Erica Reiner Bequest Enables Purchase of Rare Collection

The rare book collection of the Rush University Medical Center is being acquired by the University of Chicago, in a decision that reflects the historic connections between the two institutions. 

 

The acquisition is made possible by the bequest of Erica Reiner (1924-2005), the John A. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor Emerita in the University’s Oriental Institute, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and the Department of Linguistics, and Editor-in-Charge of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. Reiner, who began working on the dictionary in 1952 when she came to the University as a research assistant, specialized in Babylonian history of science, including medicine.

 

An affiliation between the University of Chicago and Rush Medical College was established in 1898; for nearly three decades the University was responsible for the first two years of preclinical training, with clinical training provided at Rush. When Billings Hospital opened in 1927, the University began to develop the clinical component of a medical school on campus, and the affiliation with Rush was terminated in 1941.

 

Comprising over 3,500 volumes dating from 1500 through the mid-20^th-century, the collection includes nearly 500 rare titles printed before 1800. The most represented author in the collection is Hippocrates, editions of whose works were very popular through the 18^th century; many early editions of the works of Galen are also present, including 1531, 1549 and 1561-2 editions.

The collection will be known as the Stanton A. Friedberg M.D. Rare Book Collection of Rush University Medical Center at the University of Chicago. Books relating to otorhinolaryngology (diagnosis and treatment of the ear, nose, throat and neck), Dr. Stanton A. Friedberg’s medical specialty, and infectious diseases, in particular mid-19^th century European cholera epidemics, are areas of particular strength.

 

The earliest book in the collection is a bound volume of two works by the Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino:  De Christiana religione ad Laurentiu [m] Medicem opus aureum (1500) and Opuscula (1503). Other important works from the 16^th century include Pietro Mattioli, Commentarii (1554), an early medical botanical with hand-colored woodcut illustrations; Gaspare Tagliacozzi, De curtorum chirugia (1597), the first work on plastic surgery, with the extra engraved title page; and an intact, 1660 anatomical “flap” book, Johann Remmelin’s Catoptrum microcosmicum.  

 

A highlight of the collection is the first edition of Andreas Vesalius’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1543) in a contemporary binding dated 1581. The collection also includes the first edition of the translation of Vesalius’s work into German, Anatomia Deudsch (Nurnberg: Jul. Paolo Fabricio, 1551), and the Bremer Press 1934 edition, Icones anatomicae, which used the 1548 second edition woodblocks, which were destroyed in World War II.

 

The history of medicine collections have been a focus at the University of Chicago since the early 20^th century; these materials are used extensively by historians of science and medicine, art historians, and cultural historians. During the 20^th century, gifts from the collections of Chicago physician and scholar Dr. Mortimer Frank, who translated a classic book on anatomical illustration, and Chicago collector Joseph Halle Schaffner expanded this substantial core.

 

The University of Chicago’s archival collections include professional papers of physicians and medical researchers associated both with the University and Rush, including James B. Herrick, Charles Huggins, Leon Jacobson, Ralph S. Lillie, Franklin McLean, Howard Ricketts, and Nicholas Senn, as well as administrative records relating to the University of Chicago’s medical school. The papers of physician, editor, and writer Morris Fishbein, a University of Chicago and Rush Medical College graduate, are another example of the interlocking relationships between the two institutions reflected in the collections.

 

With the merger of the University of Chicago and the formerly independent John Crerar Library in the early 1980s, many rare books and the professional papers of Chicago physicians and the archives of Chicago medical organizations came to the University of Chicago Library. These accessions further deepened the documentation in the University of Chicago’s collection of personal, professional, and institutional connections between the University of Chicago and the Rush University Medical Center.

 

Stanton A. Friedberg received his M.D. from the University of Chicago in 1934. Dr. Friedberg and his wife, Martha Friedberg, a poet, were longtime friends of the University of Chicago and donated books from Dr. Friedberg’s library to the University of Chicago.

 

The collection will be available to University of Chicago students, faculty and staff;  members of the Rush University Medical Center community; and other interested researchers who wish to study the history of medicine and the relationships between these institutions and the individuals who built and were associated with them.

 

Processing of the collection will begin immediately, and items will be available through the Library’s catalog or Lens as they are cataloged. If you are interested in specific titles, authors or subjects, please contact Alice Schreyer, Director, Special Collections Research Center; or Andrea Twiss-Brooks, Co-Director, Science Libraries, University of Chicago Library.

 

 Image of Erica Reiner from the Archival Photographic Files, University of Chicago Library

 

 

Comments

[Heather Malec]

This is great news. As an FYI, Dr. Friedberg divided his collections between the Newberry Library and Rush. If you would like more information about the books and other material at the Newberry Library in Chicago, please contact our reference desk at (312) 255-3506 or reference@newberry.org. Thanks!

[Robert J. Richards]

Erica Reiner was a marvelous scholar and a devoted professor at Chicago. This gift is a fitting tribute to her memory. The collection will be extremely useful for the historians of medicine at the University.

[comment system]

Thanks for the fascinating post, I am studying medical history and your post gave me a very interesting idea for a work for one of my courses in the university.