New Exhibit Exploring Early Florida Medicine Added to Florida Memory Site

The State Library and Archives has added an exciting new exhibit called Pestilence, Potions, and Persistence: Early Florida Medicine to its Florida Memory site.  The online exhibit, which can be found at http://floridamemory.com/Timeline/medicine/, includes materials from the collections of both the State Archives and the State Library that highlight the role of health and wellness in the lives of Florida’s citizens and in the development of the state. 

Florida was vivid in the popular imagination as both a refuge for rest and restoration and a wilderness of great danger.  Doctors and resorts promoted Florida as a healthy destination for “consumptive invalids, for the nervous and debilitated, and for valetudinarians of all degrees,” while advertisements for tonics warned of “an impenetrable swamp, full of snakes, alligators, turtles, and strange reptiles.” 

Beginning with letters detailing the settling of the new territory in the 1820s, and the journal of a family practitioner and farmer in 1840s Gadsden County detailing his remedies for everything from common ailments such as itches and toothaches to serious cases of colic and typhoid, these documents show the gradual evolution of health and medical practice in the state.  Letters, manuscripts, telegrams, and publications document the panic caused by yellow fever, the care offered by doctors combating hookworm, and the determination of midwives facing killer hurricanes in order to reach their clients. 

This exhibit offers distinctive educational opportunities for teachers and students by emphasizing the crucial roles African-Americans, Native Americans, and women played in the evolution of medicine in Florida.  It features photographs of the first black doctors in the state, traditional Seminole healers, the first female doctor, Clara Barton during the Spanish-American War, and Dr. Samuel Mudd (convicted conspirator in the murder of President Lincoln). 

Clearly unique in content, the exhibit represents one of the most extensive archival exhibitions of its kind presently available to the general public online.  Through the use of photographic, manuscript, and published records, the exhibit provides historical perspective on important issues—public health and medical care—that the state and nation are still debating in the most visible political and social forums today.

Today, the Florida Memory Web site provides online access to over 550,000 photographs, textual records, sound recordings, and moving images from the State Library and Archives of Florida’s collections.  The program is funded by a Library Services and Technology Act grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, administered by the Florida Department of State, State Library and Archives of Florida.  For more information, visit http://www.floridamemory.com.