Taking the waters in Saratoga Springs, NY

For my first in-person conference since the pandemic began, I was thrilled to attend the 95th annual meeting of the American Association of the History of Medicine in Saratoga Springs, New York, known for its spas and horseracing. I traveled a day early by car, rail shuttle, plane, rail shuttle, train, train, and van in order to take part in a walking tour Thursday morning and tune in for the Sigerist Circle presentations in the afternoon.

The town was incorporated around 1820, but most of the picturesque buildings along Broadway date from the late nineteenth century. There is one corner that has had the same four tenants since 1916: the town hall (above left), bank (above right), post office (not pictured), and a pharmacy (below).

We learned a lot about architectural styles: symmetric Federal buildings with shutters gave way to early Victorian buildings with asymmetrical entrances and decoration near the roofline. In the 1870s, when Paris officials tried to tax property owners for every floor except the "attic," architects dropped the roofline to create the "mansard" roof, as on this beautiful brick inn.

There were a number of hotels, both small and large, as the population swelled in the warmer months. Below are two such hotels with porticos. The photo at the top of the post shows a "high Victorian" edifice with turret and frilly decorations. The only thing missing from a Queen Anne mansion is the wrap-around veranda.

Our tour guide clearly knew a LOT about the history of Saratoga Springs, but I wish she had edited herself more. For instance, I appreciated the scandalous patricide story behind the gas station, but I didn't really need to know about the bank vault that wouldn't fit in the new building. 

The main attraction was, of course, the spring waters, which are 55 degrees year-round. (Because they are not hotter, they cannot properly be called geysers, even though some of them do spurt.)

Our first stop was Hawthorn spring. It was a harshly carbonated and vaguely orange water that was tough to choke down. Reportedly good for digestive ailments (causing or curing them?). Cheers!

Then it was across the rainbow-colored crosswalk to Congress Park; carousel visible in the middle ground.

I did not have time to visit the museum in the old casino, but I did try two other springs, which were more palatable. This is Congress Spring, discovered in 1792.

Some springs were "discovered" by entrepreneurs who tunneled down to the water table and bottled what they were able to pump up, but this depleted the water level for all the springs, so eventually the state government stepped in and socialized the springs. They keep up these and the ones in the state park so that the minerals don't clog the pipes, and they ensure that access is free. (You do have to pay for the bottled and branded Saratoga Springs water you saw above; that one was MUCH easier to drink.)

Then it was time for the conference, which was held masked and vaccinated (or tested). There was pretty good turn out. Here you can see me horsing around in the convention hall; these fiberglass statues were painted and displayed around the city to promote the racetrack, which opened in 1863.

I brought an old swag bag from the 2012 meeting in Baltimore and wore my plague doctor socks.

Saturday I displayed a poster about sneaking history of medicine into the nutrition course I piloted for medical students in January. It was very popular, so now I definitely have to keep my promise to publish about it this summer. The poster below had an interactive component, inviting viewers to write a note on a sticky and attach it to the poster.

While listening to papers, I made excellent progress on my next anatomical cross stitch project, a very tricky uterus. Below is where I started on Friday, by adding the orange Fallopian tube on the left. I am re-purposing an old piece of linen that I think used to belong to the grandmother who lived next door when I was growing up. She made the flowers and butterfly at the bottom.

And here is what I had done by midday Sunday. Alas, I discovered that I had counted my stitches wrong in a couple of places, most notably for the Fallopian tube on the right, so I added a subserosal fibroid. I am particularly proud of the bi-color flowers in the upper right.

I typed this while sitting the Albany airport waiting on my way home via van, plane, plane, and car.