The Child Amputee in Post-World War II America

September 26, 2023, 6-7:15pm Eastern Time

~ Annual Ravitch Lecture ~

Lisa Joy Pruitt, PhD (Middle Tennessee State University)

Dr. Lisa Joy Pruitt, PhD (Middle Tennessee University), will give the Annual Ravitch Lecture to kick off the C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society's 40th lecture season. Before 1945, the standard of care for child amputees and/or those with congenital limb differences was to delay treatment and rehabilitation when possible or otherwise to cope with surgical procedures and prosthetic limbs designed for adults. After 1945, practitioners coordinated their efforts, revolutionized the rehabilitation of child amputees, and profoundly influenced the development of pediatric prosthetics.

This talk is free and open to the public. To get the Zoom link, please email cfreynoldsmhs@gmail.com.

Image description: The first panel of the comic strip reads, "Do Not." In the second panel, a man with light skin and short black hair wearing hospital pajamas lies on a bed with his left leg bent over the edge; his left foot has been amputated. The text reads "...hang stump over bed." In the third panel a similar man is reading a newspaper. The text reads, "...sit in wheelchair with stump flexed." The image comes from A.B. Wilson, Jr., "Limb Prosthetics Today," Artificial Limbs 7 (1963): 1-42, page 13.

Announcing the 40th Lecture Season!

C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society

40th Lecture Season (2023-2024)

“The Child Amputee in Post-World War II America”

September 26, 2023, 6-7:15pm Eastern Time ~ Annual Ravitch Lecture ~
Lisa Joy Pruitt, PhD (Middle Tennessee State University)

Before 1945, the standard of care for child amputees and/or those with congenital limb differences was to delay treatment and rehabilitation when possible or otherwise to cope with surgical procedures and prosthetic limbs designed for adults. After 1945, practitioners coordinated their efforts, revolutionized the rehabilitation of child amputees, and profoundly influenced the development of pediatric prosthetics.

40th Annual Nursing & Health Care History Conference

American Association for the History of Nursing (AAHN)

September 28-30, 2023, at the Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh Downtown

Patricia D’Antonio, PhD, RN, FAAN (Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania) with be the keynote speaker. The Reynolds Society is a sponsor, and volunteers are needed. Email us or the AAHN.

Day trip to the Donora Smog Museum

Saturday, October 28, 2023, 10am-2pm

Join us to recognize the 75th anniversary of the thermal inversion that killed 21 people in 1948 and birthed the modern environmental movement. Please RSVP no later than October 20. Attendance and parking are free, but donations to this small-town operation are accepted. We will carpool down from Pittsburgh and plan to eat lunch at the Early Bird Diner afterward (you pay for lunch). The museum is wheelchair accessible, although the large bathroom does not have handrails.

“Putting Science to Work: Women Healers and

the Pursuit of Medical Knowledge in Early Pennsylvania”
November 14, 2023, 6-7:15pm Eastern Time ~ Sylvan E. Stool Memorial Lecture

Susan H. Brandt, PhD (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs)

The history of women physicians in the United States often begins with the 1850 founding of the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia. However, mid-19th-century women physicians merely continued the legacies of other women healers from earlier centuries. In this talk based on her book, Women Healers: Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia (2022), Susan Brandt argues that women not only were essential health care providers but also were on the frontlines of scientific knowledge production.

January 23, 2024 ~ University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health Lecture, speaker TBA
The annual C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society business meeting will happen at this meeting, which we hope to hold in person for the first time since before the pandemic. It will also be live-streamed. We are currently seeking candidates for the position of Vice President; please email us if you are interested.

“Accompanying History: The Journey to Undocumented Physicians”

February 20, 2024, 6-7:15pm Eastern Time ~ John Erlen Lecture

Mark G. Kuczewski, PhD, HEC-C (Loyola University Chicago)

Medical history and bioethics are siblings under the rubric of “health humanities.” For this lecture, Dr. Kuczewski will explore the history of undocumented healers in the United States. He has been engaged in bedside clinical ethics issues for more than 25 years. For the last decade, he has also been an articulate spokesperson for the just and equitable treatment of immigrant patients, medical students, and clinicians.  At noon, Dr. Kuczewski will present a Grand Rounds entitled “Caring for Immigrant Patients: Clinical and Institutional Challenges” to the University of Pittsburgh Department of Medicine. 

“Forming the Modern Physician: Gender, Race, and Science

in Early Twentieth-Century Medical School Design”

April 2, 2024, 6-7:15pm Eastern Time ~ Inaugural Michaels Lecture ~

Katherine L. Carroll, PhD (Independent Scholar)

Architectural historian Dr. Carroll has presented widely on medical school design and the intertwined ways in which the built environment influences scientific culture, as well as the ways in which cultural and social priorities affect building choices. As the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine celebrates the one-year anniversary of the opening of the new West Wing of Scaife Hall, tune in to hear thoughtful commentary about how past schools have made other choices.

All lectures will be streamed online from 6-7:15pm Eastern Time via Zoom, hosted by the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC). You do not need a special account or application to join the free live stream. The easiest way to get both a reminder and the link is to join our e-mailing list. If the speaker agrees, the event will be recorded and shared via email and our website. Please share widely!

HAPPY 40th lecture season to the REYNOLDS SOCIETY! Consider increasing your donation this year to the round number of $40 so that we can continue to bring you fascinating content. Otherwise, annual membership is $10 for trainees and $25 for everyone else. Dues support speaker honoraria and can be paid online (Venmo or Square) or via snail-mail to Adam Davis, 327 Four Mile Run Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15207. If you are unsure whether you have already paid your dues this calendar year, simply email to inquire. 

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.

Freedom House Ambulance Service: A Conversation

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

6-7:15pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)

~ Ravitch Lecture ~

Click here for the recording

Phil Hallen

President Emeritus, Maurice Falk Foundation

Matthew L. Edwards, MD

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Stanford University School of Medicine

In 1968, the Freedom House Ambulance Service began offering pre-hospital care to the Hill District and other neighborhoods in Pittsburgh where the police wouldn't even do a "scoop and run" to take patients to the hospital. These first paramedics not only provided transportation but also expert pre-hospital medical care that became a model for the nation. After we watch WQED's documentary Freedom House Ambulance: The FIRST Responders, Mr. Hallen and clinician-historian Dr. Edwards will discuss this seminal contribution of Black Americans to modern healthcare.

Emblem from http://freedomhousedoc.com/

See Dr. Edwards' website for a Curriculum Vitae and current work.

This lecture is free and open to public. Please email cfreynoldsmhs@gmail.com to receive the Zoom link. Donations toward the speakers' honoraria are gratefully appreciated.

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its generous support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world. 

The Edge of Silence: A History of Fanciful Deafness Fads

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

12-1pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)

~ Department of Medicine Grand Rounds ~

Jaipreet Virdi, PhD

Assistant Professor of History, University of Delaware

Healing fads thrive on spectacle and fascination, fueled by the media’s obsession with sensational stories and charismatic celebrities undergoing extraordinary treatments. These fads promise a cure and promote the belief that no matter how implausible or dangerous, any cure for a stigmatized condition is worthwhile if it can promise hope. This talk focuses on the history of twentieth-century medical fads for deafness that obtained legitimacy within American medical circles, including magnetism, chiropractic adjustment, and osteopathy. By appealing to the emotional vulnerability of patients and offering optimism, these fads gained prominence—even when their benefits fell short of expected outcomes. Contact Tiffany Rocco (roccotp@upmc.edu) if you would like to attend.

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

6-7:15pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)

~ Reynolds Society Lecture ~

Recording of evening lecture

In the evening, Professor Virdi presented "Negotiating Normalcy: Deafness Cures in American History," based on her book, Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History (University of Chicago, 2020). She is a specialist in the history of medicine, disability studies, and the history of technologies such as hearing aids. See her website for a Curriculum Vitae and current work.

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its generous support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world. 

The Events Surrounding the Death of Mozart

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

6-7:15pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Eugene Myers, MD

Distinguished Professor and Emeritus Chair, Otolaryngology, Dental Medicine, & OMFS, University of Pittsburgh

AND President of Pittsburgh Festival Opera

This is the link with the recording of the Zoom live-stream, 

including the business meeting and the Q&A session.

This is the link purely to Dr. Myers' lecture, 

complete with musical soundtrack.

Following the untimely death of the famous Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the age of 35 (1756-1791), doctors have been obsessed with determining what caused his death. At last count there were 130 postmortem diagnoses in the medical literature. A week after Mozart's death, a Berlin newspaper falsely reported that he had been poisoned. This notion that Antonio Salieri (1750-1835), the Court composer, was jealous of Mozart's superior musical output and poisoned him was further promoted by the wonderful movie Amadeus (1984).* My lecture will recount a bit of Mozart's life and include excerpts of his music played by pianist Michael Hammer, but the primary focus will be about the events surrounding his death. I hope will absolve Salieri of poisoning Mozart.

This lecture is free and open to public. Please email cfreynoldsmhs@gmail.com to receive the Zoom link. Donations toward the speaker's honorarium are gratefully appreciated.

* The movie is based on a play by Peter Shaffer (1979), which is based on an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1897), which is based on a play by Alexander Pushkin (1830).

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its generous support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world. 

Jim Crow in the Asylum: Psychiatry and Civil Rights in the American South

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

6-7:15pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Click here for the recording

~ Sylvan E. Stool Memorial Lecture ~

Kylie M. Smith, BA, PhD

Associate Professor and Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow for Nursing & the Humanities

at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing

AND Associate Faculty in Department of History, Emory University

Psychiatric hospitals in the United States have always functioned as spaces of both custody and care. In the mid 20th century legislation was passed in an attempt to improve conditions and treatment practices for patients, but these developments were delayed in the South due to an insistence on racial segregation. In this talk, I draw on extensive archival sources from my book in progress to show the ways that Southern psychiatric hospitals in the mid twentieth century had become home to many thousands of Black patients with mental and physical disability, where treatment and care was custodial at best, violent and abusive at worst. Yet these hospitals were also the scene of important Civil Rights activism in the 1960s which revealed the ways that psychiatry functioned as a tool of white supremacy. This activism led to the end of segregation, but could not fix the racism that underpins the provision of mental health and disability care today. 

This project is funded by the G13 Grant from the National Library of Medicine and will be published by UNC Press in 2024.

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its generous support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.

Image is a colored wood engraving of a large, old-fashioned white building with many windows set behind a grassy lawn with trees. An American flag flies from the roof in a blue sky with white clouds. Two women with hoop skirts and parasols walk in the foreground. It is labeled "Bloomingdale Asylum (Lunatic). / A Department of the New York Hospital." Bloomingdale operated 1821-1899. Image courtesy Wellcome Images.

Rachel Carson: A Pioneer for Science-based Policy Connecting Environment and Health

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

6-7:15pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)

~ University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health Lecture ~

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECORDING

Patricia DeMarco, PhD

Senior Scholar and Adjunct Faculty, Chatham University

AND Vice President of the Forest Hills Borough Council

In one of the last public speeches of her life, Rachel Carson addressed the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Permanente Medical Group in San Francisco. Her thoughts on that occasion resonate today with even more clarity, as much that she feared in 1963 has become our reality. In that speech “On the Pollution of Our Environment” she said, “In spite of the truly marvelous inventiveness of the human brain, we are beginning to wonder whether our power to change the face of nature should not have been tempered with wisdom, for our own good, and with a greater sense of responsibility for the welfare of generations to come.” Carson used her knowledge of science and her early understanding of the interconnectedness of all living things to advocate for policy based on science. The challenges we are facing today can be addressed by recognizing that the laws of Nature are not negotiable. We must adjust our laws and our ways of interacting with the living earth and each other to align more closely to accommodate the laws of chemistry, physics, physiology, and ecology. 

Dr. Demarco is the author of Pathways to Our Sustainable Future – A Global Perspective from Pittsburgh (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017). See her website for a Curriculum Vitae and current work.

Donations toward the speaker's honorarium are gratefully appreciated.

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its generous support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.