Victor D. Brenner (1871–1924) International Congress on Tuberculosis Medal, 1908.
Bronze, 1.4 × 1.2 in /35.5 × 30.9 mm. Photography by James Gathany
The initials VDB are well known to collectors of the Lincoln penny, the obverse (front
surface) of which reflects the longest-running design in the history of US coinage.
In 1909, in its first coinage, VDB appears in embossed format at the bottom of the
coin’s reverse, in honor of its designer, Victor David Brenner. The initial San Francisco
Mint coin, the 1909-S VDB, remains a sought-after rarity; most collectors never fill
the open-mouthed, empty “1909-S VDB” hole in their penny albums.
Despite a tradition of artists’ signing their names or initials in coinage, controversy
arising from the prominence of the VDB initials resulted in their removal that same
year. Tucked into the left lowermost ridge of the bust of Abraham Lincoln, Brenner’s
initials were restored to the obverse of Lincoln pennies coined since 1918. Discernable
by magnification, the inconspicuous placement of Brenner’s signature imitates that
of a Sicilian engraver, Euainetos, whose work Brenner described as having an “extraordinary
decorative sense woven into every line, giving to the empty spaces as much charm as
to the modeled surfaces.”
Brenner, born Viktoras Baranauskas in Lithuania in 1871, immigrated to the United
States in 1890, bringing with him stone-cutting skills that he had learned from his
father. Employed as an engraver in New York City, he took evening classes first at
Cooper Union, then at the National Academy School and the Art Students League of New
York. In 1898, he began to study metal sculpting in Paris under Louis-Oscar Roty and
Alexandre Charpentier and became acquainted with Auguste Rodin. Roty taught Brenner
the lost wax method of casting to make medals. Brenner’s work subsequently won high
honors at the Paris Exhibition (1900), Pan American Exposition in Buffalo (1901),
and St. Louis International Exposition (1904).
After returning to New York City in 1906, Brenner produced a medal, plaquettes, and
a bas-relief for the 1909 centenary of Lincoln’s birth. US President Theodore Roosevelt
saw examples of those works while posing for Brenner during the making of a Panama
Canal service medal, and Brenner gained two more commissions as a result. The first
commission was to design a penny featuring Lincoln, a radical departure from tradition—heretofore,
no president had appeared on US coins intended for widespread circulation. The second
commission was to design a medal for the Sixth International Congress on Tuberculosis,
to be held in Washington, DC, in 1908. Roosevelt, who was invited to preside over
this Congress, wrote: “The importance of the crusade against tuberculosis… cannot
be overestimated when it is realized that tuberculosis costs our county two hundred
thousand lives per year, and the entire world over a million lives per year, besides
constituting a most serious handicap to material progress, prosperity, and happiness,
and being an enormous expense to society, most often to those in walks of life where
the burden is least bearable.”
The National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis (founded by
Edward Trudeau in 1904 and now known as the American Lung Association) planned the
Congress. Honorary presidents of the Congress included Trudeau and Robert Koch, one
of the fathers of modern microbiology, who had described the causative agent of tuberculosis
(TB) 25 years earlier. Many legendary figures in the United States and foreign medical
communities participated, including William Welch (whose image was subsequently immortalized
on a Brenner plaque at Johns Hopkins University), Hermann Biggs, William Osler, Arnold
Klebs, and Charles Mayo. Albert Calmette also discussed the success that he, together
with Camille Guérin, had achieved in immunizing cattle against TB by using an attenuated
strain of Mycobacterium bovis. The relatively recent breakthroughs of Koch and of
Calmette and Guérin offered hope that science would soon defeat TB.
The Congress was convened in what is now the National Museum of Natural History. For
the time, it was a colossal meeting: the number of delegates exceeded 5,000, and total
attendance at the various sessions was nearly 100,000. Each delegate received a bronze
medal (this month’s cover image) designed by Brenner. On the obverse is the figure
of a beautiful woman holding the hourglass of time and striding toward a radiant sun,
under which is written the Latin word for light, “LVMEN.” The woman represents human
scientific endeavors approaching enlightenment, and as she progresses, she is trampling
down an evil dragon representing disease. On the reverse is the American eagle, with
the stars and stripes; underneath appears “INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON TVBERCVLOSIS
WASHINGTON 1908” and the double-barred cross, the insignia of the campaign against
TB.
At the closing of the Congress, several adopted resolutions described the underpinnings
of today’s federal, state, and local TB control programs. The first such resolution
was as follows: “That the attention of the state and central governments be called
to the importance of proper laws for the obligatory notification, by medical attendants,
to the proper health authorities, of all cases of tuberculosis coming to their notice,
and for the registration of such cases, in order to enable the health authorities
to put in operation adequate measures for the prevention of the disease.”
This Congress justifiably captured the attention of those in medicine and government.
In 1908, the US death rate from TB was estimated to be 164 deaths per 100,000 population,
nearly 10% of deaths from all causes. For those who marvel at the vision of Roosevelt,
the challenges remain: TB still claims more than a million lives annually worldwide
and still disproportionately affects “those in walks of life where the burden is least
bearable.”