Monday, March 27, 2017

Mobile Medical Museum featured on tv

Mobile Medical Museum full of interesting artifacts

Mar 24, 2017
By Lee Peck, FOX10 News Reporter
http://www.fox10tv.com/story/34994918/mobile-medical-museum-full-of-interesting-artifacts

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Major exhibit on St. Elizabeths mental hospital opens in DC

When we thought mental illness could be cured with architecture

By Sadie Dingfelder
Express March 232017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2017/03/23/when-we-thought-mental-illness-could-be-cured-with-architecture/

Thursday, March 16, 2017

New York Academy of Medicine archivist featured online

Rebecca Pou | Movers & Shakers 2017 – Digital Developers

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2017/03/people/movers-shakers-2017/rebecca-pou-movers-shakers-2017-digital-developers/

St. Elizabeths hospital exhibit at National Building Museum

Architecture of an Asylum: St Elizabeths 1852-2017
MARCH 25, 2017–JANUARY 15, 2018
http://nbm.org/exhibition/architecture-asylum-st-elizabeths-1852-2017/

I'm sure this will be a good exhibit and I plan to go see it. The hospital treated mentally-ill soldiers for much of the nineteenth century and there's a Civil War graveyard on the site.

St. Elizabeths had a historic collection, or museum, that was broken up in the 1990s with material going to the National Archives, the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Howard University, and at least two other places.

Here's the Medical Museum's description of its holdings:

SAINT ELIZABETH'S HOSPITAL COLLECTION, 1861-1990
No finding aid,21 boxes, unarranged, inactive, unrestricted.
Material transferred when Saint Elizabeth's closed its museum due to being transferred from the federal government to the District of Columbia. Includes books, photographs,paintings, patient art, certificates, and pamphlets. Most photographs and paintings are portraits of staff. Objects also in Historical Collections.
.
Additional material transferred to the National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of American History, Howard University,Department of the Interior Museum, Department of Health and Human Services' SAMSUS, Smithsonian Institution Castle, National Archives, and the Octagon House.

The Octagon House is the architects society's museum and it got a large model of the hospital (over my objections).

Here's a short piece from the Washington City Paper on some of the Medical Museum's holdings:

What's Inside Box No. 1997.0015 OHA 293.23?

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

March 21: Shelley McKellar speaks on artificial hearts at NLM

[I saw a much earlier version of this research, and recommend this].

You are cordially invited to the next NLM History of Medicine lecture, to be held on Tuesday, March 21, from 2pm to 3:30pm in the NLM Lister Hill Auditorium, Building 38A, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. This special program will be the first annual NLM Michael E. DeBakey Lecture in the History of Medicine. This is a new annual lecture at the NLM which honors the legacy of Michael E. DeBakey as it exists in modern medical practice and in the ongoing public service of the NLM.

This year, there will be two speakers at this inaugural event:

"'Intentional Impact' The Legacy of Michael E. DeBakey Beyond the Operating Room"

Shelley McKellar, PhD, The Jason A. Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine, Associate Professor, with Joint Appointment with the Department of Surgery, Western University, Canada

"A Brief Look at Michael E. DeBakey's Role in Establishing the National Library of Medicine as It Is Today"

George P. Noon, MD, Professor of Surgery, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine

The NLM Michael E. DeBakey Lecture in the History of Medicine is supported by a generous gift to the NLM by the Michael E. DeBakey Medical Foundation

This lecture will be live-streamed globally, and subsequently archived, by NIH VideoCasting:

https://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?live=22006&bhcp=1

All are welcome.

Sign language interpretation is provided. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate may contact Stephen Greenberg at 301-827-4577, e-mail stephen.greenberg@nih.gov, or via the Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).

In addition, we warmly welcome you to visit our blog, "Circulating Now," where you can learn more about the collections and related programs of the History of Medicine Division of the NLM:

http://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/

Here also you can read interviews with previous lecturers:

http://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/tag/lecture/

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

Sponsored by:

NLM's History of Medicine Division

Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, Chief

Event contact:

Stephen J. Greenberg, MSLS, PhD

Section Head, Rare Books & Early Manuscripts

History of Medicine Division

National Library of Medicine, NIH

301-827-4577

stephen.greenberg@nih.gov

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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