works (Providence (R.I.))
Language: English
ID: WH276
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: This Brief Notice May Save Long Illness, Suffering, and Expense [from verso]
Description: Illustration of religious edifice near bridge; floral nosegay at border.
Subjects (LC): Birds, Castles and palaces, Flowers, Snow, Winter
Manufacturer: E. Hartshorn & Sons, [s.l.]
Language: English
ID: WH274
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: One Month Doesn't Make a Summer
Description: This postcard states that "731 babies [were] saved in July," and reproduces excerpts from the August 2, 1911 editions of the New York Globe, the New York Herald, the New York American, and the New York World to remind readers that the reduction in infant mortality must be continued in August. On the back, an illustration of a healthy baby accompanies quotations advising readers about "what can be done" to help babies and reminding them that "while there's care there's hope."
Subjects (LC): Infants, Mortality, Summer, Nutrition, Weather, Health, Municipal government, Statistics, Statistics, Milk
ID: mk1e008
Collection: New York Milk Committee Ephemera Collection

Title: Invalid Ladies This Is For You [from verso]
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Burdock Blood Bitters as a remedy for diseases of womanhood.
Subjects (LC): Boats, Bridges, Rivers
Manufacturer: Foster, Milburn & Co. (Buffalo (N.Y.))
Language: English
ID: WH239
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: I Don't
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising un-named medicine [laxative?]. Poem on verso.
Subjects (LC): Children, Children crying
Manufacturer: Dr. Harter Medicine Co. (St. Louis (Mo.))
Language: English
ID: WH273
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Anatomy and Surgery
Description: A collection of texts on anatomy and surgery, covering the anatomical atlas, anatomical proportions, illustrations of the arteries, surgical procedures, and treatment of head wounds.

Title: La Tisane Cisbey [from verso]
Description: Trade card printed on two sides advertising Tisane Cisbey as a remedy for digestive ailments and skin disease.
Subjects (LC): Castles and palaces
Manufacturer: Laboratoire Cisbey (Paris (France))
Language: French
ID: WH248
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title: Dirt in Loose Milk Shops
Description: This postcard produced by the New York Milk Committe's Committee for the Reduction of Infant Mortality reprints a July 26, 1911 NY Evening Post article entitled, "Dirt in Loose-Milk Shops." The article recounts the findings of the Committee's investigations, in coordination with the New York City Department of Health, into the bacterial contamination of milk sold in bulk. On the postcard verso a photo of sickly baby fed on contaminated milk is contrasted with the photo of a healthy baby under the question,"Is It Worth the Difference?"
Subjects (LC): Milk, Food adulteration and inspection, Infants, Milk hygiene, Food contamination, Food spoilage
ID: mk1e013
Geographic Subject: New York. New York City.
Collection: New York Milk Committee Ephemera Collection

Title

Carte de Visite Collection

Description

The collection consists of 223 late 19th and early 20th century photographs of national and international figures in medicine and public health. It was digitized by the Metropolitan New York Library Council's (METRO) Culture in Transit project and is part of the Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York (DCMNY) website.

This collection contains portraits both of lesser known individuals and of famous New York physicians, such as Abraham Jacobi, Lewis Albert Sayre, Willard Parker, Stephen Smith, Emily Blackwell, and Valentine Mott, as well as of many with international reputations: Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur, Hermann von Helmholtz, Rudolf Virchow, and others. New York photographers took a number of the photographs; others were created by the New York offices of such establishments as Mathew Brady, as well as by photographers in Paris, Berlin, and London.

EXPLORE COLLECTION ON DCMNY →

Title: Les Veillées—La Soirée Musicale
Description: Trade card featuring druggist John H. Sheehan & Co. featuring five formally-dressed figures playing music in a well-furnished house. One girl is playing the piano while another figure plays a stringed instrument. There are flowers in blue vases atop the piano. The back lists the company advertised and its address.
Subjects (LC): Advertising, Bows, Children, Children's Clothing, Costume, Domestic Scenes, Ethnic Costume, Fans, Flower Vases, Flowers, Girls, Musical Instruments, Piano Ensembles, Ribbons, Rugs, Stringed Instruments
ID: WH210
Collection: William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards

Title

Tabulae Selectae

Description

The Tabula Selectae, a portfolio of 40 loose plates, illustrates the human skeleton and muscular system through Andreas Vesalius’s iconic skeletons, muscle men, and flayed men. The plates are from Vesalius’s anatomical atlas, De humani corporis Fabrica, which was originally published in 1543. The illustrations come from 227 original wood blocks that were re-discovered at the University of Munich’s library in 1932. However, during a bombing in 1944, these wood blocks were destroyed, making this item very rare. They are all approximately 56.6 centimeters high by 41.9 centimeters wide

LIBRARY DIGITAL COLLECTIONS & EXHIBITS

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