Harvey Cushing's Oxalis: the Cushing Center at Yale University. (September 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Spencer, Dennis D.
• Is Part Of: Interdisciplinary science reviews. Volume 38:Number 3(2013:Sep.)
• Page Start: 210
• Page End: 221
• Publication Date: 2013-09
• Subjects: Henry Cushing, -- Yale Cushing Center, -- neuroscience, -- medical library, -- Christopher Wahl, -- neurosurgery; Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals; 505
• DOI: 10.1179/0308018813Z.00000000053
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0308-0188

Abstract

Abstract : This article explores the changing roles, contexts and meanings of the collections bequeathed by the pioneering neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing (1869–1939) to Yale University. The legacy includes not only Cushing's famous library of rare medical books, but also his 'registry' of thousands of clinical photographic portraits and the preserved brains of former patients. The latter items went largely neglected until the 1990s, when clinicians and scholars began seriously to re-evaluate and restore them to the heart of the Yale Medical Library. This account, edited from the text of a celebratory lecture by Dennis D. Spencer, Chair of Neurosurgery at Yale University, discusses the value of the collections firstly to Cushing's disposition, research and surgical practice; and secondly as the basis of a curatorial and architectural project, culminating in the opening of the Cushing Center at Yale Medical Library in 2010, where they are now displayed.