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Nurses working for the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service in New York City took these snapshots, which show their lives and the lives of the families they cared for in the 1930s.
“This little chap is a colored cretin. He is undergoing treatment at Vanderbilt Clinic and is making marked progress.”
The photo album caption uses outdated terms to identify a young African American boy who seems known to the visiting nurse. She suggests he is now receiving treatment for cretinism, a serious condition that includes physical deformities and intellectual disability caused by congenital hypothyroidism.
The wealthy and influential Vanderbilt family founded the clinic where the young boy receives treatment, in 1886. In 1925, the clinic was ceded to Presbyterian Hospital.
Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine
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National Institutes of Health, Health & Human Services
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National Library of Medicine, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894
National Institutes of Health, Health & Human Services
Freedom of Information Act , NLM Customer Support