This next item is just about the newest one in this catalogue, but the discovery it announces may well be the most important ever in medicine: On the Bacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium with Special Reference to Their Use in the Isolation of B. Influenza, published in the British Journal of Experimental Biology in 1929. Author Alexander Fleming was experimenting in his laboratory, attempting to produce more effective, less harmful antiseptics. He had a number of cultures of disease producing bacteria around his lab. One day in 1928, he noticed that some mould had entered one of his cultures, and that the bacteria near it had died. Fleming had discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic. Fleming was not able to produce penicillin in significant quantities, and did not think it would become a useful means of curing infections. However, others took up the cause after the Second World War began, and means of producing the antibiotic in marketable quantities were achieved. By the end of the war, there was enough to treat all wounded soldiers, and the revolution in treating bacterial diseases was underway. Item 95. $5,000.
Item 124 is a very interesting photographic album, An Album of 60 Photographs – Johns Hopkins Hospital 1903-1904. Included are photographs of the hospital and its doctors, even one of Dr. William Halsted performing surgery. Personal photos of such medical luminaries of the time as William Osler, Howard A. Kelly, Hugh H. Young, and a dapper young Harvey Cushing are found. It appears these albums were produced in a very small number at the time of the opening of Hopkins' surgical building in 1904 to be given to participants. $8,950.
James Tait Goodrich Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts may be reached at 845-359-0242 or goodrich@aecom.yu.edu.
