Illustrating insanity: Allan McLane Hamilton, Types of Insanity, and physiognomy in late nineteenth-century American medicine.

This article examines the divisive reception history of American psychiatrist and neurologist Alexander McLane Hamilton's physiognomy publication, Types of Insanity (1883). By analyzing 23 book reviews published in late-nineteenth-century medical journals, the authors present a bibliographic case study that traces the mixed professional reactions to Hamilton's work, thus revealing the fraught nature of physiognomy in the American medical community. In effect, the authors argue that the interprofessional disagreements that emerged among journal reviewers indicate the nascent efforts of psychiatrists and neurologists to oppose physiognomy in the interest of professionalization. By extension, the authors emphasize the historical value of book reviews and reception literature. Often overlooked as ephemera, book reviews register the shifting ideologies, temperaments, and attitudes of an era's readership.

Dr. Vladimir Fortunato (1885-1938), once lauded but now obscure Russian-American medical model sculptor.

Arriving to the United States in 1921, Dr. Vladimir Fortunato (1885-1938) was a respected and celebrated figure responsible for creating striking medical models and anatomical sculptures. Although Dr. Fortunato was well connected and worked for some of the United States' most prestigious medical institutions, his legacy, achievements, and creations have all but vanished from the annals of American medical history. In an effort to establish a more defined profile of this obscure man's life and lifework, this article draws on scant information provided by a range of sources, including academic journal articles, obituaries, and physician autobiography. In the present-day era of digital imaging technologies, Dr. Fortunato's lifelike sculptures represent a bygone age of medical visualization that embraced both utility and beauty.

Dr. Howard A. Kelly's The Stereo Clinic: health science pedagogy and the egalitarian future of 3D clinical visualization.

This article situates emerging three-dimensional (3D) visualization technologies in the health sciences within the broader historical context of the stereoscope. Although 3D visualization technologies enhance pedagogy and deepen student engagement, they are generally cost-prohibitive and therefore inaccessible for many institutions. In light of this issue, the authors consider the work of American gynecologist and founding member of The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, Dr. Howard Atwood Kelly (1858-1943). A monumental work, Kelly's The Stereo Clinic is a multivolume publication whose focal point was the stereoscope, an image-viewing device that can be seen as a prototype for present-day 3D technologies. Each installment presents a step-by-step overview of a specific surgical procedure using a didactic narrative and corresponding stereoscopic images that illustrate the clinical practices. Significantly, Kelly understood The Stereo Clinic as an egalitarian project that provided high-quality educational resources to students and practicing physicians who did not have access to world-class clinical suites and teaching institutions. Furthermore, he viewed The Stereo Clinic as a remedy to the commonplace frustrations of medical education, such as crowded surgical suites, and the hazards of in-person observation. The Stereo Clinic is an important case study because it reveals a medical profession at the turn of the twentieth century preoccupied with 3D visualization. Inventive clinicians such as Kelly did not only advocate for this technology on the strength of its pedagogical value; they also articulated the equalitarian nature of this medium and produced 3D technology accessible to a wide audience.