Two of the Winkler Center’s oldest books

by Alex Bádue

The Winkler Center possesses a vast collection of primary sources that include monographs on every branch of medicine and the history of medicine in Cincinnati and in the United States. The scope of these rare books also go beyond medical topics and American borders.  Two of these books date back to seventeenth-century Europe, marking some of the oldest books in the Winkler Center primary collection. In their own time, each of these books introduced groundbreaking content that planted the seeds for subsequent development in their respective areas.

Two of the oldest books in the Winkler Center: Carre's Pietas Parisiensis to the left, and Ciucci's Il Filo D'Arianna to the right

Two of the oldest books in the Winkler Center: Thomas Carre’s Pietas Parisiensis (1666) to the left, and Filippo Ciucci’s Il Filo D’Arianna (1682) to the right.

Thomas Carre’s Pietas Parisiensis, Or A Short Description of the Pietie and Charitie Comonly Exercised in Paris, Which Represents in Short the Pious Practices of the Whole Catholike Church  was published in Paris in 1666. Carre (1599-1674) was an English Catholic priest who lived in France for most of his life and spoke French fluently. Most of his output concerns the topic of spirituality, and he was the first to translate into English several books and treatises by major seventeenth-century French spiritual writers, such as those by Jean-Pierre Camus (1584-1652) and Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642), whom Carre knew personally. Carre also worked closely with Richard Smith (1568-1655), Bishop of Chalcedon, the second Bishop of England after Catholicism was banned in 1599. Smith moved to Paris in 1609 where he, too, met Richelieu and lived until his death. In Pietas Parisienses, Carre relates Bishop Smith’s work in aiding the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris. Carre provides a unique description of Parisian life in the seventh century and an account of the religious practices and charity in Paris, which the author believed should have been a model for English Catholics.

Cover page Pietas

Cover page of Thomas Carre’s Pietas Parisiensis.

 

Carre’s real name was Miles Pinkney. He was baptized in the Church of England, but reconciled to the Catholic Church as a teenager.  He started using the alias Thomas Carre in 1618, when he entered the English College at Douai (in Northern France). He moved to Paris in 1634, where with Richelieu and Bishop Smith, he oversaw the growth of an English-Catholic community.

 

Antonio Filippo Ciucci (who died in 1710) was and Italian physician of the seventeenth century. He published his book Il Filo D’Arianna in the city of Macerata, Italy, in 1682. This was one of the first treatises on forensic toxicology, i.e., the use of science for criminal and civil laws. This book is also considered the first treatise of legal medicine written in a secular language (ancient Italian) and not in Latin. Its content features original points regarding poisoning diagnosis, which were later furthered by other scientists and toxicologists.

Cover page Filo

Cover page of Filippo Ciucci’s Il Filo D’Arianna.

 

The first part of the book’s long title translates to “The Thread of Ariadne, Or a True Faithfull Provision to Those who Exercise Surgery to Come Out of the Labyrinth of the Relations and Reconnaissance of Various Diseases and Deaths.” In Ancient Greek mythology, Minos, King of Crete, put his daughter Ariadne in charge of the labyrinth where sacrifices were made in honor of greater Gods, such as Poseidon and Athena. Ariadne fell in love with Theseus when he volunteered to kill the labyrinth’s Minotaur. She gave him a sword and a ball of thread so that he could find his way out of the labyrinth. Ciucci believed that his treatise provided enough information and resources for investigators, lawyers, and physicians to solve complicated crime scenes the same way that Ariadne’s thread successfully helped Theseus in his endeavor.

Free NCBI Training Workshop Series

The Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library of the University of Cincinnati is partnering with The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) to bring a series of workshops to educate researchers on a number of database housed within the NCBI domain.

The workshops will be held November 8th-10th 2016 in Kresge Auditorium in the College of Medicine. Each workshop will be 3  hours long and will be facilitated by NCBI experts and trainers.

Workshop topics include:

  1. Practical Guide to NCBI Blast
  2. Accessing Genomes, Assemblies and Annotation Products
  3. Accessing NCBI Human Variation and Medical Genetics Resources
  4. Exploring Gene Expression Information at the NCBI
  5. Principles of PubChem

Each workshop is free and open to the public, so please free to share this information with your friends and colleagues. We are extremely excited about these workshops and we hope you will be as well. More information about the workshops, registration, and the NCBI expert trainers can be found at http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/sites/ncbi/.

We look forward to seeing you in November!

NCBIWorkshopSeries

UC Libraries Offering Trial of APA Style CENTRAL, Learning Tools for Citation and Formatting Style

The University of Cincinnati Libraries is offering a trial for APA Style CENTRAL, a major new research service produced by the American Psychological Association.  APA Style CENTRAL offers a wide range of resources and services for undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in the social sciences and related disciplines.  The trial will run from August 1st through August 30th.  We welcome you to explore this new APA service, and we encourage you to complete a short (6 question) survey after you have had the opportunity to evaluate this new service.

apa Continue reading

UC’s First Thesis Comes Home to UC Libraries

 

Dean Wang and Eaton Family

Dean Xuemao Wang accepts gift from the Eaton Family.

Eaton family gives historic documents, including letter from Thomas Jefferson, to UC Libraries

CINCINNATI – Thursday, July 21, 2016 – The University of Cincinnati Libraries today received the thesis of John Hough James, the first graduate of Cincinnati College, now the University of Cincinnati. In addition to the thesis, UC Libraries also received associated research materials, including an 1820 letter from Thomas Jefferson. The rare gift comes from siblings Russell Eaton III, James M. Eaton and Frances Eaton Millhouser, the great-great-grandchildren of John Hough James.

“My siblings and I are pleased to present to the University of Cincinnati our cherished family possessions of John Hough James (JHJ), our great, great, grandfather, the valedictorian of the university’s first class. These possessions include an 1820 letter from Thomas Jefferson to JHJ containing requested source material for his senior thesis, his hand written thesis booklet and his membership in a local volunteer fire company,” Russell said. Continue reading

Library Staffer, Ben Kline, among Next Group of Cincy StoryTellers Aug. 3

Haven’t we all made mistakes? Hopefully, we learn from them and move on. Come out August 3 to support UC Libraries’ Ben Kline, assistant director of research, teaching, and services, as he participates in Cincy StoryTellers and talks about his mistake “The Sound of the Holler in My Mouth.”

Hosted by Carol Montsinger, Ben will join five others in talking about My Biggest Mistake. The other StoryTellers include:

  • Kelly Collette, stand-up comedian
  • Brenda Hunda, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Cincinnati
    Museum Center
  • Kick Lee, music producer, sound designer and composer
  • Eric Schwetschenau, ear, nose and throat specialist at TriHealth
  • Chris Varias, writer

Cincy StoryTellers will be held in the grand ballroom at The Phoenix, 812 8th St. in downtown. Doors and the cash bar open on the 3rd floor at 6 p.m. Storytelling begins at 7 p.m.

There is no fee to hear the stories, but you must reserve tickets at tickets.cincinnati.com.

The Enquirer and Cincinnati.com launched these nights in January 2015 as a way to bring storytelling to life and to give voice to some of the most interesting people in our community. For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/events/467315460120688/?ti=cl.

DAAP Library to Host a Wiki Women Edit-A-Thon June 26

wiki women imageJoin us on Sunday, June 26th from 1pm – 7pm in the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) as we attempt to repair the gender imbalance of Wikipedia.

Inspired by the initiatives of Art + Feminism, we will be adding and editing Wikipedia pages of influential female artists, designers, architects, and interior designers. There will be free pizza (obviously) and free popcorn (duh). All are welcome! Join us for the full time, or stop by for an hour to help.

UC students Karyn Georgilis, Maggie Murphy and Hannah Sellers are all co-founders of the event as well as senior design students in DAAP.

Thanks to local sponsors: Kaleidoscope, Jack Rouse Associates, Madison Design, FRCH Design Impact, and the UC Women’s Center.

Check Out the Latest Issue of Source

sourceRead Source, the online newsletter, to learn more about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.

This latest issue of Source includes an article announcing the new UC academic press, a Q&A about a new position in the Office of Research, and A Note from the Dean: IFLA Coming to Cincinnati. Updates to library websites are showcased in A New Look at Digital Collections and in an article about the Neil A. Armstrong display and website. There are two articles about recent awards –  the Provost Technology Innovation Awards and Recognizing Library Student Workers. Read these articles and more.

Source is available on the web at http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/source/ and via e-mail. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.

UC Libraries Websites & Other Online Services Unavailable June 18 from 3-8:30am.

The UC Libraries websites will be unavailable June 18 from 3-8:30am as IT@UC performs planned network maintenance.

All systems and devices house in the IT@UC Data Center will be unavailable from approximately 3-8:30 a.m. EDT, Saturday, June 18, for network maintenance. Student, faculty and staff email systems are not expected to be affected by the outage.   Almost all other UC online systems will be affected, including all ‘uc.edu’ web sites, Canopy, Blackboard, Box at UC, Echo360, Kaltura, Catalyst (student information system), the central login system, WebEx, Microsoft Lync, the UC Virtual Private Network (VPN) and UC FileSpace.

Library systems that are affected include our websiteshttp://libraries.uc.edu, https://digital.libraries.uc.edu, Scholar@UC, Journals@UC, the Digital Resource Commons, and the Luna Image and Media repository.

We expect that the library catalog – https://uclid.uc.edu  will be available during this time.  OhioLINK resources will not be affected by this outage, except that off campus users who need to authenticate should use the Libraries Proxy Server instead of VPN.

A link to more information about this #ITUCUpdate is available at http://www.uc.edu/ucit/maintenance.html.