MS6198/3 and /12: Adopted by Dr Timothy Chambers in recognition of the Military and Hospitaller Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem's longstanding commitment to supporting all aspects of leprosy care

The two pages of photographs are part of a larger group of photographs and prints given to the Royal College of Physicians by the 8th Duke of Argyll, George Campbell, who was the Secretary of State for India.

They show the effectiveness of a cure for leprosy which had been developed by Indian physician Bhau Dajee (also Bhow Daji).

Born Ramkrishna Lad, Dajee came from a middle-income background. He was considered a child prodigy, and the Governor of Bombay (Mumbai) encouraged his father to have him privately educated; ultimately he was part of the first cohort trained at the Grant Medical College in Bombay (Mumbai), one of the first European medical schools in India, designed to train Indian practitioners in Western medicine.

Following his graduation Dajee sought to combine western medicine with aspects of Ayurveda, a whole-body system of medicine that began in India more than 3,000 years ago, to enhance the healthcare system. Ayurvedic medicine mostly uses nutrition, lifestyle changes and natural elements, including herbs, spices and oils.

He dedicated himself to the study and treatment of leprosy, coming up with the Daji method, which, although kept secret, was believed by contemporaries to have consisted mainly of chaulmoogra oil, extracted from the seeds of plants from the Hydnocarpus species. The photographs and prints in this collection show the effectiveness of the Daji method.

Chaulmoogra oil, was long used in traditional medicine for treating leprosy and other skin conditions, and although its effectiveness was debated in Dajee’s time, studies have shown the oil to be effective in treating early stages of leprosy.

Dajee's work was first brought to the attention of the European press by Henry Vandyke Carter in about 1872.

2008.1/12 The quack doctor: adopted by Diana Wood

This satirical print by Rowlandson shows a doctor or apothecary measuring out medicine for a line of clients going out the doors. Rows of apothecary jars (very similar to the RCP’s own Hoffbrand collection) line the walls behind him labelled for poisons such as ‘Arsnic’, ‘opium’ and ‘vitriol’, with a fish hanging behind him. On the right side of the image, behind a curtain, a skeleton in an apron is working at a grinder labelled ‘slow poison’.

The skeleton is a representation of death, of what is to come to those who entrust themselves to Quack Doctors.

This print was dirty and has foxing (the brownish stains visible on the edges), as well as old tape attached to the back. Similarly to the above, a mechanical clean was undertaken and the tape removed. Localised treatments to reduce the staining were ineffective and further intervention was not considered necessary for this otherwise stable object.

Instead, to visually improve the appearance of the print, it was housed in a conservation mount. The window frames the print, while covering the staining, and the print is now exhibition ready for when its needed. 

PR15302 Discovery of Pulmonary Circulation: adopted by Professor Anita Simonds, Harveian Librarian

We have saved the most drastic transformation for last!

The Discovery of Pulmonary Circulation is a printed item, something of a composite, made up of four images in the upper half and two columns of text below.

The images are a portrait of Michael Servetus in the centre, surrounded by reproductions of printed book pages: text on either side and a title page above.

The reproduced book pages are from Servetus’s work Restitutio Christianismi in which he rejects certain Christian doctrines and incidentally describes pulmonary circulation, the first European to do so. This challenged galenic medicine, some 75 years before William Harvey’s De Motu Cordis. Ibn-al Nafis, a 13^th century Muslim physician had, already described pulmonary circulation, but it is unclear whether Servetus would have been familiar the work.  Servetus was ultimately burnt at the stake for his heretical work, and thanks to it being embedded in a theological work, his description of pulmonary circulation suppressed and forgotten.

The text in the print provides some information about Michael Servetus and his work, but is mainly a translation from Latin of his description of pulmonary circulation, from Restitutio Christianismi.

In the lower right hand side corner of the page there is what appears to be the signature of William Osler , a prominent Canadian physician and collector of antiquities and books, though we are unsure why it is there.

This document was severely damaged, curling on the edges, with many tears and losses, and with ingrained dirt.

Conservator Vicky’s first step was to ask permission to slightly trim the page: a rare occurrence in conservation, however the damage was so extensive on the blank areas of the page, that this was deemed appropriate for this object on this occasion. The paper was cleaned with the vulcanised rubber sponges and eraser crumbs mentioned above, tears and losses were repaired with Western handmade paper, while the back of the brittle page was reinforced with Japanese tissue.