A Repository for Bottled Monsters: August 2014

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Sept 2: NLM History of Medicine Lecture

Dear Colleagues,

You are cordially invited to the next NLM History of Medicine lecture, to be held on Tuesday, September2, from 2pm to 3pm in the Lister Hill Auditorium, Building 38A, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. Dr. Julia Hallam, University of Liverpool, will help celebrate the opening of NLM's newest exhibition, Pictures of Nursing: the Zwerdling Postcard Collection. The project encompasses a special display, future traveling banner exhibition, an online presence with education resources, and a digital gallery highlighting 585 postcards from the Zwerdling collection of postcards about nurses and nursing. Dr. Hallam will discuss her work with the collection and the exhibit.

All are welcome.

Sign language interpretation is provided. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate may contact Kenneth Koyle at 301-496-5407, e-mail ken.koyle@nih.gov, or the Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).

Due to current security measures at NIH, off-campus visitors are advised to consult the NLM Visitors and Security website:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/about/visitor.html

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Pictures from NMHM's Medical Heritage Library submissions are now on Flickr

Pictures from NMHM's Medical Heritage Library submissions are now on Flickr. This includes the Civil War-era Pleasants photograph album, and presumably eventually ALL the images in the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Two Army Medical Museum letters from J.J. Woodward

Today, I ran across a photocopy from some old research I'd done, and experimented with putting it online at the Medical Heritage Library. If there's interest, I can scan more.

Letter from J. J. Woodward to Bowditch on Army Medical Museum - Army Medical Museum
Dr. Joseph Woodward writes to Dr. Bowditch expressing his opinion on the use of the medical museum in determining the causes of disease. He also expresses appreciation for the Surgeon General's Library. Original in National Museum of Health and Medicine's OHA 28: Curatorial Records: Woodward Letterbooks.

Letter from J.J. Woodward To Joseph Henry On Comparative Anatomy Books - Army Medical Museum
Dr. Joseph Woodward writes to Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution asking for books on animals for the Museum's comparative anatomy collection with the books to be added to the Surgeon General's Library. Original in National Museum of Health and Medicine's OHA 28: Curatorial Records: Woodward Letterbooks.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Johns Hopkins considering a history of medicine certificate

from Christine Ruggere, Associate Director, Institute of the History of Medicine & Curator, Historical Collection at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine:

The Department of the History of Medicine of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is currently developing a set of online courses in the history of medicine in order to provide greater access to the study of that subject. Mapped out over time, the courses will also be part of a larger project creating an online certificate program and an online Masters' degree in the history of medicine. One of our main goals is to provide graduate-level teaching in the field to interested health care students/professionals and others who are otherwise unable to take a year or two away from their work to pursue a degree in person or who wish to take just a few courses at their own convenience. In order to have our degree programs certified by the state of Maryland, we are required to submit results from a survey indicating any interest in these programs. It is a very short, quick survey: http://www.johnshopkinssurveys.com/se.ashx?s=705E3F16491130AA.

Who are we?

Mike Rhode was the chief archivist of the Museum from 1989-2011, and is the founder of this blog. I maintain an interest in the course of the museum, and will be posting relevant information.

The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 during the American Civil War. After World War II, a parent-child relationship was inverted and the Museum became part of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Since then, the Museum has moved around Washington, stopping for years in Ford's Theatre, and on the National Mall where the building it shared with the National Library of Medicine once stood, until it was demolished in 1968 for the Hirshhorn Museum. For 35 years it was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and now is in Silver Spring, MD.

So what about that blog name?

It's historical. I found it in a quote from one of the former curators. World War II confirmed the Army Medical Museum's primary role in pathology consultation. James Ash, the curator during the war and a pathologist, noted, "Shortly after the last war, more concerted efforts were instituted to concentrate in the Army Medical Museum the significant pathologic material occurring in Army installations." He closed with the complaint, "We still suffer under the connotation museum, an institution still thought of by many as a repository for bottled monsters and medical curiosities. To be sure, we have such specimens. As is required by law, we maintain an exhibit open to the public, but in war time, at least, the museum per se is the least of our functions, and we like to be thought of as the Army Institute of Pathology, a designation recently authorized by the Surgeon General."

After the war, it evolved into the tri-service Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

A Repository for Bottled Monsters

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