A Repository for Bottled Monsters: Noberts Ruling Machine

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Letter of the Day: March 7

Nobert was known for making microscopical lines (or rulings) on glass slides to a very high tolerance, so researchers used his slides to calibrate their microscopes. The machine was bought by the museum but was transferred to the Bureau of Standards, which is now the National Institute of Standards and Techology.

Bhootan
Whitehorse Road
Croydon, near London
Mar. 7 .99

To Dr. J. S. Billings
Washington

Dear Sir

You may recollect some years ago having some correspondence with my father (the late Dr. John Mayall jun.) regarding the acquisition of Noberts Ruling Machine, but that it was not then for sale.

After my father’s death I acquired the machine, but now owing to serious domestic troubles I am closing up my home, & am writing back if you would like to purchase the machine for your museum.

My father looked upon it as one of the wonders of the mechanical world which it undoubtedly is, & thought it should be in a museum where it could be seen & appreciated.

The machine has been preserved with the utmost care, all accessories, the diamonds for the rulings, Noberts original notes, together with a translation, are all intact.

The price of the machine is L200, & if you decide to purchase it, I will have it most carefully packed.

I enclose a set of photographs showing different views of the machine, accessories etc, also a copy of the Soc. Of Arts Journal containing the paper read by my father before that society.

I am Sir
Yrs faithfully
(Mrs.) L.C.E. Taylor

[the photographs were given the numbers CP 3770-3773]

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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Sunday, March 7, 2010

Letter of the Day: March 7

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