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Cindy -

I pasted in a message Betty Brown sent to us earlier this month.  It may at
least help you with primary sources having to do with the history of
medicine.  It is a little clunky to search -- depends what you want to do
with it.  But the images are fascinating.

Betty's message:

">From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2000.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
March 3, 2000 edition

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM)
http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/

On February 24, the National Library of Medicine announced that
approximately 60,000 rescanned images had been placed on the Images
from the History of Medicine Website (originally reviewed in the June
17, 1994 _Scout Report_). These new images have been scanned directly
from archival slides at a high (2700 dpi) resolution rate. Because of
the quality of these images, they have been watermarked. Users can
browse or search the image collection by keyword. Returns include a
large thumbnail image, author, title, and physical description.
Copyright and ordering information are provided at the site. [MD]


My observations:

The watermarks are visible, but don't get in the way.  It's a little like a
rainbow in the background.  I tried these a few keyword searches and got
interesting hits on all of them:
tuberculosis
operating rooms
midwife
Mathew Brady

The search help screens are pretty useful.  I noticed that phrase searching
(under keyword) is very literal.  For example, "operating room" as a
keyword retrieves no hits "operating rooms," however, retrieved 42.
Operating room* (with the asterisk for truncation) retrieved over 300
itmes. When in doubt on such things, use the browse tool; enter operating
room and you find that the phrases you should have searched include
"operating rooms."  The subject browse list for "operating room" is as
follows (number of entries, followed by subject term):
1      Operating Room Nursing
8      Operating room technicians.
36    Operating rooms.
(Hits #37-42 in the keyword search, above, must have picked the phrase up
somewhere other than the subject index.)

By the way, if you're ever at NIH in Bethesda, the History of Medicine
Division is a beautiful place.  Architectually, it's known for its stunning
floor.  I've seen an exhibit or two there which I found fascinating; but
that's just me.  Online, you might be interested in the HMD's exhibitions:
<http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/exhibition.html>.

Home page:
History of Medicine Division:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/hmd.html
National Library of Medicine:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nlmhome.html
National Institutes of Health
http://www.nih.gov/

Betty"


>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en] (Win95; I)
>Date:         Thu, 23 Mar 2000 12:40:34 -0700
>Reply-To: American Memory Fellows <[log in to unmask]>
>Sender: American Memory Fellows <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Cindy Stout <[log in to unmask]>
>Organization: Jefferson County Public Schools
>Subject:      Re: picture of Homer Plessy
>Comments: To: American Memory Fellows <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Carolyn,
>
>I don't know about a picture of Plessy, but the mandate of the Supreme
>Court to the Louisiana Supreme Court to deny Plessy's request to
>overturn the law can be found (along with background info and teaching
>strategies) in the Archives Teaching with Documents - Volume 1 pages
>69-72.  It also cites Records of the Supreme Court, RG 267, Plessy v.
>Ferguson, 163 #15248 as the location of the case records.
>
>Is there someone "out there" who can help me with my current dilemma?
>I'm looking for an archive of primary source documents having to do with
>science.  For example, one of the documents I do have describes 19th
>century understanding of body systems (digestive processes - "St.
>Martin's Stomach") and kids can compare that with what we know about
>digestion today.  Anyone have any ideas?
>
>Thanks.
>
>Cynthia Stout