A Day in the Life...

I meant to write these more often, but somehow the life keeps staying busy.

Here's one from a few weeks ago. We're part of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (see the sidebar history) and their Radiology Department had a lead on some personal papers they were interested in. The American College of Radiology has stored their records with the History Factory in Chantilly, VA, and in their collection they had personal papers of Dr. William Thompson. Thompson was instrumental in setting up the large radiology program at AFIP. The ACR was willing to hand over this series of records to AFIP since it didn't really relate to their core holdings. I tend to wear a dual hat as AFIP's archivist as well as the Museum's so I was on the job.

Poaching from other archives never thrills me, although at times it makes sense. Years ago, we returned photographs of unidentified corpses that we had received from the NY Medical Examiner to the NY Municipal Archives to reunite them with the paper records of the cases. I was fine with that, but there have been plenty of times when people come in to do research and say "wouldn't this be better if it was in..."

Anyway, two people from the radiology dept., and 3 museum staffers took a van from Walter Reed while I drove myself from home. I beat them by about an hour so I hung around with the archivist there. He showed me the collection - it was pretty straightforward personal papers including diaries, some awards and some photographs, both personal and professional. I've seen dozens like it, and at 3 linear feet, it wasn't large. So we talked shop and then when everyone else arrived, they looked at the records. The radiologists were particularly interested as one doesn't see fifty-year old diaries every day, I suppose. We took a quick look in the stacks at the rest of the ACR collection - most archives look alike especially in the 'bulk' storage areas - and I've got to say that they have a nice set of advertising trade literature if you're doing anything on radiology's history. We also looked at the 3-D artifacts because there was some confusion in our party if we were supposed to be checking on them as well.

After signing the paperwork transferring it to us, we headed back to AFIP. Lauren Clark, who's volunteering as an intern this summer, has processed the collection and written a finding aid to it, which should make it onto our regular website soon. There's nothing deeply interesting or dramatic in Thompson's papers, but they help round out the history of radiology at AFIP.

Two more links for you, if you can handle the excitement

• The iPhone gets all the cool new apps. Sometimes I wish I'd gone into medicine so I could get access to all those wonderful toys.
  

• Morbid Anatomy - where you can find the awesome with each post - offers a snippet about a cool "20th century facial prosthetic" someone "found at an estate sale." I never find anything like that at estate sales.

Three words: "Belly button escargot"

Without further comment, I offer this link: "Tales from Saint Boonie's: Gross, and I mean GROSS, Anatomy."

He had me at "I apologize in advance..."

If you look carefully, you'll see something familiar to this blog's readers and our visitors. Once you spot it, leave your answer in comments. First person (not on the staff or former staff!) to guess correctly gets the best reward of all: my sincere gratitude for reading all the way through this post.

All the good headlines were taken

I had seen this previously, but after seeing more links to gummi bear anatomy today, I figured I'd better post it here, too. Besides, we're the ones who spent some quality time looking for radiographs of a gummi bear bezoar. Come on, admit it, now you want to know more, right?

And yes, I am probably giving away a slice of my blog reading habits by linking to those two blogs above, but for gummi bear anatomy, it's worth it.

Our West Coast Connection

Our recently-departed public affairs specialist Nicole M. has landed out west - in San Francisco, California. We heard from her today, that she's settling in at the San Francisco Airport Museums. No, I hadn't heard of it either (but some people haven't heard of us either) but take a look for yourself, and next time you are passing through SFO, pause for a moment to enjoy the view. And, hi, Nicole, stay in touch and good luck.

Enjoy.

Upcoming lunchtime lectures this month at NMHM

SAVE THE DATES: Two exciting lunchtime lectures at the National Museum
of Health and Medicine this month!

On Thursday, June 19 at noon, AFIP pathologist Wayne Meyers, M.D. will
discuss the history of leprosy in America.

Then, on Thursday, June 26 at noon, James L. Krahenbuhl, Ph.D., director
of the federal National Hansen's Disease (Leprosy) Program will offer a
talk about the need for a greater awareness about leprosy in the U.S.

Both lectures are free and will take place in Russell Auditorium at
NMHM. After the talks, take advantage of the opportunity to visit our
temporary exhibition, "Triumph at Carville: A Tale of Leprosy in
America."

Here are the details:

What: Lecture by pathologist Wayne M. Meyers, M.D., Ph.D., Armed Forces
Institute of Pathology
When: Thursday, June 19, 2008; 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Where: Russell Auditorium at NMHM (on Walter Reed Army Medical Center,
Building 54)
Cost: Free! Bring a bag lunch.


What: Learn the 113-year history of the "national leprosarium" and the
need for an awareness of leprosy in the U.S. medical community, with
James L. Krahenbuhl, Ph.D., director of the federal National Hansen's
Disease (Leprosy) Program
When: Thursday, June 26, 2008; 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Where: Russell Auditorium at NMHM (on Walter Reed Army Medical Center,
Building 54)
Cost: Free! Bring a bag lunch.

Museum Address: 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW, Building 54, Washington, DC,
20307. (Photo identification required.) Free parking is available.

Contact: (202) 782-2200 or http://www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum

Army School of Nursing Annuals now on Internet Archive

Kathleen got the rest of them up over the past two days:

The Annual
1921 http://www.archive.org/details/ArmyNursingAnnual1921
1923 http://www.archive.org/details/ArmyNursingAnnual1923
1925 http://www.archive.org/details/ArmyNursingAnnual1925
1926 http://www.archive.org/details/ArmyNursingAnnual1926
1927 http://www.archive.org/details/ArmyNursingAnnual1927

Taps
1929 http://www.archive.org/details/ArmyNursingAnnual1929
1930 http://www.archive.org/details/ArmyNursingAnnual1930
1931 http://www.archive.org/details/ArmyNursingAnnual1931

1923 Army Nursing Annual now online

1923 Army Nursing Annual now online at the Internet Archive. We have all of these but one and we've scanned them all for posting.

1921 Army Nursing School Annual online

We've loaded a 1921 Army Nursing School Annual up to Internet Archive. These schools were based in Washington at Walter Reed and in California. More to come!

Yet another new Flickr page

While we're waitingwaitingwaiting for Flickr to grant us a Creative Commons account, we've filled our third account and have started a fourth. Please take a look - the five pictures now residing there are feeling a little lonely.

Cool Flickr site

Virginia Commonwealth University's Tompkins-McCaw Library Special Collections' photostream - a mixture of photographs, artifacts and scans from books. They linked to one of our flickr sites last week. I liked the editorial cartoons, but the photographs of medical school dissections probably get more viewers.

Free Health Fair at the National Museum of Health and Medicine!

Free Health Fair at the National Museum of Health and Medicine!

Saturday, June 7, 2008 -- 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Tell your friends! Tell your family! Children's activities, too!
Explore the Museum and take advantage of free health screenings!

Screenings for health indicators: cholesterol, glaucoma, blood sugar, vision, blood pressure, hearing, body mass index

Children's activities, too! Including hands-on experiences with plastinated organs, dolls and mannequins!

Participants: Columbia Heights Lions Club, D.C. Diabetes Prevention and Control Program, D.C. Healthy Families, Food and Friends, Health Pact, Inc., Men's Health Network, National Ovarian Cancer Coalition of Northern Virginia, and Prevention of Blindness Society of Metropolitan Washington

WHERE: National Museum of Health and Medicine, on the campus at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20307. (Enter at Georgia Ave. and Elder Street, NW.) (Photo identification required.) NMHM is in Bldg. 54.

WHEN: Saturday, June 7, 2008, 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

CONTACT: On the Web http://www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum or call (202) 782-2200.

NOTE: Free parking, free admission! No reservations required.

National Museum of the Marine Corps

Today I went to the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Virginia. It's terrific, with a lot of interactive exhibits (care to lift a pack that a recruit has to carry (that's the pack there, on the right), or listen to drill instructors screaming at you from every direction?) and lifelike combat scenes. Here's one of a Marine being cared for by a corpsman. I thought the look on the wounded Marine's face was perfectly portrayed. What I liked about this one, in addition to the face, is that we have photos just like this in our collection, right down
to the IV bottle suspended from a rifle stuck in the ground bayonet first (just out of view here but you can see the line being inserted in his arm). It's a great museum with free admission, both indoor and outdoor exhibit space, and is open 364 days a year. If you're in the neighborhood, I recommend a visit.

More thoughts on exhibit signage

I've written previously about signs in exhibit spaces like the National Zoo and the New York Historical Society and how, if I were queen of the world, I would do things differently. I'm still on my queen kick after going to the just-fabulous maps exhibit at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. (It closes on June 8, so hurry yourself to Baltimore.) This is a really good, interesting exhibit of maps brought in from all over the world. They have excellent descriptions of what you're looking at, but many of them are on the front of the cases, hip-high, and in necessarily dim illumination, so you have everyone who wants to read about that map packed in a small space, and certainly not more than one deep. It was easy to identify those of us of a certain age - we were the ones trying to adjust the bifocals to get the right perspective and usually ended up bent over like cranes hunting for fish. Oh, for good spot lighting on a wall.

Thought Control

I read Mike's post down below about Dean Kamen's new prosthetic arm, and it truly is a wonderful invention. If you haven't looked at the video I encourage you to do so. At first I thought this was the same device I saw on TV in Dublin last night (doesn't that sound so cool - I was in Dublin last night, and I'm not talkin' Ohio), but I've just checked the internet and what I saw was different. Their story was about a monkey whose arms were restrained but could use its thoughts to control a robotic arm to bring food to its mouth. Simply amazing to see. Interestingly, the project is being done on this side of the pond by Andrew Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh. The study was published in the journal Nature.

Friday, May 30 - Museum closed

The museum's closed due to the installation of a new power generator. Also we'll probably be closed on Saturday June 1 as well. Call 202-782-2200 or 2201 after 20 am on both Saturday and Sunday to check the status.

Exhibit Development at the Pentagon

Some of the team made it out to the pentagon this morning to work on possible exhibits for the 

Assistant Secretary of Defense of Health Affairs, look forward having some of our work in the Pentagon, that will help bring some positive attention to the Museum of Health and Medicine.

Check out some of our photos, with some made up quotes, just for kicks. Later Kids.

NC

Dean Kamen designs prosthetic arm for military amputees

Yahoo finance has a three-minute video of Dean Kamen's new prosthetic arm, which looks absolutely amazing. It's just stunning.

Friday, May 30 - Museum closed?

Anyone planning on visiting the Museum on Friday, Saturday or Sunday should call first at 202-782-2200 or 2201 to confirm that it's open. A generator is being replaced starting Friday at noon which will cut power to the whole building.

New Guy at the Museum

Hello Everybody

just wanted to leave a short spot on my first month in the Museum, My name is Navjeet Singh and I am the new guy at the museum, my position is exhibits specialist and I do exhibit development and exhibit design for the museum, I am not new to exhibit design, I have been doing exhibits since 1998 and recently did contract work for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the exhibit is Sikh's Legacy of the Punjab, and also have done exhibits for National Museum of the American Indian, Air and Space, National Museum of Women in the Arts, FAA, NOAA, GSA, I recently did an large graphic mural and exhibit for National 4 H in thier headquarters. I attached a short video small size of some exhibit work.(apple quicktime) I have also done other museums and some international shows. In addition I also teach at the Corcoran College of Art and Design and have been adjunct faculty there since 2003, while also teaching at other local colleges and schools....Now I have been at NMHM for about a month, actually its been a month and a half, and have met mostly everyone now and am getting a good feel for what we're all about. I am really enjoying it, and I truly enjoy working with everyone on the staff, some excellent people... so far its alot of work, and much more to do, as most the exhibits need some work, right now I'm working on the RESOLVED exhibit, "Resolved; Advances in Forensic Identification of U.S. War Dead", and have just a few weeks left in putting all the pieces together, We are looking at a July 4th opening date, so only a few weeks left to install, We are doing some fun stuff in this exhibit and hope to treat the visitors to some impressionable exhibits and feel as we are on the right track, I have developed several large murals, and am using different medias / substrates and some very interesting artifacts will be displayed, we have some other ideas to include interactive stations, and I hope that I can put together a short video piece for the exhibit by opening, but also have other exhibits to consider. June will bring the Balad exhibit, and so right now have a full plate, but am really enjoying myself. My office is in an interesting space, for those of you who don't know, I am in the former ballistics range, very interesting indeed, some stories I have heard was they used to shoot cadavers, pigs, bones, tissue in gelatin blocks, and some of that material decorates the celling in my work area. Not sure how much of that is true, but have heard this from staff who were here when they did that. So far I have only done a few things here, National Hairball Awarness was one of the first, I attached a pic, and just the Stroke awareness exhibit, but am hoping to get the museum some attention with RESOLVED. I look forward to keeping you all informed, keep it positive in the end its all about the journey.

Cheers!

NC

British military medicine conference CFP

[this is run by Pete Starling]

SECURING THE ULTIMATE VICTORY П

A conference exploring the history of military medicine and health care

15th -17th April 2009

ARMY MEDICAL SERVICES MUSEUM Mytchett, Surrey

The Army Medical Services Museum is to host a conference exploring the history of military medicine and health care covering the period from 1600 to the present. The conference will take place in the Defence Medical Services Training Centre, Keogh Barracks, Mytchett, Surrey, where the museum is situated.

Papers are invited on the history of military medicine particularly covering the following themes: Nursing, catastrophe and post conflict medicine, veterinary medicine, dentistry, pioneers of military medicine, disease prevention and research, the influence of the military on civilian medicine and the history of dedicated hospitals for the care of the sick and wounded military patients.

Closing date for the submission of abstracts is 1 August 2008. Abstracts should be submitted using the attached form and sent to:

Director

Army Medical Services Museum

Keogh Barracks

Ash Vale

Aldershot

GU12 5RQ

01252 868820 Email: armymedicalmuseum@btinternet.com



SECURING THE ULTIMATE VICTORY П




Title: Full Name:

Name of Institution (if applicable):

Full Postal Address:


Email address: Telephone No:

Title of Abstract:

Bookings for the conference will open on 1 September 2008.

For booking forms please contact:

The Director

AMS Museum, Keogh Barracks, Ash Vale, Aldershot, GU12 5RQ

armymedicalmuseum@btinternet.com

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.

Museum mentioned on History News Network

See "Memorial Day, the Great War, and America’s Last Surviving World War I Veteran,"
By Jeffrey S. Reznick, a former curator at the museum. Jeff used a couple of photos from the archives, as you can too if you click on our Flickr links to the right.

London history of medicine conference includes military medicine

History of Medicine Research Student Conference
Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL
Thursday and Friday 19-20 June 2008

The conference will feature eighteen papers from research students in
four areas of the history of medicine:

- Understanding Medicine and the Body in History

- Medicine, Health and War in History

- Asian Medicine in History

- Healthcare in British History

There will also be panel discussions chaired by established academics including Professors Steven King and Paul Weindling of Oxford Brookes University and Professor Roger Cooter of UCL

The conference will close with a keynote address from Professor Anne Hardy of UCL, Editor of Medical History

Places are limited and will be assigned on a first come first served basis. There will be a small fee to cover registration and cateringcosts.

If you are interested in attending the conference, contact George Gosling at gcgosling@brookes.ac.uk by Friday 30 May 2008.

The full conference programme and poster can be accessed by following
this link: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/library/hmrs_conf

For information on this event and other opportunities see the 'History
of Medicine Research Students' group on facebook at
http://brookes.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6213918604

Forensic identification of dead in China disaster

We're opening an exhibit later this year - Resolved - on forensic identification of military dead. This article has some interesting parallels to the difficulty of identifying people after time has elapsed.

China’s Rush to Dispose of Dead Compounds Agony
By EDWARD WONG
Published: May 24, 2008
Family members have not been able to identify relatives and traditional reverence for the deceased has been upset.

Article on future of military museums

This article is mostly on the Navy museum, but could some of the same issues apply to the Medical Museum?

"Museums Look Into the Future of Military History," By Michael E. Ruane, Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, May 25, 2008; Page C01.

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.

A day in the life...

An interesting research request came in through the Radiology department today. Someone's looking for fluoroscope burns. So far I haven't turned up exactly what they want, which is modern color shots, but check out this photo of a wax model that I did find:



The caption reads: Breast. Burn, X-Ray. Wax model. No. 92 X-ray burn involving right breast and axilla. Necrosis of tissue producing sloughing ulceration, the bottom of which includes pleura and lung tissue. X-ray treatment was applied for carcinoma of the breast. Colored, woman, age 35 years. Army Medical Museum model prepared by Dr. J.F. Wallis.

Wallis means that it was done during World War 1, because that's when he was on the staff. We might still have this model in historical collections, but that department was working at the warehouse today, and thus missed the coffee and cake that we had to celebrate the Museum's birthday.

So how does one find something in the Archives? We've got an internal database (or fifty) that you can access a derivative of at our Guide to Collections. With the help of contract Archivists from the Information Manufacturing Company, we're scanning tens of thousands of images per year and uploading them into an internal database, only available to our staff now, but eventually we'll open it to a wider audience. And some of the finding something is me or one of the other archivists knowing where something is because we put it away a decade ago or so.

Today is our birthday

So far the Museum's survived four name changes, at least 8 moves, several shutdowns for moves or wars, and is 146 years old today.
Surgeon General Hammond

In Circular No. 2, issued on May 21, 1862, Army Surgeon General William Hammond specifically stated "Medical Directors will furnish one copy of this circular to every medical officer in the department in which they are serving." (Henry p. 12) This circular established the Museum, stating:

As it is proposed to establish in Washington, an Army Medical Museum, Medical officers are directed diligently to collect, and to forward to the office of the Surgeon General, all specimens of morbid anatomy, surgical or medical, which may be regarded as valuable; together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed, and such other matters as may prove of interest in the study of military medicine or surgery.

These objects should be accompanied by short explanatory notes.

Each specimen in the collection will have appended the name of the medical officer by whom it was prepared.

Shortly after the initial circular letter was issued, Hammond recalled John Hill Brinton from duty on the western battlefields. Brinton arrived hoping to receive one of the newly-created medical inspectorships, a job for which he felt well-qualified. Instead, he was assigned to the examining board for surgeons, placed in charge of the Museum, and told to prepare the surgical history of the war. Brinton's colleague, Joseph Javier Woodward, had been assigned to the Surgeon General's Office on May 19, and was responsible for the medical (ie caused by disease) collections and history of the war.

2 articles on military medicine

Steven Solomon sent in these two links:

"Military medical advancements benefit civilian health care," by Navy Lt. Jennifer Cragg, American Forces Press Service - which is always nice of course, but here's the takeaway quote, "In today's war, in the combat theater, 97 percent of those people who
were wounded in theater survived those wounds because of the medical care," Dr. Kilpatrick said. "That's just a phenomenal number, and it's because that care is so immediate.

and

"AFMC surgeon general: joint medical teams saving lives," by Chuck Paone,66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs, and the quote to note is: But what's more, follow-on studies are now showing that military trauma care professionals are achieving identically dramatic fatality reductions at home. "That means they're bringing these skills back with them and getting the same results for people who suffer non-combat-related traumas," he said.

Prosthetics ruled equal, not better

A South African who races on two prosthetic legs, designed to mimic a cheetah's hind legs, can compete in the Olympics if he can qualify. The decision was made after testing his oxygen consumption to determine that he was in fact, working as hard as someone with two natural legs would be. I'll spare you my editorial comment on that and for more details, see "Double-Amputee Allowed To Compete for Olympic Bid: Appeals Court: No Edge Gained From Blades," By Craig Timberg, Washington Post Foreign Service, Saturday, May 17, 2008; Page A01.

And what about the future of Walter Reed (and thus the Museum?)

Beats me, but an article from the Post today had some interesting sentences, including "The 2009 defense authorization bill that emerged from a House committee late Wednesday would halt construction of replacement hospitals for Walter Reed Army Medical Center until the Defense Department demonstrates that it can deliver world-class health services." and "Murtha's concerns include his view that there has been insufficient oversight of the design of the new hospitals, as well as the fact that estimated costs for the expansion in Bethesda, which will be renamed Walter Reed, have increased to $940 million today from $201 million in May 2005."

See "House Panel to Delay Work on Two Projects: Bill Seeks Better Military Health Care," by Amy Gardner, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, May 16, 2008; Page B01.

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.

New Grog Ration from Navy's medical historian

André B. Sobocinski, the Deputy Historian/ Publications Manager of the Office of the Historian of the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) has a new issue of The Grog Ration newsletter about medical naval history out now.

The table of contents:

Page 1: Care Amidst the Shortage: The Relationship between the American Red Cross and the Navy Nurse Corps in World War I by Jennifer Telford, RN, PhD
When the United States declared war on 6 April 1917, the nation had but a nucleus of an army and a navy. The swift growth of the number of troops within a year from 100,000 to 4 million men presented a problem of enormous magnitude to the nursing profession; it was a shortage of epic proportions. The Army Nurse Corps had a mere 400 nurses on active duty, while the Navy had 160. The need for a rapid expansion of nursing in wartime to provide care both on the home-front and overseas brought about a controversy over who, in fact, was qualified to serve. The role of Katrina Hertzer, the liaison officer between the Red Cross Nursing Service and the Navy Nurse Corps, and who aided in the enrollment of nurses into the Corps, is of particular interest.
Nursing leaders during World War I debated about whether or not minimally trained nurses' aides should be recruited to help offset the professional nursing shortage. The result was the formation of an Army School of Nursing and the enrollment of volunteer nurses' aides into the Red Cross. The recruitment of nurses' aides to offset the nursing shortage of the World War I era was a logical solution to meeting the needs for nursing personnel. Whether or not this action compromised the status of nursing as a profession is still a matter of interest.
This article is adapted from lectures given at the Society for the History of Navy Medicine (SHNM) session in Rochester, NY, and as part of the Surgeon General's Speaker Series (SGSS) in Bethesda, MD, in April 2008. A PowerPoint of her SHNM lecture can be found at http://www.history-navy-med.org/home.html. A video of her SGSS lecture can be accessed at http://www.health.mil.

Page 7: Elvis Has Boarded the Ship
In 1958, LTJG Julia Pickering was one of two Navy nurses serving aboard the troop transport USS General Randall (AP-115) in port at Brooklyn, NY. Also on board this ship was a newly enlisted Army sergeant who had already established his name as an American pop icon. In a 2004 interview with the Office of the Historian, Pickering remembered this special passenger.

Page 8: The Surgeon's Log: Navy Medicine in Washington, DC
In 1908 a young hospital apprentice named Albert B. Montgomery reported for duty at the Naval Hospital, Washington, DC, then located on old "Observatory Hill" in Foggy Bottom. Years later he looked back upon his experiences-from racing horse-driven ambulances on cobblestone streets to obtaining study specimens at the city morgue for Naval Medical School students.

Page 11: Scuttlebutt
Find out about the upcoming Navy medical events (e.g., film premieres and lectures).

Page 12: Navy Medical Quiz
Good luck on this issue's quiz. As always, the first person to submit correct answers to all questions will receive a special prize. The answers from our previous quiz can be found on page 13.

Tried and True Always Works

Since I've been away from the blog for a while, I thought I would work back into the swing of things with a plethora of links, a panoply of bloggy goodness for you to behold. Enjoy.

• Two offerings from our awesome friend Joanna at Morbid Anatomy: A few photos from her visit to the Musée Dupuytren in Paris (France, not Texas) with links of her own to follow; and vintage photos of med students with their cadavers. Both posts - worth it.
  

• Street Anatomy points us toward the Skull-A-Day project. I love it when blog titles exactly capture what their posts feature.
  

• And from pathtalk, a blog about pathology, is a link to a video that is beautiful and cool, but beyond me technically. The blog post - Animated DNA - and this bit of description 'incredibly cool animation of the central dogma of molecular biology' - offer some more clues. I watched it, I liked it, and think you might, too.
  

• And how about these very pretty pictures of surgical instruments, demonstrating that artistry can be found in anything and anywhere. Check out the post from something called SurgeXperiences. Who knew there was a blog carnival about surgical stuff? (And could that be less technical? "Surgical stuff"?)

I Heart Legos

That makes more sense when you've checked this out...

(With thanks, again, to Street Anatomy...)

Wounded Warrior Project

The Wounded Warrior Project and the Wounded Warrior Disabled Sports Project are two initiatives to help injured soldiers from Irag, Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terrorism return to life stateside, to give them a place and the means to recover their bodies, minds, and spirits. Two of their vans were on campus recently.

My husband is a Vietnam vet who has told of the reception he and his fellows received on their return (and who hasn't?), and it does my heart good to see the support our newest vets are getting.

Welcome home, soldiers.

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.

Armed Forces signs at Walter Reed

Armed Forces signs at Walter Reed15
Originally uploaded by tiz_herself

I spent a few lunch times last fall walking around Walter Reed, taking pictures of bumper stickers and other means of making statements. This is one of my favorites, if you can call it that. I think this is a touching tribute to a man who was obviously much loved and missed.

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

Hirschhorn v. Army Medical Museum

Forty years ago, the Army Medical Museum was sent off the National Mall and its red brick building torn down to make space for the Hirschhorn Museum of modern art. Today's NY Times has an article, "An Identity Crisis? Hirshhorn Embraces It," By RANDY KENNEDY, May 10, 2008, which says, "...of the Hirshhorn’s 750,000 or so annual visitors, 58 percent reported being there for the first time. Sixty-four percent said they were at the museum as part of an adult group tour, following an itinerary that probably reflected little individual choice and low interest in contemporary art."

What's particular of interest in that statement is that in 1963, the Army Medical Museum had a similar number of visitors, while interest in museums and visitors to them has grown exponentially in Washington since then. Naturally our numbers on a guarded Army base five miles north of the Mall and a mile from a subway are in no way compatible. One does wonder how many people a National Museum of Health & Medicine on the Mall would be bringing in; I'm positive it would be more than the number we did in 1963 and that the Hirshhorn is doing now.

Anatomical Theatre website launches

Morbid Anatomy's launched a new site based on an exhibit of photographs she's done. She writes "I have finally launched the website for Anatomical Theatre, the photographic exhibition of medical museum artifacts. For more information about the project, check out the "Introduction" and "Press Release" pages."

Wax and plaster models as well as other specimens from the NMHM are included.

Lecture on The Early History of NIH Biomedical Computing

This is at NIH.

Lecture: The Forgotten Revolution: The Early History of NIH Biomedical Computing


History of Biomedicine Lecture at the NIH May 16, 2008, 3:30 p.m.
Building 10 (Clinical Center), Room: Hatfield 2-3750

Dr. Joseph A. November, Ph.D., will present the 2008 DeWitt Stetten, Jr. Lecture, titled "The Forgotten Revolution: The Early History of NIH Biomedical Computing," on Friday, May 16 at 3:30 p.m., in Building 10 (Clinical Center), Room 2-3750 (Hatfield side). All are welcome.

About the Speaker:

Dr. November is the current DeWitt Stetten, Jr. Memorial Fellow and an Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina's Department of History. He received his doctorate in history from Princeton University in 2006. At NIH his research focuses on how NIH promoted the development of computer technology in the 1950s and 1960s. He is preparing a book on the early history of biomedical computing.

Abstract:

At NIH today, digital electronic computers are a vital, necessary component of almost all aspects of research and administration. However, there was nothing inevitable about NIH's adoption of computers or the ways the machines came to be used. As late as 1956, the majority of NIH's leadership was firmly against dedicating resources to computing in research. It took a hard-fought campaign throughout the late 1950s and
early 1960s, led by Drs. Frederick Brackett and Arnold "Scotty" Pratt, and supported by Director James Shannon, to overcome NIH's reluctance to adopt the new technology.

The campaign bring computers to NIH may be long forgotten, but its consequences profoundly altered not only biomedical computing beyond the NIH campus but also computing in general.

This lecture will cover three interconnected stories. First, it will examine how the Division of Computer Research and Technology (now CIT) grew out of Brackett and Pratt's long struggle to computerize research at NIH. Second, it surveys the far-reaching activities of the Advisory Committee on Computers in Research (NIH-ACCR), which was established in 1960 and generously funded by the U.S. Senate for the purpose of introducing computers to laboratories and hospitals worldwide. Third, it describes NIH's important but seldom-discussed role in the development
of the Laboratory Instrument Computer (LINC), a small, general-purpose, real-time digital computer built in 1963 at MIT especially for biomedical researchers; the roots of many aspects of personal computing can be traced back to the LINC.

This presentation is sponsored by the Office of NIH History. The NIH Biomedical Computing Interest Group (BCIG) will be recording the lecture. For more information about the Biomedical Research History Interest Group (BRHIG) and upcoming events, please visit the websites at http://history.nih.gov or http://www.nih.gov/sigs/brhig.


NIH Visitor information:
See http://www.nih.gov/about/visitorsecurity.htm and
http://parking.nih.gov/visitor_access_map.htm.

For more information or special accommodations, please contact Deborah
Kraut at 301-496-8856 or krautd@mail.nih.gov.

Reeve233

Reeve233
Originally uploaded by otisarchives3

This has been a pretty big hit over the last couple of days, so we figure some blog must have linked to it. The wages of sin, y'all.

Chapel at Walter Reed

Chapel at Walter Reed
Originally uploaded by tiz_herself

The Memorial Chapel is on the Walter Reed campus. It was built with funds raised by the Gray Ladies of the Red Cross Hospital Service and was dedicated in 1931 as a memorial to those who gave their lives in the service of their country. (The Gray Ladies were so called because of the gray uniform they wore.) The first ceremony performed was a wedding. Sunday services are still held there, and I saw funeral services being organized there last week.

It's a lovely place, inside and out.


Here's a picture of the stained glass window over the altar:


There are "gargoyles" at the top of the tower. Some of them represent the Gray Ladies:


and there are others that represent science and religion. Not sure which one this is.

Old Walter Reed Hospital

Old Walter Reed Hospital
Originally uploaded by tiz_herself

As you may know, our museum is on the campus of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC. I bought myself a spiffy new camera last fall and have been a picture-taking fool since then. This picture is of the original hospital, opened in 1909. Stately, isn't it? It was replaced with a, um, not-as-nice-looking building in the 1970s and this one's now used for administrative offices.

Yahoo on TV diseases

Yahoo's got a fun feature on whether or not TV diseases are fact or fiction. I've seen and enjoyed House, but probably not any of the other shows - it doesn't matter though. Disease of the week tv has been around for years.

Regarding slide 3 - FOP - you can see an example at the Mutter Museum.

The Washington Society for the History of Medicine wants you!

Print this out, fill it out and mail it to Judy.

Washington Society for the History of Medicine

Membership Form 2008


NAME: ___________________________________________________________

ADDRESS: ________________________________________________________

CITY: _____________________________________________________________

STATE: _________________________ ZIP CODE: ___________________

TELEPHONE: ____________________________Work_____ or Home_____

EMAIL ADDRESS: __________________

AFFILIATION: ____________________________________________________


MEMBERSHIP CATEGORIES:

STANDARD: $15.00 __________

SPONSOR: $25.00 __________

STUDENT: $10.00 __________



Dear WSHM Member

Please make your checks payable to the WSHM. Mail your membership dues and this form to: Judy M. Chelnick, Secretary-Treasurer, WSHM, 4868 Cloister Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20852 Thank You!

Check out our Website: http://wshmdc.blogspot.com/

More medical technology - robot-assisted surgery

Here's an interesting bit about robot surgery - which saves wear-and-tear on both the surgeon and the patient when everything goes right. In the Museum, we have a Satava collection devoted to collecting the groundbreaking medical technology mentioned in the article, and on display we have Penelope, a early attempt at a robot nurse.
Prepping Robots to Perform Surgery
By BARNABY J. FEDER
New York Times May 4, 2008
From knees to the heart, more operations are being performed by robots, under the guidance of surgeons.

Gastric bypass surgery for diabetes?

An exciting new possibility for the treatment (and cure!) of diabetes was reported in today's Washington Post. Trials are being conducted around the world with surprisingly successful results in not just making the disease more manageable but an actual cure. The guess is that the surgery, which removes part of the small intestine, "alter[s] the elixir of hormones secreted by the digestive system to regulate hunger, store energy and influence other physiological functions, helping restore the body's system for controlling blood sugar with insulin." Keep your fingers crossed.

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.

Teddy Roosevelt and The River of Doubt

Several months ago we had a researcher in the archives whose name seemed vaguely familiar to me but I just couldn't place it. Some time after she'd finished with us I started reading a book about Teddy Roosevelt's exploration of the Amazon after he'd been defeated as a presidential third-party candidate in 1912, a journey that turned into a nightmare and on which he nearly lost his life. Nudge, nudge in my brain about the author's name and the next day I checked our visitor log. Sure enough, the same woman: Candice Millard. This was a fantastic book, utterly gross at times (such as tiny - and I think barbed - fish that travel up a urine stream to the bladder much as a salmon travels upstream, and you don't want to hear how it has to be removed) but I highly recommend it. I can't wait for her next book to come out.

Japanese anatomical drawings

These incredible early 19th century Japanese anatomical drawings reveal a remarkable distinctively non-Western approach to anatomical illustration.

Map of Civil War DC hospitals

Pinpointing the location of Civil War hospitals is harder than you'd expect. I got a call looking for one in Southeast Washington today - I couldn't find it, but I did find this site with a list of hospitals. I don't know if it's complete and I wish the map was larger, but it's helpful.

NLM Lecture - "Finding Humanity in Rat City: John B. Calhoun's Experiments in Crowding at the NIMH."

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE,

History of Medicine Division Seminar

Co-sponsored by the Office of NIH History

Wednesday, May 7, 2008, 2-3:30pm

Lister Hill Visitor's Center Bldg 38A, NLM

Bethesda, MD

"Finding Humanity in Rat City: John B. Calhoun's Experiments in Crowding at the NIMH."

Edmund Ramsden, London School of Economics and Exeter University

In a series of experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health from 1954-86, John B. Calhoun offered rats and mice everything they needed, except space. The resulting population explosion was followed by profound "social pathologies" such as violence, sexual deviance, and withdrawal; a "behavioral sink" culminating in extinction. While some were keen to see Calhoun's "rat cities" as evidence for what was going wrong with the American city, others cautioned against drawing strong
analogies between rodents and man. The ensuing dispute saw social and biomedical scientists involved in a careful negotiation of the boundary between human and non-human animals.

All are Welcome

Note: The next history of medicine seminar will be on Wednesday, June 11, 2-3:30pm in the Lister Hill Auditorium, NLM's Bldg 38A. In a special program for Asian American History Month, Judy Wu of the Ohio State University will speak on 'From White Woman's Burden to Orientalized Motherhood: The Strange Career of Dr. "Mom" Chung.'

Sign language interpretation is provided. Individuals with disabilities
who need reasonable accommodation to participate may contact Stephen
Greenberg at (301-435-4995), e-mail greenbes@mail.nih.gov, or the
Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).

Due to current security measures at NIH, off-campus visitors are advised
to consult the NIH Visitors and Security website:
http://www.nih.gov/about/visitorsecurity.htm


Stephen J. Greenberg, MSLS, PhD
Coordinator of Public Services
History of Medicine Division
National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health
Department of Health and Human Services

301-435-4995

NY Times on syphilis

As you might expect from an Army museum and a pathology institute, we have a lot of photographs of syphilis (and yaws, a related disease). Here's the NY Times on the natural history of the disease:

Essay
A Great Pox’s Greatest Feat: Staying Alive
By MARLENE ZUK
Published: April 29, 2008
Research indicates that syphilis became less virulent over time, which probably helped it survive.

Veterinary Corps again

Some time ago I wrote about Greg Krenzelok's Veterinary Corps website, where he's devoted considerable time to documenting the role horses played in World War 1. To help him out a bit, we've been feeding him pictures from our collection and he's been putting them on his page. He's made a separate section for our pictures and has given us some really nice credit, as well as giving the link to this blog. Take a look at his site; it's truly a labor of love.

June 11: Mitch Yockelson's World War 1 book lecture

My old colleague Mitch Yockelson (if I can use that term when we were both Archives Techs) is speaking at National Archives Building, Constitution Ave., between 7th & 9th Streets, NW, Washington, DC 20408 US on Wednesday, June 11, at 12:00PM

He's celebrating the publication of his new book: Borrowed Soldiers: Americans Under British Command 1918 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008). A discussion of the book will be held in the National Archives McGowan Theater and a reception and book signing will follow. Use Special Events entrance on Constitution Ave.

I'd encourage anyone interested in military history to stop by. Later in the year, Mitch will be speaking at the Medical Museum specifically on the medical part of the story.

Anatomical Theatre: Medical Museum Images

Came across this nice set of images (click on gallery) done by Joanna Ebenstein, a New York-based photographer and designer, during a one-month pilgrimage to medical museums in England, Scotland, Hungary, Italy, Austria, The Netherlands, and the United States. Wax models, wet specimens, skeletal specimens...and is that Brian's arm I see?

Body Worlds vs. Bodies - the Exhibition

Bodies was on display in Arlington a few months back; and Body Worlds is up in Baltimore now. Our colleagues at Biomedicine on display have a couple of blog posts on what they thought of the exhibits - here and here.

Should you trust this blog?

Ehh, maybe. See "Can You Handle It? Better Yet: Do You Know It When You See It?," by Monica Hesse, Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, April 27, 2008; Page M01, for a good discussion of online information versus knowledge.

Poison Gas

Earlier this week wired.com ran an article on the 93rd anniversary of the first use of poison gas on the Western Front in World War 1, when the Germans used chlorine gas against French and Algerian troops. The article said that chlorine gas produces a green cloud and a strong odor, giving the victims at least a little advance warning. This made me think of posters we have from World War 2 that warn soldiers of the different smells that gases produce (although I neither know nor wish to know what flypaper smells like):

Medical technology creates ethical dilemmas. Again

Read about left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) in "Heart Pump Creates Life-Death Ethical Dilemmas," By Rob Stein, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, April 24, 2008; A01. Once one of these is implanted in someone, their heart can't fail. I'm pretty sure we don't have any of these devices in the museum yet.

National Library of Medicine's History of Medicine division announces websites

The Bathtub Collection!

Two new websites from HMD

The History of Medicine Division of the NLM is pleased to announce two new websites focusing on the Bathtub collection and genealogical resources.

NLM is home to numerous biographical and genealogical resources for those seeking information about ancestors with medical or health related training. Among these is the AMA Deceased Physicians Card File, a collection of nearly 400,000 index cards created by the AMA between about 1901 and 1969 focusing on everyone in the U.S. who received a medical degree. The cards were updated throughout the physician's career with information about degrees obtained, licensing, addresses and finally cause of death and sometimes obituary citations and even portraits. Please visit the site at:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/genealogy/

The Bathtub collection consists of fragments found in the old and rare bindings of the NLM's rare book collection when items were rebound and conserved in the 1940s and 1950s. It is called the "Bathtub Collection" because then-curator Dorothy Schullian took the leftovers of conservation work home and soaked them in her bathtub to retrieve the often interesting bits and pieces of medieval manuscripts and early
printed ephemera she found. Please visit the site at:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/bathtub/


Actually the Bathtub Collection sounds like one person made the best of a bad conservation plan...

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.

Tours of Forest Glen Seminary, formerly part of Walter Reed

From World War 2 until the 1990s, Walter Reed owned and used the National Park Seminary girl's school buildings at Forest Glen, MD. They didn't maintain the buildings well; around 1989 or so I rescued a post-Works Project Administration mural of the Seminary by Jack McMillan which showed orange jumpsuited psychiatric patients on the grounds. It was being damaged by water leaking down from 3 floors above. The painting is restored and on display in the Museum; in the meantime, you can take tours of the buildings as explained in this article "At an Old Retreat, Signs of Renewal," by Amy Orndorff, Washington Post Friday, April 25, 2008; Page WE05 (which is not quite factual - the theater burned down). There's two photographs on the site as well.

A few points of interest - the fountain, which was badly damaged the last time I saw it, was a sixteenth century work imported from Italy if I remember correctly. Also the ballroom in the main building was restored and is stunning, although a lot of the busts that lined it are missing.

The place is well worth seeing. It's being turned into condos now.

Susan L. Smith on WWII Mustard Gas Experiments

Lecture at NYAM: Susan L. Smith on WWII Mustard Gas Experiments

This year, the New York Academy of Medicine's Public Lecture Series in the History of Medicine and Public Health has been looking at some new aspects of the history of medicine in wartime - specifically, the interplay between war, medicine and society. Our series explores the poisonous ideologies that fester into wars, and the development and testing of deadly new weapons to fight them; the social and
infrastructural stresses and fractures war brings; and the challenges of helping war's maimed and damaged soldiers find peaceful occupations when the fighting is over.

The series concludes next month with Susan L. Smith's look at human experimentation in the context of global war.

Thursday, May , 8, 2008, 6:00 PM with reception at 5:30 PM The Lilianna Sauter Lecture Medicine in Wartime, Part IV: Place, Health and War: World War II Mustard Gas Experiments in Transnational Perspective Susan L. Smith, University of Alberta


In the early 1940s, medical scientists funded by the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service conducted painful mustard gas experiments on at least 60,000 American soldiers. The Allies, including the governments of Canada, Britain, Australia, and the United States, conducted these experiments on their own soldiers in order to identify the impact of chemical weapons on the health of soldiers. One component of the research program involved examining how mustard gas affected men of various "races." At least eight separate experimental programs in the United States focused specifically on Japanese American and African American soldiers and one focused on testing Puerto Ricans on an island off Panama. The researchers were searching for evidence of race-based differences in the responses of the human body to mustard gas exposure. In the 1940s in a climate of contested beliefs over the existence and meanings of racial differences, medical researchers examined the bodies of these specific minority groups for evidence of how they differed from whites.

Susan L. Smith is a Professor of History and Classics at the University of Alberta specializing in the history of health and medicine. Her current reserach focuses on race, health, and war. She is the author of two books on race and health in the United States, Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: Black Women's Health Activism in America, 1890-1950 and Japanese American Midwives: Culture, Community, and Health
Politics, 1880-1950.

To register for this event, visit : https://www.nyam.org/events/nyam_register.php?id=375


For more information about NYAM programs in the history of medicine, visit our website at http://www.nyam.org/histmed , write history@nyam.org , or call 212.822.7310.

Historical programs at NYAM are supported by the Friends of the Rare Book Room. Please join the Friends! Download a membership form at http://www.nyam.org/initiatives/docs/FRBR_Renewal.pdf .


THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE 1216 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10029

Former Curator Jeff Reznick at Book Festival

Jeff Reznick writes in to tell us about an opportunity talk to him and buy his World War I medical history books (which you can learn more about by clicking on the two pictures):

"This Sunday, April 27, the town of Kensington, Maryland will celebrate The International Day of the Book with a street festival on Howard Avenue in Old Town Kensington. I am excited to be one of nearly five-dozen local authors participating in the event.

Copies of my first book will be on display alongside flyers promoting my new book, which is due out early next year from Manchester University Press/ Palgrave Macmillan.

You can learn more about Kensington's Day of the Book Festival here
http://www.dayofthebook.com/
.

Links, links, and more links (actually, just four links tonight)

A few links for you, on this warm spring Tuesday evening:

• Morbid Anatomy offers some most excellent linkage to something called "The Spitzner Museum's Wax Woman," by Francoise Riviere and Andreas Martens. It's described as a comic book, which I am sure is going to get the attention of one of our staff.
• An outstanding syndicated travel column featured the Museum. Thanks!
• Revealed links to some details about a catalog for a previous exhibit at the Duke University Museum of Art entitled "The Physician’s Art."
• And Street Anatomy brings the funny when they offer a link to Panexa.

Enjoy!

Museums on the Web

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend this year's Museums and the Web conference, which this year took place in Montreal, Canada. This was my first visit to Montreal, and I was able to visit a few of the local sites, and you're invited to see a few of those photos on this Flickr stream.

Much is made everyday of the impact the Internet is having on our lives, and that impact is just as acutely felt in the museum world as any place else. MW2008 was about how institutions large and small and from around the world are incorporating the Web and other Internet-based technologies into their programs and business. More than 650 people from 27 countries attended. (Other stats here.)

There were awards offered, too: of note was this one category, the Best of the Web (Education) award was given to The American Image: The Photographs of John Collier Jr., an offering by The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and College of Education’s Technology & Education Center (TEC) at the University of New Mexico. The very Best of the Web was Launchball of the Science Museum, London. (Beware, this is the very epitome of a timewaster, I lost a few hours somehow after logging onto that for the first time.) The list of awardees is here.

There was so much discussed at the conference that I've been overwhelmed with trying to offer some wayposts to our eight or nine readers who might be interested in learning more about the topics discussed. So, I was glad to run across this post by one Bryan Kennedy from the Science Museum of Minnesota, who wrote on the Museum 2.0 blog. Take special note of a few of the links he offers: the backchannel that was prevalent at times during the conference, for instance.

And what a comment that makes, in an of itself: A conference about the Web used the Web to enrich the experience, in real time, using Twitter, individual blogs, Flickr, whatever else was handy.

There's a lot more, and I could go on about it for a while longer, and I might add to this or post some more later on this topic. For now, I encourage you to check out this conference Web site, which features blogs written before, during and after the meeting. There are links there to search the conference papers, too, which are worth perusing if time allows, and how to find presenters' slides and handouts.

Cool Dissection Atlas Profiled

Morbid Anatomy linked to a New York Times article today, which I circulated around the office today - a feature on the Bassett Stereoscopic Dissection Collection (watch their video, too, of which I am very jealous!). And to add to the flurry of links, check out this Flickr stream and this article from Stanford. Very cool stuff. I, for one, would love to check out some of those View-masters.

St. Elizabeth's Calvarium - Dr. I.W. Blackburn

A good day at the museum is rediscovering the history of a specimen or artifact that has lost its association with the record that tells us who, where and why it has come to the museum. Sometimes it takes archival research to do this and sometimes it's purely serendipitous.

This weekend I discovered a copy of "Intracranial Tumors Among the Insane (1902) by Dr. I. W. Blackburn in a used bookstore in Gaithersburg, MD. Dr. Blackburn was the former pathologist for St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. He performed hundreds maybe thousands of autopsies on patients who died at the hospital. While browsing through the book I noticed a photo of very unique calvarium (top of the skull). The specimen had two rare conditions; scaphocephaly and hyperostosis frontalis interna. The bone looked strangely familiar.

In the Anatomical Division of NMHM we have such a specimen. It was listed as coming to the museum from an early exchange with the Smithsonian National Museum and not attributed to St. Elizabeth's at all. I bought the book for $15 and lo and behold when I brought it back to the museum our specimen was the same one in the book. It was attributed to a 65 year old black female patient at St. Es. The existing record was based on a bygone curatorial staff member using the wrong numbering system to describe the specimen. There have been several systems in place at the museum at various times which causes a lot of confusion for us today.

Here is a recent photo of the specimen. In addition to the pathological conditions there are also consistencies among the size and shape of the exposed frontal sinus, the etchings of the meningeal vessels, the contours of the thickened frontal bone and the two small bony exostoses in the center just left of the midline. The front of the skull is oriented to the right.

The specimen's history is now restored. Additionally, four other calvaria in the collection with no known history have similarly composed autopsy numbers written on the bones. All are now believed to be from St. Elizabeth's with further research pending. These specimens have very early accession numbers which means that they arrived at the museum around 1917-1918 when the Army Medical Museum was busy attending to the medical needs of World War I. It is not clear when the original error was made, but it likely extends back several decades. The specimens themselves are from the late 19th century autopsies.

In the photo below you can see the scaphocephalic calvarium (left) next to a normal one (right). Notice that the normal one on the right has a jagged line called the sagittal suture (front to back) which the one on the left lacks. Sutures are where the bones of the cranium grow and expand. In scaphocephaly the sagittal suture fuses prematurely and the coronal suture continues to grow which gives the unique elongated shape you see here. The one on the left is darker due to over 100 years of dust and dirt adhering to oils that remained in the bone. Since bone is porous, it can absorb materials from the environment which effect its color. The one on the right was cleaned using chemicals that removed much of the oils and was stored in a relatively cleaner environment.

Civil War photos from Museum on display in Smithsonian

Toby Jurovics, a curator of photography at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, borrowed some William Bell pictures from us last year. Bell's work is often confused with the more famous Matthew Brady. They're on display in a small gallery of Civil War photos, along with more famous pictures by Gardener and Sullivan.

Here's roughly how they look although I should have turned the flash off:

National Health Museum

The Atlanta Journal Constitution is reporting that the "National Health Museum," which doesn't exist except as a website, is now looking beyond Washington for a home. The NHM was established in 1988 as the National Museum of Health & Medicine Foundation, but eventually decided in the early 1990s that they didn't want to be affiliated with the existing medical museum anymore and went on their own. So in two decades, they've created a website and now are looking to move out of DC - "After a 10-month search, he said Atlanta remains in the running with Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Museum officials will announce a selection later this year, [Mark Dunham] said."

See "National health museum might call Atlanta home," by CRAIG SCHNEIDER. Published on: 03/26/08. Thanks to Jen Heilman for the tip.

Library of Congress has a blog now too!

The Library of Congress has a blog now too! And they're posting Hitler's Treasures there, but I'm noting it just to say - we were here first! Their blog is by Matt Raymond, one of their PR guys apparently.

Influenza subject to the endangered species act?

MIS 58-15573-69 - Influenza Ward, Sagamihara Hospital, Japan, August 9, 1957.

Well, probably not, but the Post had this interesting article - "Researchers Chart Flu's Global Journey: Strains Arise in Asia, Die in S. America," by David Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 17, 2008; Page A04 - about how strains go extinct in South America this year, but new ones arise in Asia to replace them. The genetic analysis of the influenza virus continues to amaze.

Speaking of Flickr

As I do in the next post... here are three I posted this week. I won't steal Mike's thunder. I'll let him show you the ones he sent to Flickr himself.

SC495871



SC344909



SC 41726 Just All Eyes, Brother (This one had 102 views overnight, and makes me think of my son the Marine. He said all through boot camp the drill instructor would yell out, "Did I say eyeballs?" if he caught the recruits looking at him.)

Flickr bragging

I did a quick count this morning on our three Flickr accounts. (Come on already, Flickr, with our Commons account!)

Here are the beautiful numbers:

Otisarchives1: 42,001 (198 images)
Otisarchives2: 21,381 (199 images)
Otisarchives3: 9,998 (180 images)
For a total of 73,380 views on 577 images.

We're not Library of Congress or the National Archives, but I think we do pretty well. In case you need a reminder of where our accounts are, or a refresher for new posts, feel free to take a look.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/99129398@N00,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7438870@N04/, and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22719239@N04/

Prescription safety

I had a couple of prescriptions filled at Costco today. I usually get my scripts filled elsewhere so I was kind of surprised to see what Costco has done to increase safety in prescription drugs. The label has all of the usual information but also includes a list that says what form the drug is (tablet, capsule, etc.), what its shape is, its color, and any printing on it. I think that's brilliant. How simple and how smart. I have a relative that takes a lot of prescriptions and at one time kept the open bottles in a shoe box which of course was overturned. This would have been of great help in sorting out the mess on the bottom of the box. (We won't even talk about the tops not being on the bottles.)