Exhibition provides journey of educational discovery

Meriwether Lewis fell decidedly ill one night while traveling with the Corps of Discovery at the turn of the 19th century.

Weak with violent intestinal pain and a high fever, he ordered his men to gather twigs of the chokecherry. Lewis removed the poisonous leaves and cut the twigs into two-inch pieces. He boiled the twigs to produce “a strong black decoction of an astringent bitter tast [e].”

Lewis drank two pints, one at sunset and one an hour later, and found that he was able to have “a comfortable and refreshing nights rest.” Rising early the next morning, he quaffed another pint and, feeling revived, set out on a 27-mile hike.

Stories of domestic medicine piqued the interest of Meredith Torre, a graduate student in the School of Library and Information Studies. That curiosity sparked a curatorial odyssey that became “A Spoonful of Sugar: Medicinal Preparation in the Domestic Sphere,” an exhibition of 32 rare books and artifacts about domestic medicine. The show will be on view through Wednesday, Feb. 28, on the third floor of the Ebling Library in the Health Sciences Learning Center.

“Once I developed the over-reaching theme, I had to learn more about how visual cues function, because these exhibits would be visual. Images needed to be not merely attractive but also help shape the story that the theme set out to create,” she says. “The images also needed to work well with other images, creating a logical flow. Background readings, research on the theme and on individual books, and consideration of specific images were a part of this initial process.”

Drawn mostly from Ebling Library’s own special collections, special collections housed in Memorial Library and from the UW–Madison American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, the project also taught Torres a good deal about the work of a rare- book librarian, the highly competitive specialty to which she aspires.

Torre also hopes that curating this exhibition will help her once she graduates.

“Opportunities to receive training specific to rare-book librarianship are limited. Creating this exhibit enabled me to receive specialized experience and to develop skills that are sometimes difficult to find before actually entering the profession,” she says.

The exhibit is free and open to everyone.

The Ebling Library is also hosting “Walking, Seeing, Being,” works by Todd Starks, until Feb. 28.

Curiosity and discovery factor into Starks’ oils and acrylics, he says, “especially when it comes to exploring new places. When the newness of a place is in front of me I want to keep it close. And so I paint to freeze my favorite places and feelings in time.”

For information, contact Micaela Sullivan-Fowler, 262-2402 or msullivan@library.wisc.edu.