Rare Books and Journals 
Columbia University Medical Center Archives Personal Papers & Manuscripts Photographs & Prints Auchincloss Florence Nightingale Collection Freud Library Jerome Webster Library of Plastic Surgery
Columbia University Medical Center Archives Personal Papers & Manuscripts Photographs & Prints Auchincloss Florence Nightingale Collection Freud Library Jerome Webster Library of Plastic Surgery
Lena and Louis Hyman Collection in the History of Anesthesiology
Hyman Collection Finding Aid
With close to 150 titles from the 18th through the mid-20th century, the Lena and Louis Hyman Collection in the History of Anesthesiology is a major source for the documentation of this relatively new medical specialty. Highlights include landmark works by Claude Bernard, Henry Bigelow, Johann Dieffenbach, and other important figures in the field. The Collection also holds such rare works as Nicolas Berend's pioneering report on chloroform deaths, Zur Chloroform-Casuistik (1850), and an early student thesis on anesthesia, Charles Delacour's De l'Analgesie, submitted to the Faculty of Medicine at Paris in 1850.
The Hyman Collection is particularly strong in materials relating to the dispute among William T.G. Morton, Horace Wells, Crawford Long, and Charles Jackson over claims to the discovery of ether anesthesia. Statements from all the participants or their partisans and a wealth of congressional reports regarding the dispute make the Collection an important historical source for the history of this tangled and contentious issue.
As of Spring, 2001, the Hyman Collection was not included in CLIO, the library's on-line catalog. An annotated title list can be found in the Finding Aids section of the Archives & Special Collections web site. All items in the Hyman Collection are non-circulating and may only be used in the department's Geraldine McAlpin Webster Reading Room.
Dr. Allen I. Hyman, Emeritus Professor of Anesthesiology at the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, and former Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at Columbia -Presbyterian Medical Center, donated the Hyman Collection to Archives and Special Collections in October 1982 in memory of his parents. The collection continues to grow through generous donations by Dr. Hyman.
| Library Home |
 |
| Archives Home | |
| About | |
| Collections | |
| Finding Aids | |
| Columbia University Medical Center History |
|
| Databases | |
| Gallery & Online Exhibits | |
