Scalps!

Scalps! cover

Scalps! Wilburt Davison

This week we're highlighting one of the more humorous items in our collections. Scalps!, published in 1958, is a 32-page booklet of caricatures of School of Medicine faculty. For SOM alumni and those with a knowledge of DUMC history, the book is a collection of familiar faces, depicting key figures in Duke Medicine, such as the first School of Medicine Dean Wilburt Davison (pointing at globe). All of the artwork was done by Elec LeClerq, who came to Duke in 1957 as a resident in Endocrinology. A native of Belgium, LeClerq received his medical degree in 1951 from Liege University, and while in medical school also studied sculpture at the Academy of Brussels. The drawings were first seen as part of an exhibit in the Doctor’s Dining Room at Duke Hospital. Presumably, they were a great success; according to LeClerq’s introductory note, “the Duke students by a definite masochism or vengeance, asked [me] to publish these caricatures.” To learn more about Scalps!, contact us at dumc.archives@mc.duke.edu.