Emil G. “Gus” Bethke (1906-1995)

Emil G. “Gus” Bethke (1906-1995) was employed at the Eye Institute, 1933-1973, as the departmental medical illustrator. Before coming to the Institute, he had been an illustrator at the University of Iowa. At Columbia, he married his fellow illustrator, Marjorie Quinlan. The majority of his works, compiled and edited by Dr John C. Merriam, have been preserved at the  Archives & Special Collections, Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library, ColumbiaUniversity Medical Center, as The Collection of Medical Illustrations of the Edward S. Harkness Eye Institute of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in the City of New York.

Prior to the routine use of photography to document ophthalmic conditions, medical illustrators were used to create accurate representations for both clinical follow-up and educational purposes. In addition to Bethke’s works at the Archives, the collection includes illustrations of eye diseases and conditions which were created by medical illustrators in the Columbia University Department of Ophthalmology from 1911-1973.

“DETACHMENT OF THE RETINA WITH TEAR O.D.” (1933)

In addition to his patient illustrations, Bethke designed and illustrated a number of bookplates, both for the Wheeler Library, and for some private ophthalmologists. In the examples here, the top row shows 3 different versions of the standard Wheeler Library bookplate over time. On the far right in the second row is the bookplate for Dr John Wheeler’s private collection; on the far left is the cover plate of the book “Collected papers of John Martin Wheeler M.D. on Ophthalmic Subjects,” which was prepared by the staff of the Institute of Ophthalmology and published in a limited edition in 1939. Note that this Wheeler bookplate is teeming with symbolic images, including a partial Caduceus obscured by a surgical knife (possibly the knife devised by Poyet in 1753) performing a limbal incision, presumably prior to cataract extraction; two von Graefe-type scalpels; two ophthalmoscopes; various books; two dip pens with inkwells; a clenched fist which grasps cords tied to many of these objects; the New York skyline, and a left posterior pole (fundus) drawing. 

In the middle of the row is the bookplate Bethke designed for Dr Raymond Pfeiffer (the first resident to graduate from the new Eye Institute), who was one of the first ophthalmologists to use X-Rays for orbital disease evaluation, and who contributed many of the items found here in the Wheeler Library Collection.

On the bottom are two enlargements from bookplates showing E.G. Bethke’s signature.

Illustration copy courtesy of the Collection of Medical Illustrations of the Edward S. Harkness Eye Institute of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in the City of New York  at the Archives and Special Collections, Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library,Columbia University Irving Medical Center