Rare Books

The lost art of healing

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Description: Never Before has medicine had the capacity to do so much good, yet never have people been so disenchanted with their doctors. The problem is that doctors have lost the art of healing, which involves much more than diagnostic skills and the ability to mobilize technology. At its core is the doctor-patient relationship, and in this provocative book one of our most distinguished physicians draws on forty years of experience to show how vitally important that relationship.
Type: Rare Books(Opens in new tab)
Publication date: 1996.
Call number: 658119
Creator: Lown, B(Opens in new tab)
ISBN: 0395825253

The lost art of healing

Rare Books

Never Before has medicine had the capacity to do so much good, yet never have people been so disenchanted with their doctors. The problem is that doctors have lost the art of healing, which involves much more than diagnostic skills and the ability to mobilize technology. At its core is the doctor-patient relationship, and in this provocative book one of our most distinguished physicians draws on forty years of experience to show how vitally important that relationship.

658120

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Travels with Charley : in search of America

Rare Books

"Twenty years -- in the twentieth century -- are a long time, and for twenty years John Steinbeck has been occupied in writing about America, while America changed. He felt that he might have lost touch with this monster country, with its speech, the smell of its grass and trees, its color and quality of light, the pulse of its people. To reassure himself, he set out on a voyage of rediscovery, accompanied by a distinguished French poodle named Charley, and riding in a three-quarter-ton pickup truck equipped with miniature ship's cabin and named Rocinante. His course took him through almost forty states: northward from Long Island to Maine; through the Middle West to Chicago; onward by way of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana (with which he fell in love), and Idaho to Seattle, south to San Francisco and his birth place, Salines; eastward through the Mojave, New Mexico, Arizona, to the vast hospitality of Texas, to New Orleans and a shocking drama of desegregation; finally, on the least leg, through Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to New York. Again, as always, Steinbeck's concern was with the people. As the small villages, the vast spaces, towering mountains, and laughing meadows unrolled before the indomitable Rocinante, her owner, aided and cheered by Charley, looked for the American identity. It is exact and provable, he decided. It triumphs over sectional difference, over geography, temperament, and dialect. 'From start to finish I found no strangers. ... These are my people and this is my country.' Never before have people and country been examined and reported with so much love combined with so much critical insight"--Dust jacket.

657130

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Melcena White Knauer letters to Authee Ann White Spilman

Manuscripts

Set of five letters written by Melcena White Knauer to her sister Authee Ann White Spilman while Melcena was living in Texas and California from the 1850s until 1881. The first letter, sent from Brownsville, Texas, in the late 1850s, describes the Knauers' decision to move to California, where Elias planned to drive cattle. Melcena writes of being reluctant to go, but that she agreed to follow her husband rather than be separated from him. She also believes the climate might improve the health of her sons, as a doctor had advised that "he would [as] soon risk his life on the plains than in Brownsville." Three subsequent letters, one dated 1861 and the other two before 1865, describe Melcena's life in Woodland Township, California, and include her views on the Civil War. In the 1862 letter Melcena recalls hearing news of the First Battle of Bull Run, and while she wishes for peace, she fears that "it seems to be that the longer they fight the worse they are on both sides, still I suppose there is no other way of settling the difficulty but to fight it out." The same letter also describes harvest time and notes that "every thing that can be done with machinery is done with it which shortens the labor." Other letters describe Melcena's happiness that Kentucky was for the Union, how she has often heard "persons say how easy it would be for [foreign] power to take California so far is she from help," and her fears over her family's safety in Kentucky, of which she writes that "I often feel very uneasy about you all...I so much dread the idea of the war trouble getting among you that I am some times as nervous as an old tobacco smoker." She also writes of many local illnesses, noting that "I never lived any place where there was so many deaths among grown people." Many of the letters focus on family news, and Melcena lamented in the mid-1860s that "I have many thoughts about my native home every day I live, I sometimes wish I was there, but oftener wish you all were here." In the final letter, sent from Woodland in 1881, Melcena writes that her son Harvey is "running an Engine" and that he "has his Father's love for Machinery." She also writes that since the death of her husband "I live a great deal of my time in the past."

mssHM 78097-78101

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Gregory Yale letters to Fanny Yale

Manuscripts

Gregory Yale wrote these seven letters to his wife, Fanny, during his journey west from New York to California by way of Panama, and during his stay in San Francisco, where he established a profitable law practice. The letters are dated between 1849 and 1859. In the first letter (HM 16895, dated 1849, November 13-22), Yale has embarked from New York aboard the ship "Crescent City", and is bound for Panama, where he will cross the canal and continue to San Francisco. The time leading up to his departure was quite hectic, as he writes "In all my life I never had so many things to perform in so short a space. Many were therefore half done, and more not done at all." Procuring a ticket for the Pacific was allegedly extraordinarily difficult, but Yale managed without much trouble through nothing more than good fortune. There were 313 passengers aboard; 400 including crew, and Yale describes them as "intelligent and orderly "and from a variety of backgrounds. Some he was already acquainted with. On the 14th, Yale and several passengers brought their firearms on deck to try them out, but the ship captain put a stop to it. On the 17th, a passenger complained about drops of rain leaking into his cabin, and when nothing was done about it, the fellow "cried FIRE with all his might." Following this ill-conceived outburst, Yale writes "some are for throwing him overboard.....others are for having water thrown upon him to put the fire out." Cuba was sighted on November 19, and the ship landed at Jamaica on the 20th. Yale went ashore and wrote of the land and its people, and the ship took on board "an abundance of fruit." HM 16896, written December 4, finds Yale in Panama. He has been there more than a week, at a local farm, and is in fact leaving on the 5th. He reports there are "12 to 1500 Americans" in Panama awaiting passage to California, and describes the local area, as well as his journey across the peninsula in a long canoe. Yale's next letter is dated December 5 (HM 16897), and he gives Fanny his blessing to travel to Florida for the winter, should she so desire. He also warns her against going out in public alone, and of allowing visitors, and urges her to take good care of their child. Yale's next letter (HM 16898; 1850, January 12-13) sees him safely arrived in San Francisco, and recovered from an illness suffered in Panama. He is paying $25 a week to stay at the Graham boarding house, and is paying $300 a month to rent an office for Yale to set up his law practice, divided with a physician and a dentist who also have offices in the same location. Some acquaintances have been working the mines, with little success. The remainder of the letter is largely concerned with business details for law practice, which Yale touts as a most lucrative endeavor. He has sent Fanny a ring made from California gold. In HM 16899 (1850, January 25 and February 1), Yale reports he has received all the letters Fanny has sent, and is relieved to hear she is in good spirits despite their separation. He has been heavily involved with business, continuing to experience success, and has moved his practice to new offices. By April, Yale is still in San Francisco, and Fanny has given birth to a girl (HM 16900, written 1850, April 28). He describes his lodging, and his typical routine of work and meals. Business continues to increase, and Yale sends more money home, as well as copies of articles detailing his contributions to the community through his work. HM 16901 is the seventh and final letter in this series, and is dated 1859, September 7. Yale writes of the burying of a dead child, and of a lost purse.

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Reed Peck memoir

Manuscripts

The original of the Reed Peck Manuscript, an 1839 memoir criticizing Mormon actions in Missouri during the conflicts of 1838. Peck opens with a prophecy about "redeeming" Zion (Missouri) through armed force, the "interpretation" of which led Joseph Smith to call for volunteers to march to Clay County "under arms" (they were waylaid by a cholera outbreak). Peck goes on to relate alleged financial and power conflicts in Kirtland, Ohio, between, among others, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and Oliver Cowdery, as well as disagreements over where in Missouri to establish a Mormon settlement. He writes that once the Mormons had settled in Caldwell County, the Mormon presidency became a "despotic government" and that it proposed a policy, encouraged by Rigdon, that dissenters from the Church be killed so that "they would not be capable of injuring the church." He goes on to say that the Mormon leadership demanded that all followers consecrate their property to the Church or be turned over to the "terrible brother of Gideon" (Jared Carter) for punishment. Peck continues that he and some others were "ever after ... opposed to the rule of the presidency" because "their word was law in religious, civil and military matters." He writes of the formation of a "secret military organization" (the Danites) by Carter, George W. Robinson, and Sampson Avard "under the instruction of the presidency," and of pretending to join the group, although he avoided taking the official oath and "declared to my trusty friends that I would never act in the office." He also remembers that Carter was later found guilty of criticizing the presidency, and alleges that he heard Joseph Smith say he would have "cut his throat on the spot" if he had been alone. The remainder of the memoir recounts the events of the Mormon War, in which Peck claims that hostilities between Mormons and Gentiles were inflamed by Joseph Smith. He begins with disputes over an election in Daviess County, leading to a "skirmish" which he says was exaggerated into accounts of a "bloody massacre of ... Mormons," leading non-Mormon citizens to fear retaliation and call for the expulsion of the Mormons from Daviess County. He criticizes the Mormons for initiating confrontations, plundering goods, and for attacking the militia under Capt. Bogart at the Battle of Crooked River, but he condemns the attack on Mormons in the Haun's Hill Massacre. He concludes his narrative of events with the arrest and subsequent escape of the Smiths, Rigdon, Wight, Parley Pratt, and others. He closes the manuscript by condemning Smith and the Church ("how can he [Smith] expect to support his character as a man of God when facts are exhibited to the world in their true light," he wrote) and by listing the sources for his narrative, much of which was allegedly based on his own eyewitness accounts. Other individuals mentioned in the memoir include W.W. Phelps, Edward Partridge, John Corrill, and Dimmock Baker Huntington. There appear to be pages missing after page 152.

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David W. Davies Correspondence

Manuscripts

The majority of the collection consists of personal letters sent by David William Davies to his wife, Thelma Davies, while working as a librarian and serving in the United States Army Corps during World War II from 1941 through 1947. Most of the letters were sent while Davies was serving in the military, which included his cryptographic preparation at Chanute Field Air Force Base, work at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and his deployment in Europe. The correspondence begins in December 1938 when Davies was an assistant librarian in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Much of the correspondence during this time concerns his wife's health; she was in a tuberculosis sanatorium in Altadena, California. Other common topics include work in the library, social life, and a project renovating a house. In August 1941 the correspondence begins in Logan, Utah where Davies was appointed as librarian at Utah State University, College of Agriculture. As an ambitious librarian, Davies "... made several proposals to the President and the Dean of Education for improving the curriculum in library science, but they do not want to do anything. Well if they do not want to do anything I guess it is all right on account it is their college" (August 21, 1941). Davies was accepted for active military service on May 21, 1943. He was inducted at San Francisco Army Induction Station #2 and his reception center was in Monterey, California. After Monterey he moved to Kearns, Utah to a "rugged camp" where he "have never seen a such a bunch of hard guys" (May 31, 1943). The bulk of the correspondence during this time is related to military life and training. In regards to military life, Davies states, "This life is so easy it is hard to believe. No work tomorrow either - I shall read another book" (June 21, 1943). Before being assigned to a training school, Davies was appointed as a librarian at the Intelligence Technical Information Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. He complains, "Well the worst has happened but I guess I will not commit suicide. Tomorrow I have to report to Post Intelligence to start their goddamn technical library" (June 27, 1943). Fortunately for Davies, the technical library closed on September 30, 1943 to become a basic training center. In September 1943 Davies trained to become a cryptographer at Chanute Field Air Force Base in Chicago, Illinois. In November 1943 he was stationed for work at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Davies describes in one letter, "I am actually enjoying this bloody camp. Its informality is very appealing. We wear what we please and lead an easy life - comparatively" (September 15, 1943). Similar to his camp experience in Kearns, Utah, military life and training is a common topic during this time. Davies deployed to Europe in January 1944 and arrived in England later that month. He later was stationed in France and Germany. Although Davies was not on the front lines, he did meet locals with their own stories about the war. "Last night I met a Pole who was in the Warsaw revolution. He says that there were 100,000 Poles in that revolution and that 88,000 were killed. He said the remaining 12,000 were taken prisoner and spent the rest of the time in concentration camps" (May 17, 1945). The bulk of the letters during this time describe military and social life among the Europeans. The United States Army censored some of the letters by cutting out certain words and sentences throughout the correspondence. This collection also includes correspondence and manuscript drafts related to Davies' bookClyde Browne and the Abbey Press, Scott E. Haselton and his Abbey Garden Press, and Ralph Lloyd and the Lloyd Corporation. Ephemera (organized by genre) include brochures, pamphlets, drafts of catalog cards, invitations, programs, photographs, medals, periodicals, and a print from the United States of America Panama-Pacific International Exposition San Francisco.

The lost art of healing

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The lost art of healing

Travels with Charley : in search of America

Melcena White Knauer letters to Authee Ann White Spilman

Gregory Yale letters to Fanny Yale

Reed Peck memoir

David W. Davies Correspondence