New online collection features letters to doctors

Historical Collections and Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, U.Va.

Before the Internet and the telephone, patients could only reach their doctors through written letters. Thanks to a collaborative effort between U.Va.’s Claude Moore Health Sciences Library and the U.Va. Library’s digital teams, the voices of patients from 19th-century Virginia are no longer lost in the past. “Patients’ Voices in Early 19th Century Virginia: Letters to Doct. James Carmichael & Son,” a new online exhibit from the Claude Moore Library, presents 700 letters from the patients of Dr. James Carmichael, a Scottish physician whose practice was based in Fredericksburg, Va. The collection of correspondence, written between 1819 and 1830 and held in the new Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, gives a unique view into the physician-patient relationship. The letters can be seen online in their original, handwritten form, side by side with a typed version. The 19th-century patients’ terms for complaints, diseases and treatments have been matched to their 21st-century equivalents. The exhibit can be found at http://carmichael.lib.virginia.edu/.