1900 – Letter and photographs from an American physician training to become an orthopedist describing his overseas studies, the Austria Corpus Christi celebration, and the Passion of Christ performance at Oberammergau
Vienna, Austro-Hungary and Wurzburg, Germany: 1900. Envelope or Cover. This lot consist of a undated a seven-page letter from Vienna, seven-page letter from Wurzburg along with its mailing envelope, and five vernacular photographs. All are in nice shape. Mailing folds have some minor splitting.
The first letter, written by Dr. J. T. Watkins, is datelined “IX Pelikangasse 15 Vienna Austria / June 26 / 1[9]00” and was sent to Mrs. J. L. Ward in New York City. In it, after discussing his haggling with shopkeepers over the price of a piece of “Capo di Monte” allegedly made for Napoleon, and one of “the finest trunks [made] in Europe Watkins explains,
“I am here studying orthopedy, the correction of deformities and diseases of bones & joints with Lorenz the greatest orthopede in Europe. I am an assistant in his clinic. . .. Prof. Lorenz methods are as peculiar, his own and do not appear in any of the books because he don’t write. . .. How long I shall stay here I don’t know. Certainly another year, perhaps longer {before studying] with Whitman in New York and Brodford in Boston. Her I have to go to Italy, German & France each for a long enough time to see how . . . they do things. Lorenz tells me the only orthopedes are in Amerika and Germany. I have to go to Stockholm to study the Zander apparatus – a sort of massage machine. . .. I shall practice in San Francisco & I don’t want to, but there is a big opening there . . . that is the essential thing. . ..
“[Last] Friday I started for Oberammergau to see the Passion Play a performance of which will be given on Sunday. . .. It is reported to be wonderfully fine. Last year I went to Bayreuth . . . to see Parsifal. [It was] quite as good and 1/5 as expensive in Vienna.
“If I am successful with my photographs at Oberammergau I will send you copies [but] I am told photography is prohibited. . ..
“Dr. Prudden . . . asked me to put his name down for courses in microscopy . . . Bacteriology . . . gross pathology, internal medicine, skin diseases, and Obstetrics . . . more work than either Aristotle or Galen would have attempted. . ..
In a later letter from Wurzburg, whose mailing envelope appears to be postmarked on 24 October 1900, Watkins identifies his location as the Klinik Hoffa on Friedenstrasse. It reads in part:
“Please don’t imagine that I have been staying here all this time for fun. Europe has been very kind to me. . .. I came here without credentials and Europe set before me the best that it had and urged me to help myself. . .. I came here for a specific purpose . . . that now is in sight [but I first] have to visit Berlin . . . for perhaps three months [as well as] Heidelburg, Zurich, Milano, possibly Stockholm, Munich, and Buda-Peth [then] London and a month in Liverpool and . . . three more months in Vienna and one in Paris. Then I am through!
“I reported the orthopaedic section of the Medical Congress to my future . . . patron in California [who] expressed approval and instructed me to prepare for publication . . . a pamphlet on my experiences in the study of Orthopedy in Europe. . ..
The five vernacular photographs all measure 3.25” square. They are almost certainly early Kodak box camera images, which were printed in these dimensions and finished with a glossy, sulfa-produced sepia tone that gives them an albumin-like appearance.
Four of the photos show images from the Imperial Corpus Christi procession in Austria-Hungary (Fronleichnam), a monumental display of Catholic piety and the Habsburg’ power. It was personally led by Emperor Franz Joseph through the center of Vienna. Each of these photographs are captioned on the reverse; they show the Emperor, the Emperor’s Austrian body guard, the Emperor’s Hungarian body guard, and the Monks of St. Francis.
One photograph shows a tall, bearded man in Bavarian clothes. It is captioned on the reverse, “Anton Lang // Christus Darsteller [Christ Actor] / Oberammergau / 1900.” Although Watkins was apparently not allowed to photograph the Passion Play, he was able to take one of the actor who portrayed Jesus in 1900 in regular attire.
. Very good. Item #010748Although the roots of American colleges lay in the schools of England, by 1900, American scholars who wished to study science and medicine in depth made required pilgrimages to the universities and professional schools on the European continent to become professors.
(For more information, see Thelin’s A History of American Higher Education and Veysey’s The Emergence of the American University.)
At the time of listing, nothing similar is for sale in the trade. Neither the Rare Book Hub nor ASBA show any similar letters or vernacular photographs of the Oberammergau Passion Play, its actors, or Vienna’s Corpus Christi Procession. OCLC identifies no similar letters, however it records one Stereoview of the Corpus Christi Day is held by the National Library of Singapore.
.Price: $300.00