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Charles P. Mercer notes on lectures from the University of Pennsylvania
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Held at: Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia [Contact Us]19 S. 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
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Charles Price Mercer was born in Philadelphia on 2 October 1864. He married in 1894 and had one daughter, Ernestine. Mercer died at Episcopal Hospital of bronchopneumonia and heart disease on 19 September 1945.
Mercer attended the University of Pennsylvania and received his Ph.B in 1886 and M.D. in 1891. On 4 December 1891, he opened his private practice and spent most of his career in North Philadelphia. In 1891, he was also appointed vaccinating physician for Philadelphia's Board of Health; Mercer became a medical inspector for the Board of Health in 1893 and held that position until 1931.
The three Charles P. Mercer notebooks contain a record of his education in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medicine, 1887-1890.
Mercer describes cases presented at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania during the clinical instruction of Francis X. Dercum, William Osler, William Pepper, and Horatio C. Wood. Several of Osler's cases were presented at Philadelphia Hospital and the Philadelphia Orthopaedic Hospital and Infirmary for Nervous Diseases. Many of the cases, particularly those of Wood and Dercum, concern nervous diseases. Each individual presentation contains the patient's case history, description of symptoms, and prescribed treatment.
Some review questions from Mercer's course of therapeutics in 1889 and a few recipes are also included.
The Charles P. Mercer clinical notes were donated to the Historical Collection of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia as part of a larger gift by Samuel X Radbill, circa April 1984. The collection was catalogued in 1990.
Dr. Radbill received the notebooks from Ernestine Mercer, daughter of Charles P. Mercer, circa 1960. He described the volume of notes on Osler's clinics in an article, "A student's note book from William Osler's clinics injPhiladelphia", published in Transactions and studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, ser. 4, vol. 29, no. 2, October 1961. The present location of this original notebook in unknown; a typed transcription only is included in the collection.
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- Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia