The RCSI Heritage Collections were delighted to take part in the national
Explore Your Archives 2014 campaign. Two lectures were organised for local secondary school students and staff of the College. These lectures entitled 'Archives Breathe Lives into History' illustrated that archives house material belonging to unknown individuals who have been forgotten by history. Archival material can be pieced together to breathe live back into a person's legacy which has lain dormant for tens if not hundreds of years.
A prime example of this from the RCSI Heritage Collections is the Irish surgeon
William Wallace. Wallace was a controversial figure and because of his questionable methods in finding a cure for syphilis he was forgotten by the medical and historical worlds.
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| William Wallace |
But it's not only Wallace who is brought to life through his collection. It is also the patients he treated. In preparation for a medical atlas relating to venereal and skin disease Wallace asked artist to sketch the patients he treated in his hospital. Wallace kept a number of casebooks relating to these patients in which he recorded their name, occupation, ailment and treatment.
The two illustrations below are of a man called Peter Hackett. We can learn from Wallace's casebooks that Peter worked as a smith for a Mr. Mallett. He was married for 14 years at his time of admission to the hospital and had four children. Wallace then details the ailment that Peter had and the various treatments that were used to cure him. So instead of just seeing two inanimate medical illustrations below. Now you see Peter Hackett.
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| RCSI/IP/Wallace/2/1/1/1a |
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| RCSI/IP/Wallace/2/1/1/1b |
A modern day example of how archives can make historic material come to life is through the use of medical instruments, photographs, diaries, surgeons accounts in TV series and films. Researchers have to consult archives in order to re-create historically accurate and authentic time periods in which their TV series or film is to be set. The photo below is invaluable to such researchers. It shows not only an operation taking place in the Mater Hospital in Dublin in 1892. It also shows what type of uniform nurses wore in that hospital at that time, how the operating room was set up, what the surgeons wore, who was allowed in to observe the operation etc.
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| RCSI/IP/Dickson/3/4/3 |
Instruments from the RCSI Heritage Collections featured in Showtimes TV series
Penny Dreadful which was screened earlier this year. Another current TV series which uses archival material extensively is Cinemax's
The Knick.
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| The Knick TV show |
The Knick comes highly recommended by the RCSI Heritage Collections. But if blood makes you queasy it might be an idea to steer clear!
- Researched and written by Meadhbh Murphy
