By Michael Sappol Is empathy innate? Are we all born with the ability to identify with the emotions of others, to feel someone else’s pain? Today’s media is chock full of stories about experiments in neuroscience and child psychology that seem to show that the emergence and growth of the ability to empathize is a […]
Tag Archives: How to…
June
04
How To…See with the Microscope
posted by Circulating Now
By Michael Sappol Microscopy was the coming thing in late 19th-century medicine. If you were an ambitious doctor, no matter what your field of interest, you probably wanted to own a good microscope, and apply it to the questions at hand. What do the structures of human and non-human bodies look like? How does that […]
March
20
How To…Plant and Graft All Sorts of Trees
posted by Circulating Now
By Michael Sappol The oldest English-language how-to at the National Library of Medicine is a charming and practical little book dating from 1575. In keeping with the custom of the day, the title also serves as a brief description of the contents: A booke of the arte and maner how to plant and graffe all […]
January
29
How To…Read Personal Character
posted by Circulating Now
By Michael Sappol Human Faces, What They Mean! How to Read Personal Character, 1872 If you live in the 19th century, as I do, and want to know how to read people like a book, then read this book. Which is on “Physiognomy”— “the art, or science, by which the characteristics of the mind are […]
August
27
How To…Box to Win
posted by Circulating Now
By Michael Sappol How to Box to Win; How to Build Muscle; How to Breathe, Stand, Walk or Run; How to Punch the Bag: A Book of Health and Strength, 1900 This little book (5½” x 7¼”) is one of those charming turn-of-the-century hybrids that delighted readers in the golden age of illustrated newspapers and […]
July
16
How To…Prevent the Bubonic Plague
posted by Circulating Now
by Michael Sappol The Bubonic Plague and How to Prevent It, 1897 This roughly-printed small pamphlet (4¼” x 5½”; 30 pages) documents a big catastrophe: an outbreak of bubonic plague in British Colonial India. The disease came to Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1897 and swept through the city at a terrible pace. At the height […]
July
09
How to… in the historical collections of NLM
posted by Circulating Now
By Michael Sappol The “how to” is an ancient genre. There are Egyptian how-to texts (in hieroglyphics) on how to prepare mummies; Sumerian how-tos (in cuneiform), on how to pray; Hellenistic how-tos (in Greek) on how to do geometry; Roman how-tos (in Latin) on how to seduce people; and so on. In English, “how to” […]
