Mary V. Clymer
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Mary V. Clymer | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 8, 1861 Yardsville, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | September 9, 1942 (aged 81) |
| Education | Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Training School for Nurses |
| Medical career | |
| Profession | nurse |
| Institutions |
|
| Notable works | The Clymer Diaries |
Mary V. Clymer (1861-1942) was an American nurse. Trained at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Training School for Nurses (now the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing), she kept a detailed journal of her experiences in hospital ward settings[1] and later established the school's alumni organization and wrote its constitution.[2] She is remembered today for her detailed diary, maintained as The Clymer Diaries by the University of Pennsylvania, which served as an important primary source for nursing practices and daily lives of nurses in the late nineteenth century,[3] and for her portrayal in the Thomas Eakins painting The Agnew Clinic.
Life
Credited by the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) as the first trained operating room nurse in Philadelphia, Mary V. Clymer was born in Mercer County, New Jersey, in 1861 to a prominent Civil War veteran.[2] At the age of 28, Clymer enrolled in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Training School for Nurses.[2] Graduating in 1889 at the top of her class,[4] Clymer was among the first graduates of HUP's nurse training school, which was established in 1886.[5] Clymer was the recipient of the Nightingale Award for her exceptional patient care and scholarship.[2] Fittingly, Clymer missed her graduation ceremony from the Training School because she was providing emergency care to victims of the 1889 Williamsport flood.[2]
After graduation, Clymer worked as a private nurse up until 1900, and was praised by patients and doctors. In 1893 she established the Alumnae Organization of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania training school. Upon her marriage in 1901 she retired from nursing, but she remained active in the affairs of the organization and the nursing school until her death.[2]
The Agnew Clinic
Clymer may be best known for her appearance in the Thomas Eakins work The Agnew Clinic, depicting a surgical procedure headed by noted surgeon David Hayes Agnew. Clymer is the only female subject in the painting, apart from the patient. Students of the medical class of 1889 who commissioned The Agnew Clinic are portrayed as the audience for the surgery—as historian Amanda Mahoney[6] points out, all individuals depicted in the work can be identified by name, except for the patient—and this audience of male medical students creates a composition that highlights power dynamics between the masculine and the feminine in the academic medical hierarchy.[6] Central to the medical care of the patient yet separate in her femininity stands the woman in white—the nurse, Mary Clymer, who serves as the surgeon Agnew's "structural counterpart" in the composition of the painting, the only other figure on the same level as the surgeon.[4]
Some art historians read Clymer's presence in the painting as sympathetic to the female patient: Clymer looks down at the objectified female figure and feels connection with another body separate from the male-dominated hospital hierarchy.[7] Others argue that Clymer's presence challenges this dynamic: Clymer's presence demonstrates the increasing technical advancements within nursing and medicine, her placement in the scene is a nod to the contributions to sanitation and organization that nurses brought to the operating room.[7][6] Clymer may not look down at the female figure in sympathy but with the cool attention of a trained operating room nurse, one who closely monitors her patient's status and anticipates the needs of the surgical team.[6]
The Clymer Diaries
During her training between 1887 and 1889, Mary Clymer kept diaries that included clinical and lecture notes that have been preserved through the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing archives. Clymer's diaries reveal daily nursing tasks, practical knowledge learned, and the occasional student's gripe—"Learned nothing new, and everything seemed to go wrong. M.V.C."[8]
Clymer's notes reveal Eakins’ artistic license in the depiction of the mastectomy in The Agnew Clinic—Clymer wrote that, when preparing a patient for operation, one must cover the healthy breast and reveal the affected breast;[9] this is confirmed in Agnew's own writings.[7] Eakins’ choice to leave the patient nude may have been for shock value, to clarify the nature of the depicted procedure, or to simply fulfill the artist's desire to portray a nude female figure.[6]
Not only do the diaries of Mary V. Clymer reveal information regarding operating room etiquette that has been used to help understand The Agnew Clinic, they also detail common practices and materia medica of 19th-century medicine employed at HUP during her time there. These medicines and practices include but are not limited to:
- General medicine
- Beef tea[10]
- Cod liver oil[11]
- Cold baths for fever[12]
- Esmarch bandage[13]
- Turpentine as a hemostatic,[14] in the treatment of burns,[15] to relieve shortness of breath[16] and in a poultice for swollen bowels.[17]
- Lead acetate, laudanum, Monsell's solution, and aromatic sulphuric acid as hemostatics.[18]
- Milk products: Peptonized milk, hot milk, skim milk, and buttermilk "only if fresh."[19]
- Opium suppositories[20]
- Soda water to assist in digestion[21]
- Stimulating enema made with turpentine and yolk of egg[22]
- Quinine noted to cause rash, blindness or deafness in some patients[23]
- Care of the skin
- Casting soap aka glycerin soap used to wash skin and carbonate of sodium and borax to clean skin when rubbing is contraindicated.[24]
- Bran or gelatin powder to protect the skin[25]
- Oxide of zinc for burns, scalds, and blisters[26]
- Zinc powder applied to patient's back[27]
- Camphorated oil to prevent bedsores and croton oil rubbed into the skin is noted as being "stimulating."[28]
- Permanganate of potash for burns[29]
- Wound dressing made with "lead water and laudanum" for dressing of knee amputation[30]
- Disinfectants
- "Alcohol, Borax, Salt, Lime (Chloride, Carbolic acid & Corrosive Stimulate are both)."[31]
- Bichloride of mercury which "will produce irritation" and Iodoform which "smells badly & is not as active as the others but when wet is very good."[32]
- Carbolic acid as a disinfectant useful only "when it comes in contact with what you want to destroy."[33]
- Chloride of lime as the "best disinfectant."[34]
- Prussic acid "the most violent poison" and creosote[35]
- Respiratory support
- Steam inhalation via atomizer or direct inhalation of steaming water for respiratory support[36]
- To alleviate a cough: flax seed and Irish moss with lemon juice for taste, hot water steam inhalation, Turlington's Balsam, gum arabic water, mustard plasters applied to the chest[37]
- For shortness of breath: hot brandy or ammonia and hot water; Hoffman's anodyne for adults, not children; turpentine, hartshorn or chloroform liniment[16]
- Obstetrics and gynecology
- "A few [tablets from druggists] we ought always have":[40]
- 1/4 gr. Morphia
- 1/100 of Atropia
- 1/8 of pilocarpine Ergotine
- 1% nitroglycerine
See also
External links
The Clymer Diaries - Barbara Bates Center for the History of Nursing
References
- ^ Lewenson, Sandra B.; Herrmann, Eleanor Krohn (2007). Capturing Nursing History: A Guide to Historical Research. Springer Publishing Co. pp. xvi. ISBN 0826115659.
- ^ a b c d e f "Bates Center Finding Aid Mary V. Clymer papers". Barbara Bates Center for The Study of The History of Nursing. Retrieved November 13, 2017.
- ^ Lewenson 2007, p. 129-130.
- ^ a b Fryer, Judith (1991). The Female Body: Figures, Styles, Speculations. University of Michigan Press. p. 237. ISBN 978-0472064779.
- ^ "History". www.nursing.upenn.edu. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
- ^ a b c d e pennalumni (November 12, 2009), "The Agnew Clinic: Through the Eyes of a Nurse" (Penn Homecoming 2009), archived from the original on 2021-12-15, retrieved November 20, 2017
- ^ a b c Athens, Elizabeth (July 2006). "Knowledge and Authority and Thormas Eakin's 'The Agnew Clinic'". The Burlington Magazine. 148 (1240): 482–485. JSTOR 20074493.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 1". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 75v V1. Retrieved November 25, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary (October 2017). "Lecture Notes c. 1887–1889". Archives of the Barbara Bates Center for the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved November 13, 2017.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 3r V.2. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 4v V.2. Retrieved November 25, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 6r V2. Retrieved November 25, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 1". p. 60r V.1. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 16v V.2. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 34r V.2. Retrieved October 25, 2019.
- ^ a b Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 56r V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 99v V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 16v V.2; 17v V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 20v V.2; 20r V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 34v V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 20v V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 1". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 59r V.1. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 67r V.2. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 15r V.2. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 15r V.2. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 15v V.2. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 1". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 74r V.1. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 15v V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 35r V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 1". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 73r V.1. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 65r V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 31r V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 12v V.2. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 12v V.2.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 67v V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 10r V.2. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 55v V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 18v V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 58v V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- ^ Clymer, Mary. "The Clymer Diaries Volume 2". The Barbara Bates Center for The Study of the History of Nursing. p. 43v V.2. Retrieved October 14, 2019.