A Repository for Bottled Monsters: March 2016

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Archivist and curator jobs open at NMHM

https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/432006800/
Job Title:  ARCHIVIST
Department:  Department of Defense
Agency:  Defense Health Agency

Job Announcement Number: NW61420-12-1647011K3344639D

SALARY RANGE:

$77,490.00 to $100,736.00 / Per Year

OPEN PERIOD:

Wednesday, March 9, 2016 to Tuesday, March 15, 2016

SERIES & GRADE:

GS-1420-12

POSITION INFORMATION:

Full Time - Permanent

PROMOTION POTENTIAL:

DUTY LOCATIONS:

1 vacancy in the following location:
Silver Spring, MD View Map

https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/431610700/

Job Title:  STAFF CURATOR (COLLECTIONS)
Department:  Department of Defense
Agency:  Defense Health Agency
Hiring Organization:  DEFENSE HEALTH AGENCY

Job Announcement Number: NW61015-14-1644127K3339517D

SALARY RANGE:

$108,887.00 to $141,555.00 / Per Year

OPEN PERIOD:

Friday, March 4, 2016 to Friday, March 11, 2016

SERIES & GRADE:

GS-1015-14

POSITION INFORMATION:

Full Time - Permanent

PROMOTION POTENTIAL:

DUTY LOCATIONS:

1 vacancy in the following location:
Silver Spring, MD View Map

WHO MAY APPLY:

United States Citizens

SECURITY CLEARANCE:

Not Applicable

SUPERVISORY STATUS:

Yes

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

St. Elizabeths brains at NMHM

St. Elizabeths Stories: How The World's Most Notorious Lobotomist Got His Start In DC

DCist.com
http://dcist.com/2016/03/walter_freeman_lobotomy_st_elizabet.php

Hundreds of the brains he autopsied are preserved to this day at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. But Freeman approached the end of ...

Monday, March 7, 2016

New book on museums and human remains out

How Many Human Skeletons Are in US Museums?

History News Network (HNN)
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161946

In 1879, when a letter arrived at the Army Medical Museum attached to a box containing a human skull, curators likely read with great interest the ...

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The Grog, A Journal of Navy Medical History and Culture--Issue 44

It is with great pleasure that we offer you the latest ration of The Grog, A Journal of Navy Medical History and Culture. In this edition we look back at the Navy's fight against tuberculosis in the decades before antibiotics. Partly inspired by the work of a tubercular physician in the Adirondacks and a new method of treatment he popularized, in 1906 the Navy established a
special hospital in a landlocked state that served only tubercular Sailors and Marines. In our cover story we revisit this vanguard institution and look at the innovative methods for treating the so-called "incurables." We follow this story with an eclectic line-up of articles including our latest installment of our "year in review" series, as well as first-hand accounts of independent hospital corps duty in the South Pole and the curious, but true tale of how a Navy physician used a sigmoidoscope to save (USS) America.

As always, we hope you enjoy this tour of the high seas of Navy Medicine's past!

The Grog is accessible through the link below. PDF versions are available upon request. Those currently on the PDF Mailing list will receive a separate e-mail.

http://issuu.com/thegrogration/docs/the_grog__issue_44

Very Respectfully,

André B. Sobocinski
Historian
Communications Directorate (M09B7)
Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED)
Tel: (703) 681-2473
Email: andre.b.sobocinski.civ@mail.mil

Got Navy Medical History?
http://www.med.navy.mil/bumed/nmhistory/

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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