Curator

“ The object is, "The endowment of a perpetual curatorship of Shakespeare's house, to be always held by some one distinguished in literature, and more especially in dramatic literature," and we have already a pledge from the Shakespeare House Committee that Sheridan Knowles shall be recommended to the Government as the first curator. ”

“ First, then, for the account of my proceedings in the Company’s affairs. Our eight thousand Consols giving us £240 a year, I [63] have appointed a Curator to the Sheffield Museum, namely, Mr. Henry Swan, an old pupil of mine in the Working Men’s College in London; and known to me since as an estimable and trustworthy person, with a salary of forty pounds a year, and residence. He is obliged at present to live in the lower rooms of the little house which is to be the nucleus of the museum:—as soon as we can afford it, a curator’s house must be built outside of it. ”

“ Again, if a testamentary guardian, or one appointed by the praetor or governor, is not a good man of business, though perfectly honest in his management of the pupil's affairs, it is usual for a curator to be appointed to act with him. Again, curators are usually appointed in the room of guardians temporarily excused from the duties of their office. ”

“ However, on June 27, 1959, he resigned his curatorship to join the staff of the American Pharmaceutical Association in Washington, D.C. Dr. Blake became the curator in charge of the Division and Mr. Griffenhagen was succeeded on September 24, 1959, by the author of this paper as associate curator in charge of the Section of Pharmaceutical History and Health.
Dr. Blake, as curator of the Section of Medical and Dental History, acquired a large number of valuable and varied specimens for the Division’s collections. ”

“ I contend that if it be necessary for a civil engineer or other professional man to have mastered the various technicalities of his profession, it is also incumbent on curators to have done or to do likewise, in order that they may grasp the treatment of their museum as a whole, and not fall into the grave fault of working up one department whilst ignoring the others. ”

“ He became the first honorary curator of the natural history department of the museum, and worked until 1829 when he was appointed assistant secretary and curator of the Geological Society of London at Somerset House. ”

“ In 1865 he was elected a resident physician at the Pennsylvania Hospital and on completion of service was appointed pathologist and museum curator, a position held for four years. Morbid anatomy became his special study and in 1868 he was appointed lecturer to the University and brought to the work rare skill and untiring energy ”

“ He studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, London, in Paris, and in Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. in 1823, publishing a thesis ‘De absorbendi functione.’ He settled in prac tice in London, working steadily at Guy's Hospital, where in 1825, after becoming a licentiate of the College of Physicians, he was appointed curator of the museum and pathologist. ”

“ The teaching need not be done by lectures, but with specified work on the object to be carried out by the student, assigned reading and practical examinations. Not much of the curator's time need be consumed, he would simply have to outline the work and to occasionally oversee it. The student would then begin with the advantage of the help of the judgment of a trained specialist. It stands to reason that such a course under a competent entomologist could be done better in most museums than in most universities. ”

“ A house will be given you to live in, and you will be supplied with the best we have for the use of our ward Miriam and yourself. Twice a week a deputation of the curators will visit the house, and stay there for an hour to see that the health of the infant is good, and that you are doing your duty by it, in which, if you fail, you will be removed. It is prayed that you will not talk to these curators on matters which do not concern the child. ”

“ The various divisions and sections of anthropology, biology, and geology, which had previously been conducted independently of one another, the curators and custodians reporting directly to the assistant secretary in charge of the museum, were united under three head curators—one of anthropology, another of biology, and a third of geology. This secured direct expert supervision, and correlated the work of each department. ”

“ The idea at the present day has not died out; quite recently a man called at the College of Surgeons, and offered to sell his body for a cash payment. It is a fairly common experience of Curators of Pathological Museums to have similar offers from persons suffering from a rare disease, or a curious deformity. ”

“ After this, every one of them is sent away by their curators, to exercise some of those arts wherein they are skilled, in which they labor with great diligence till the fifth hour, after which they assemble themselves together in one place, and when they have clothed themselves in white veils, they then bathe their bodies in cold water, and, after their purification is over, they every one meet together in an apartment of their own, into which it is not permitted to any of another sect to enter ”

“ There should be also a Chirurgeon and an Apothecary who have served their Apprentiships in the said Faculties called the Chirurgeons and Apothecaries Mate, with two other young men, the one to serve the Chirurgeon, and the other the Apothecary, all understanding at least the Latine Tongue, which may be called the Apprentices: All these are to be chosen at first by the Curators (but afterwards by the Society it selfe) being such as they shall be certified are Pious, Ingenious, Laborious, Lovers of Knowledge, and particularly of the Faculty of Physick, courteous, not covetous ”

“ Curative medicine would therefore be more adapted to them than surgery. And herbs, those beautiful healing herbs which stand on the hill-tops, and amid the fields, like beneficent angels beckoning in the summer winds, may be borne by the hands of the female physician into the dwellings of the sufferers, and, by means of miraculous powers called forth by love and art, may promulgate the Evangile of health more and more over the earth, and change, as much as is possible, even the so frequently terrible work of death into a peaceful transition state. ”

“ The next day the poor curate coming to know his destiny, my lord told him, That he had used his endeavours to serve him as to the curacy, but with no success, the reverend gentleman having disposed of it before. The curate, with a deep sigh, returned his lordship thanks for his goodness, and was going to withdraw, when my lord calling him back, said with a smile, Well, my friend, ’tis true, I have it not in my power to give you the curacy; but if you will accept of the living ’tis at your service. ”

“ In relation to the history of medicine, the science of the century has perhaps on the whole done greater service to the healing art by that which it has taught doctors to leave undone than by what it has taught them to do. ”

“ The mass of devotees that assemble here daily are decently dressed and good-looking. The curate is a middle-aged man, who has read much, and figured considerably in the late political revolutions of the province; and is, probably, more conversant with the history of his country than any man in it. Some of the most interesting ruins of the country are within his curacy, and he was the only person I encountered in the country who had devoted much time to an examination of them. ”

“ Surgery the Chief of Art If the Excellency of any Art consist only in its Usefulness, or if it derive its Preeminence from the Object, with which it converses, it necessarily must follow, That the Profession of Surgery is the Chief of Arts, since it is employ’d about so noble a Subject as Man; and therefore the Greeks have thought fit to call such manual Operations The Art of Surgery, which otherwise might as well have been apply’d to any Mechanick Trade. ”

“ The curate fiend has come to take a ball in it!
Next, when at quiet sea-side village, freed
From cares episcopal and ties monarchical,
He grows his beard, and smokes his fragrant weed,
In manner anything but hierarchical—
He sees—and fixes an unearthly stare on it—
That curate’s face, with half a yard of hair on it!
At length he gave a charge, and spake this word:
“Vicars, your curates to enjoyment urge ye may;
To check their harmless pleasuring’s absurd;
What laymen do without reproach, my clergy may.” ”

“ In architecture, which combines the æsthetic and practical elements, the man of antiquity was at least the equal of the man of the present. In one particular art—a sort of humanitarian profession based on natural science and directed to the preservation of life—the ancients had a measure of proficiency. This art was surgery. The surgeon was even from the beginning, and he will no doubt be even to the end. ”

“ This mode of treating disease (Hydropathy) is unquestionably far from inert, and most opposed to the cure of diseases, by the undisturbed processes of nature. It in fact perhaps affords the very best evidence we possess of the curative power of art, and is unquestionably when rationally [7] regulated a most effective mode of treatment in many diseases. Still it puts in a striking light, if not exactly the curative powers of nature, at least the possibility—nay, facility—with which all the ordinary instruments of medical cure, drugs, may be dispensed with. ”

“ The wife and daughter of the curate sat in the rectory pew. There, later, they were joined by the two sons of the deceased rector.
The curate, in full vestments, waited the arrival of the casket, and, book in hand, went to meet it at the church door, through which, upon a bier of ebony, covered with a pall of black velvet, it was borne by six bearers, and marshaled it up the aisle and before the chancel, repeating the sublime words of our Lord:
“I am the resurrection and the life. He that liveth and believeth on me shall never die. ”

“ In a series of display cases projecting from the walls, the Museum displayed anatomical and pathological specimens so arranged as to tell, for each organ and region of the body and for the human organism as a whole, the story of normal development, abnormal deviations, disorders and diseases, and repairs and restoration, including that by surgery. ”

“ From the end of the fifth century the exercise of the medical art was almost exclusively appropriated by cloisters and monasteries, whose occupants boldly vended the miraculous remedial properties of relics, chrism, baptismal fluids, holy oil, rosy crosses, etc., as of unquestioned virtue. In these early days living saints seem to have rivalled dead ones in their power over diseases, but of these we shall speak in a later chapter. ”

“ How could it be expected that in the general enthusiasm for useful knowledge medicine should escape, or that its secrets should be exempt from a scrutiny that has spared nothing? Hence have sprung up those various sects in the curative art which, professing to treat rationally and openly what hitherto has been shrouded in mysticism and deception, have multiplied themselves into grape cures, milk cures, and water cures, and Heaven knows how many other strange devices “to cheat the ills that flesh is heir to.” ”

“ The surgeon in a hospital is stimulated by every sight and sound in the long rows of beds, and would be less devoted to his work if he only saw a few patients brought to his house. But all that he is conscious of during the working hours is the one purpose of healing, on which the half-conscious impulses of brain and eye and hand are harmoniously concentrated. ”

“ In each of them a number of different artists are employed, who confining themselves every one to his own branch of business, the whole work is more quickly finished, and more highly improved. The length to which human skill may arrive, when thus properly directed is amazing. Why then should we continue to follow such a variety of different occupations as are generally crouded together in the practice of the healing art? The mutual interest of patient and practitioner seem to require a different procedure. ”

“ Hoping humbly that you will be pleased to dismiss our curate, who, we are credibly informed, and particularly by three exemplary and virtuous ladies, they having been cautioned against him by one who knows him well, and is a friend likewise to said ladies, and doing all the good kindness he can. We learn with sorrow, that our curate has confessed to unbecomingly behaviour, and that he has been seen even kissing. ”

“ Faith is the most precious asset in our stock-in-trade. Once lost, how long does a doctor keep his clientele? Secondly, certain accessories—a shrine, a grotto, a church, a temple, a hospital, a sanatorium [Osler might have added the admirably devised entourage in such places as ‘Physical Culture’ Institutes and ‘light cure’ establishments] , surroundings that will impress favourably the imagination of the patient. ”

“ The surgeon’s report was favorable; the change in him was quite unexpected, and recovery was possible, though by no means probable.
I left him alone, purposely, for some hours; but the moment I re-entered the ward he exclaimed, “Now you will tell me.”
Judging it better to quiet his mind, I sat down and spoke to him quietly and gently of his home. Home! the talisman which charms away all pain and soothes all sorrow. Should any one ask how to reach the men? how gain an influence over them? ”