Three rare photographs of the US Navy Museum of Hygiene

All three images are bound in a copy of "Catalogue of The Exhibits in the Museum of Hygiene. Medical Department of the United States Navy." Compiled by Philip S. Wales, Medical Director, U.S.N. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893 now held in BUMED's Office of Medical History.

The Museum. Present Home. 1707 New York Avenue, N.W. 1887-1893.
13-0103-003
The Museum. 2nd Home. S.E. Corner 18th & G Sts, NW. 1882-1887. 13-0103-002 The Museum. Birth-place. 18th + K Sts, N.W. 1879-1882. 13-0103-001

Letter of the Day: January 8

Museum of Hygiene
Bureau of Medicine & Surgery,
Cor. 18th & G. Streets, N.W.
Washington Jany 8 1883

D.L. Huntington,
Lt. Col. + Surgeon, U.S.A.
+c +c

Sir:

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communications of the 5th + 6th instant.

I gratefully acknowledge the receipt of the following articles for the Museum of Hygiene, viz:

1. A model of Tompkins wheeled stretcher.
2. A full sized folding hand-litter with telescopic handles, made at Watervliet Arsenal.
3. A model of an ambulance wagon made at Watervliet Arsenal, accompanied by a copy of Report of a Board of Officers to decide upon a Patter of Ambulance Wagon for Army Use, etc.
4. A model of a ward of a hospital.
5. A model of Hick’s Hospital, with table.
6. A set of Microscopical photographs by Surgeon J.J. Woodward, U.S.A.
7. A set of Centennial photographs with explanatory pamphlets.

Very respectfully,
Your obd’t servant.
J.M Browne
Med. Director, U.S.N.
In charge

A book recommendation

As an archivist, I don't read as much history as a medical historian has to, especially when taken with my other career (Google me if you really care), but I must note that I really enjoyed this book:

The Anatomist: A True Story of Gray's Anatomy
Hayes, Bill
New York: Ballantine, 2008

It's Hayes' attempt to track down Henry Gray, the creator of the famed textbook, and his parallel tale of his own studies in anatomy, done in an attempt to understand why and how one would create such a book. The idea of medical museums and the preservation of specimens in glanced at within as well. I got my copy from Daedalus Books.

Letter of the Day: August 3 - Milan medical museum?

Washington August 3 1867

 

My dear Doctor

 

Among a large number of interesting Medical & Surgical works recently received by us from Milan was the enclosed little pamphlet which if you have not already seen it may interest you as begin on very small scale what you are doing on a very large. Please return when done with and oblige

 

Your truly

S.F. Baird

 

Dr. Otis USA

Army Med. Mus.

Wash.

Articles on medical museums in Malaysia and Ohio

The Lau King Howe (LKH) Memorial Museum - In memory of Lau King Howe, Story and photos by ANDY CHUA, May 22, 2010.

The Rose Melnick Medical Museum - Medical museum exhibits offer a look at vintage equipmentBy Leonard Crist, TheNewsOutlet.org May 23, 2010.

Medical collection articles in University Museums and Collections Journal 1/2008

Our colleagues at the Medical Museion blog pointed out the first issue of University Museums and Collections Journal 1/2008 which has articles on medical collections in Vienna including a survey article and short specific pieces on drug and pharmaceutical collections (the drug link is broken as of this writing).

What the field needs now is an in-depth volume on the history of medical museums around the world.

Staying Alive: A Look at the Medical Field in Putnam County

Visiting my inlaws over the holidays, I stumbled upon this nice little exhibit in Cookeville, Tennessee at the Cookeville History Museum on the medical history of the county. There's some stuff I haven't seen before in it, like the X-ray viewer, and some good archival records too. "Staying Alive: A Look at the Medical Field in Putnam County" is on through January 17 2009.














Physician's electrical cabinet








Diagnostic instruments, bandages, splints.






Drugs and pharmaceuticals.


X-ray equipment.


Note the sterilizer iin the corner.


Examination chair.


Birthing table.


Atropine for nerve gas from Vietnam War.


Walter Reed's dinnerware.


Doctors in Vietnam War.








Wheelchair from a doctor's office.

Human remains symposium in Paris text online

My colleagues at Biomedicine on Display caught this - International Symposium "FROM ANATOMIC COLLECTIONS TO OBJECTS OF WORSHIP". It dealt with human remains in museums, and the issues of repatriating them. The panels were as follows:

first round-table : repatriating human remains: why, for whom, under which conditions?
second round-table : Is there any place today for human remains inside museums?
third round table : the status of human remains from a legal, ethical and philosophical point of view
fourth round table : How to reach a mutual understanding? Institutional mediations and negotiations

Obviously the phrasing of the 2nd round-table just bugs me right away. Why shouldn't there be a place for human remains in a museum? I don't particularly care if mine end up there, and former museum pathologist Daniel Lamb insisted on it.

The whole text of the symposium is downloadable and I'm looking forward to reading it.

A medical museum reopens in UK

See "The history of medicine," By Natalie Slater, 19/5/2008 on 'the newly refurbished medical museum at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.' The difference between a national museum like ours which was built by the federal government and the more common university or hospital museum needs to be examined more, I think.

Museo Storico Nazionale Dell Arte Sanitaria (I think this means something along the lines of Medical Museum), in Rome

A couple of years ago, when the dollar was still showing signs of life against the euro, my husband and I took a trip to Italy. While we were in Rome, we made a quick visit to the Museo Storico Nazionale Dell Arte Sanitaria. Being an American and therefore not speaking/reading/writing any language other than English made for an interesting visit in that in many cases I couldn't quite decipher the labels on the exhibits and to do a significant amount of guessing. Here's one I just didn't get at all, no matter the amount of puzzling over the label I did. My husband's take: a labor-inducing machine for those recalcitrant babies who don't want to ease on out on their own.

Netherlands health museum amusement park

Check it out at "Bounce across a rubber tongue at Corpus," Associated Press March 27 2008. There have been similar places in the US over the years, including a walk-through heart at the Franklin Museum in Philadelphia. I'm sure more suggestions can be gathered in the comments.

Medical museum links on Morbid Anatomy

Morbid Anatomy's got a list of links to medical museum's running down the left side of the blog. That should be useful feature. The new thing they've added is a list of museums on flickr, running down the right side.

William Hunter and the Art and Science of Eighteenth-Century Collecting

William Hunter and the Art and Science of Eighteenth-Century Collecting Conference
3-5 September 2008

A conference organised by the Hunterian and the University of Glasgow History of Art Department which will explore Dr William Hunter's role and place as a collector in eighteenth-century Europe.

Wednesday 3 September - Hunterian Art Gallery 4.00. Registration/coffee/tea; 4.30- 5.30 Keynote speaker: t.b.c.
5.45-7.00 Reception, Hunterian Art Gallery. Curators Peter Black and Anne Dulau give tours of exhibitions.

Thursday 4 September- Hunterian Museum. Session 1: European private collections.
Speakers include: Mikael Ahlund (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm); Heiner Krellig (Berliner Schlosser); Guillaume Faroult (Louvre); Kim Sloan (Francis Finlay Curator of the Enlightenment Gallery, British Museum)

Session 2: Medical 'men' as collectors and medical collections.
Stuart McDonald (IBLS - Neuroscience & Biomedical Systems, University of Glasgow); Peter Black (Curator, Hunterian Art Gallery); Starr Douglas (Leverhulme Scholar, University of Glasgow); Simon Chaplin (Director of the Museum and Special Collections at the Royal College of Surgeons)

Friday 5 September - Hunterian Museum. Session 3: 18th Century museums and collections.
Architecture, Interiors and Display; Helen McCormack (David Carritt Scholar, University of Glasgow); Clare Haynes (School of World Art Studies and Museology, University of East Anglia); Geoff Hancock (Curator of Entomology, Hunterian Museum); Tom Tolley (History of Art Department, University of Edinburgh).

Session 4: 'A centre of instruction and enlightenment'.
Hunter and his collections: David Weston (Keeper, Glasgow University Library Special Collections) Hunter's library 2.30 Donal Bateson (Curator of Coins & Medals, Hunterian Museum); Nick Pearce (History of Art Department, University of Glasgow); John Faithfull (Curator of Mineralogy, Hunterian Museum)

For further information contact Geoff Hancock
Telephone: 0141 330 2194
Email:G.Hancock@museum.gla.ac.uk
www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk

Malaysia's opening a medical museum and...

See the story on the new Malaysian museum here.

Meanwhile the University of Copenhagen's Medical Museion scored a cool mechanical heart device, lucky devils.