Materiality, Fragility, and Loss in the Medical Archive

(Im)permanence in Early Medical Photography

The daguerreotypes from the Stanley B. Burns M.D. Historic Medical Photography Collection are tangible records of life, death, and the medical world in the nineteenth century. Today, some of their images appear only fleetingly across mirror-like surfaces. The video highlights just how difficult daguerreotype images can be to see with the naked eye.

An image of surgery makes a momentary appearance on the reflective surface of this 1847 daguerreotype. The scene takes place at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. An anesthetist leans on the patient’s bed. The patient is surrounded by doctors, including Dr. John C. Warren, who commissioned this photographic memento. Warren directs his gaze towards the camera in the gallery, where an audience of onlookers may also have been seated.

Image of a man with ether inhaler

Although this daguerreotype has darkened, we can discern a seated man with an early Morton ether inhaler placed on a table next to him. This model of inhaler would have also been used in the 1847 operation featured above. Despite being held in a protective carrying case, this daguerreotype has tarnished due to light and heat. However, the image beneath the tarnished surface of the plate can be re-visualized with X-ray imaging.

Case with postmortem photograph of Dr. James Samuel Howe on a pillow on right side and newspaper obituary on left side.  The image on the right side is faint.

Digital photography can help us to better see daguerreotype images, such as this postmortem photograph of a twenty-year-old doctor. Dr. James Howe was photographed on his deathbed. He died from cholera in 1849, having recently graduated from the medical college of the State University of Missouri in Saint Louis. 

Case with postmortem photograph of Dr. James Samuel Howe on a pillow on right side and newspaper obituary on left side.

The oxidation of metals caused green and brown rings to appear along the inner oval frame. Daguerreotypes were made of silver faced copper plates, which were polished and then coated with bromoiodide silver. This process made the plates highly light sensitive. After exposure, the plates were treated with mercury vapor to develop the image, which was fixed with hyposulphite of soda. Finally, the copper plate was hardened with heated gold chloride, making the image more permanent.

Surgery on patient in room with wallpaper with leaves, 6 medical personnel around patient, one face scratched out.

Daguerreotypes required long exposure times and were often staged. This image, taken in 1916, shows photography could overcome this limitation of the daguerreotype, capturing an instant of a candid scene. Unidentified surgeons and a nurse surround a patient whose neck is being operated on. However, the shot was not entirely successful. A blurry figure appears in the background. Perhaps the photographer was displeased with the final product, as the face of this figure has been scratched out. 

Surgery on patient in room with wallpaper with leaves, 6 medical personnel around patient, one face scratched out.

Photographs on this page by Terry Dagradi.  Video by Kelly Perry.