History of Medicine and Student Instruction: Handwritten Lecture Notes on Disease and Treatment at Western Pennsylvania Medical College, 1892

Pittsburgh

Manuscripts & Autographs

[Medical History] [Education] Lasher, Weston William. Medical notebook, 1892 documents formal instruction in clinical medicine at the Western Pennsylvania Medical College and provides direct evidence of how diseases, symptoms, and treatments were taught to medical students in the late nineteenth century. The volume records lectures delivered by instructors including Professor Snively and Professor Lange, preserving contemporaneous terminology, diagnostic frameworks, and therapeutic approaches during a period when bacteriology and modern clinical standardization were still developing. The notebook supports research into medical pedagogy, diagnostic reasoning, and the transmission of clinical knowledge in American medical schools prior to the full institutionalization of laboratory science and standardized curricula.

Lasher, Weston William. Medical notebook. Pittsburgh: Western Pennsylvania Medical College, 1892. Handwritten manuscript volume containing dated lecture notes, quizzes, and clinical summaries. Entries begin January 4, 1892 with “Practice of Medicine” addressing diseases of the larynx, defining laryngitis as “an inflammation of the mucous membrane lining the larynx,” with symptoms including hoarseness and whispering and noting severe cases in which “the disease may take the life in a few hours.” Subsequent entries include a February 16, 1892 quiz on diseases of the air passages and a March 1, 1892 lecture on valvular disease describing “shortness of breath,” “irregular pulse,” and advanced conditions in which “the patient becomes water-logged,” with emphasis on prophylaxis. Additional sections address clinical medicine topics including sclerosis, hepatic disease, and peritonitis, the latter described as presenting with “abdominal pain & soreness progressively increasing” and acute cases “ushered in by a chill,” with pain “burning or lancinating in character.” The notebook is bound in marbled boards with cloth spine and contains manuscript ownership inscription identifying Lasher and his institutional affiliation.

The notebook situates student medical training within a transitional period in American medicine when clinical observation and descriptive pathology remained central to instruction while emerging scientific frameworks were still unevenly adopted. Lasher’s later career as a physician in Butler County, Pennsylvania, where he practiced for decades and treated patients in both clinical and domestic settings, underscores the continuity between this instructional material and applied rural medical practice in the early twentieth century. Edge wear to boards with some loss and fading to spine; internal pages toned but legible with no significant text loss. Overall very good condition. A detailed primary record of medical education and clinical thought in the United States at the close of the nineteenth century.

Item #21666

Price: $885.00