Establishing identity

Here's another shot from our Resolved exhibit. It shows the lines of evidence that must be explored in order to establish identity.
Forensic identification is the application of science to establish personal identity.
Postmortem data are an individual's physical characteristics recorded by scientists from a person's remains after death.
Antemortem data are the physical characteristics that a person is born with and acquires throughout life.
Identification results when a person's postmortem data matches an individual's antemortem data to the exclusion of everyone else.
Lines of evidence are those scientific disciplines that contribute to an identification, such as material evidence, fingerprinting, dentistry, anthropology, DNA, and pathology.
A case is resolved when an American returns alive, the remains are recovered, repatriated, and certified, or there is convincing evidence that neither of the two options is possible.

Resolved

This image is what greets the visitor at the entrance to our new "Resolved" exhibit on identification of war dead. I think it's universal in language, eloquence without words.

New exhibit in Museum sheds light on identifying missing soldiers, sailors and airmen

The Museum's opened a new exhibit on forensic identification of war dead that goes from the 19th through the 21st centuries. One can see how it is relevant in the newspaper on a weekly basis. Here's a recent article -"Remains of MIA Pilots Identified: Vietnam War Casualties, One From Vienna, to Be Buried," By Ian Shapira, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, July 19, 2008; Page A3.

Leprosy Stigma

Afternoon Coffee Talk at the NMHM

What: Lecture, "Carville, the Landscape of Stigma," by Elizabeth Schexnyder, Curator, The National Hansen's Disease Museum

When: Wednesday, August 27, 2:00 p.m.

Where: Russell Auditorium, National Museum of Health and Medicine

Leprosy is known as the "Biblical" disease and has been associated with a stigma that affects the lives of those with leprosy, both physically and socially. Did you know that at one time Coca Cola refused to pick up empty Coke bottles from the National Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana for fear that contact with the bottles might spread the disease? Join Elizabeth Schexnyder, curator of the National Hansen's Disease Museum, for a discussion of the meaning and significance of the social response to leprosy in the development of the National Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana. She will describe how the process of "othering" human beings diagnosed with leprosy along with the socio-historical factors affecting the disease stigma shaped the unique landscape--both social and physical--of the National Leprosarium.

Wash Post on leprosy

Sally Squires and her husband John Wilhelm have done an interesting and touching documentary film "Triumph at Carville: A Tale of Leprosy in America" which can be seen at the Museum with a small exhibit on leprosy (aka Hansen's Disease). Today she had an article in the Post about how the disease is still around, but not as dangerous as it has been in the past. See "A Scary Diagnosis Hits Home When a Tiny Rash Turns Out to Be Leprosy, A Teen and Her Community Learn the Modern Reality of Living With the Biblical Disease," By Sally Squires, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, May 27, 2008; Page HE01. On June 19th, we'll have d a free lecture on Hansen's disease by Wayne M. Meyers of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Dr. Meyers is an expert on the disease, which used to be a major area of research in the AFIP, and we have an oral history with him. Drs. Meyers and Chapman Binford were the main doctors working on it. We have some of Dr. Binford's records:

OHA 114

* Binford Leprosy Material, 1922-1975
* .5 cubic foot, 1 box.
* No finding aid, arranged, inactive, unrestricted.
* Public Health Bulletins, reprints, manuscript articles, journals, and photographs related to leprosy. Includes articles and correspondence by Chapman H. Binford, chief of the AFIP Geographic Pathology department.

A day in the life...

I've been realizing this blog is drifting towards aiming squarely at history of medicine types, so I'm going to try to wrench it in a slightly different direction. Here's how I spent part of my day as an archivist today.

I was walking through the exhibit floor this morning and heard voices coming out of our Human Body, Human Being exhibit. The exhibit flooded over the weekend when Washington got 5-7 inches of rain. That side of the museum is built into a hill and has been flooding off and on for about a decade now. On the past Monday, the exhibits and collection staff had dismantled the exhibits against the wall - on the urinary system and bones - and moved them out of the way so the building engineers could look up and say, "yup, it's leaking water."

The whole hall (the Anatifacts area in this map), which is about 1/4 of the exhibit floor, was closed all week, but this morning Steve Hill, head of our exhibits staff, Tim Clarke Jr, our public relations guy and Beth Eubanks, our registrar, were muscling some of the exhibit cases into a new configuration about 10 feet from the wall. I lent a hand and helped and a little after opening the cases were in place. Brian Spatola, collections manager of anatomical collections, brought the specimens back from storage and the four of them put the display back together. Meanwhile...

...I was leading a tour of people who had bought a silent auction benefit behind-the-scenes tour. Our former PR guy Steven Solomon had started these a few years back. We started in historical collections where collections manager Alan Hawk pulled out a bunch of surgical kits dating from the Civil War until World War II, and then showed them wax and plaster models of facial reconstruction surgery from the same time period. Anatomical curator Franklin Damann was giving a tour of his own in anatomical collections, so we swapped groups and he showed my group Civil War amputated femurs, Ham the space chimp, plastinated organs and a quick glance into the wet tissue room where specimens are stored in bottles of formalin.

We combined the two groups and neuroanatomical collections manager Archie Fobbs displayed some of our brain slides. Instead of making a microscope slide, his predecessors sectioned and mounted slices of whole brains and you can see stroke or tumor damage. I think the high point for the group was when Archie opened up his demo tub of a brain preserved in alcohol and let people handle it. Nobody was in the Human Developmental Anatomy Center, so I did a quick riff on scanning slides of embryos which had been collected 100 years ago to make first wax or plaster models of organ systems. These are now being scanned with the models made in the computer. Finally I gave my standard tour of the archives, including a letter signed by Walter Reed, a 1917 doctor's diary, a revised confidential asbestosis report for Johns Manville from 1949, a lantern slide photograph of a survivor from Hiroshima, an album of the museum's Civil War Surgical Photographs and some of our trade lit advertising material.

So there's a good bit of a typical day. If there's interest in more posts like this, comment below please.

Save the Date! Leprosy documentary and talk at NMHM, Thurs., 5/22

Save the Date! Leprosy documentary and talk at NMHM, Thurs., 5/22, 11:30am-1:00 p.m.

Enjoy a special lunchtime screening of the documentary 'Triumph at Carville: A Tale of Leprosy in America' at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, featuring a brief introduction by the filmmakers John Wilhelm and Sally Squires. (Film running time: approximately 58 minutes.) While at the Museum, check out the temporary exhibition highlighting the story of the country's only national leprosarium and
learn more about leprosy (also called Hansen's disease) and the unique social and cultural life at Carville. More online at http://www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum/exhibits/triumphatcarville/index.html.

Date: Thursday, May 22, 2008
Time: 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Where: Russell Auditorium at NMHM/AFIP (Bldg 54/Walter Reed Army Medical Center)
Cost: FREE! (Bring a bag lunch.)

Questions? Email nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil or visit the Museum online at http://www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum.

New National Library of Medicine exhibit

Manon Parry sent out an email about her new exhibit:

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world's largest medical library and a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), recently launched a new exhibition, "Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health." The exhibition will be on display at the NLM on the outskirts of Washington DC until 2010, and can be viewed online at: http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/againsttheodds//index.cfm

The exhibition explores aspects of the history of global health as well as current issues, highlighting the shared concerns of communities around the world. Materials from the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine are on display alongside artifacts and images gathered from across the globe and video interviews. Featured stories include the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the United States and the work of ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), the
Chinese barefoot doctor movement, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, and the smallpox eradication program led by the World Health Organization.

Alongside scientific discoveries and ongoing challenges, the stories illustrate the importance of clean water, safe housing, nutritious food, affordable healthcare, and protection from violence in fostering health and wellbeing. Visitors to the exhibition web site are invited to share their perspectives on these issues and GET INVOLVED: http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/againsttheodds/get_involved/index.cfm

Southern California Medical Museum exhibit on quackery

See "Medical quackery gets airing at California Medical Museum," By MELANIE LADONGA, The Press-Enterprise April 24, 2008.

The Southern California Medical Museum sounds like a traditional small medical museum - "Medical artifact collections on display include surgical kits from the Civil War up to World War II and battlefield amputation kits, syringes and poison bottles. A collection of thermometers includes a thermometer made of gold that is more than 100 years old."

This is outside my usual stomping ground, but I'd stop in if possible.

Body armor article noted in passing

This article raised a few thoughts about the Museum and the Pathology Institute - "Contracts for Body Armor Filled Without Initial Tests: Inspections Skipped in 13 Of 28 Deals, Report Finds," By Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, April 3, 2008; Page D01.

"Why?" you say.

Don't worry, we're not producing armor. However over the years, the AFIP has helped evaluate armor. We've got hundreds of pictures of used (unfortunately) body armor from the Korean War in the Archives, and several actual pieces on display now on the Museum floor. Also, the AFIP currently runs the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner which is responsible for investigating military deaths and performs autopsies that can suggest the protection that the armor did or did not afford.

And we've got a really cool piece of armor from the Civil War that didn't work at all. It's got a bullet hole right through the breastplate. Whoops. (It's not on display now, but there is a photo of it in the lobby).

Leprosy exhibit opens at museum...

...In coordination with the new PBS film Triumph at Carville (which I saw an earlier preview of and enjoyed a lot). John Wilhelm and Sally Squires did a good job telling the history of Hansen's Disease (the now-preferred term) sufferers and the isolation they were forced into in Carville, Louisiana. Information specifically on the exhibit should eventually be on the Museum's website.

Signs and rumors of signs

I went to the National Zoo on Sunday, a beautiful day to be out. Apparently half of all Washington area residents and their visitors agreed with me because they were there too. I bought a membership while there, more to get free parking than anything else (pay $40 for a membership to save $12 on parking....) and could have gotten a map of the zoo for free with the membership, but decided not to because I was counting on signs. Uh, no. I was there almost 5 hours and didn't see one sign for a restroom. When I was ready to leave I looked for signs that would send me back to parking lot A but they almost nonexistent. Even overview maps of the zoo weren't at every major intersection as I expected and I saw just two of those when I was actively looking. I found my way back only after asking an employee, and finally saw a sign for the lot when I was next to the exit.

This made me think of the New York Historical Society. I posted some pictures I took there on my Flickr page (isn't this shameless self-promotion) and someone commented that she too enjoyed the museum but was frustrated by the lack of labels. I'd noticed the same thing when I was there. Here's a photo I took but I can only guess what some of these things are. There were no labels. It would have been helpful to even have something basic like "Sewing Tools."



So what does this mean for those of us who work in museums/zoos/historical societies? It seems such an elementary idea, but basic labeling is important. How else does a visitor put things in context, understand the significance of the object, or find her way to the loo?

Medical book exhibit in Australia

Medical books, with their interesting illustrations, make an easy exhibit subject. Here's an article about one at the University of Melbourne's Medical History Museum. Who knew they had a medical museum? We've got to get better organized.

Interesting World War 1 article

Our colleagues at the the Office of the Surgeon General's Historian's office have put an article about volunteer Americans' experiences in the British Army on their website. Click here to download Yanks in King's Forces. For those who want more information, Mitch Yockelson, who co-curated The Cost of a Splendid Little War exhibit with me, has a new book on the topic coming out, Borrowed Soldiers: Americans Under British Command, 1918, and will be speaking at the Museum at some point later this year.

New Exhibition Opens at NLM..."MOST HORRIBLE & SHOCKING MURDERS!"

New Exhibition Opens at NLM... "MOST HORRIBLE & SHOCKING MURDERS!"

True crime murder pamphlets in the collection of the National Library of Medicine

The History of Medicine Division (HMD) of the National Library of Medicine is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit, "MOST HORRIBLE & SHOCKING MURDERS: True crime murder pamphlets in the collection of the National Library of Medicine." It is located in display cases in the HMD Reading Room, on the first floor of the National Library of Medicine, Building 38, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. The exhibit is open Monday through Friday, 8:30am to 5:00pm, and Saturday 8:30am to 2:30pm, through June 15, 2008.

Ever since the mid-1400s, the public's appetite for tales of shocking murders-"true crime"-has been one of the most durable facts of the market for printed material. Murder pamphlets were hawked on street corners, taverns, coffeehouses, newsstands, and bookshops. Typically, the pamphlets claimed to be true accounts of a murder, consisting of a narrative, trial transcript, or written confession of the murderer
before his or her execution. Sometimes they featured medical commentary. The pamphlets on display in "MOST HORRIBLE & SHOCKING MURDERS" were printed between 1692 and 1881. Some deal with cases of interest to the emerging field of forensic medicine. Others deal with cases in which doctors were accused of-or were victims of-heinous crimes. Still others have no medical connection whatsoever. Today, murder pamphlets are a rich source for historians and crime novelists, who mine them to study the history of medicine, class, gender, the law, the city, religion and
other topics.

The exhibit was curated by Michael Sappol, PhD. For further information on the exhibit, contact Stephen Greenberg, e-mail greenbes@mail.nih.gov , phone 301-435-4995. Due to current security measures at NIH, off-campus visitors are advised to consult the NIH Visitors and Security website at:http://www.nih.gov/about/visitorsecurity.htm


The library is purported to have a large pornography collection as well. Seriously.