NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE TO RELOCATE TO SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND

Contact Information: Tim Clarke, Jr., Deputy Director for Communications, (202) 782-2672, timothy.clarke@afip.osd.mil

 

 

 

 

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE TO

RELOCATE TO SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND

Museum to construct new facility on U.S. Army post known as Forest Glen Annex

 

December 23, 2009, Washington, D.C. – The National Museum of Health and Medicine of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology will relocate to a new state-of-the-art facility in Silver Spring, Maryland, built by Costello Construction of Columbia, Maryland. The relocation is a result of the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission decision to close Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

 

“The Museum is ready for this exciting phase in our relocation,” said Adrianne Noe, Ph.D., Director of the Museum. “We’re encouraged by the warm welcome we’ve received as we engage the local and state community about the Museum’s move into Montgomery County, Maryland. And we’re especially pleased with the support we’re receiving from Ft. Detrick as we look forward to working with them on the Forest Glen Annex campus.”

 

Staff are actively working on prospective exhibit and interpretive plans while, at the same time, working to best integrate the Museum’s vast collections, all with an eye on maintaining and amplifying the Museum’s mission. As plans for exhibit development and public access become more certain, information will be posted to the Museum’s Web site.

 

The Museum’s new facility will include collections management space as well as public exhibitions and offices. A construction schedule has yet to be set but the building is scheduled to be fully functional as of September 15, 2011.

 

Today, a bit of history from the Forest Glen Annex is on display at the Museum. Restored to its original condition is a painting by Jack McMillen, depicting life at the hospital annex during World War II when the facility housed a major U.S. Army rehabilitation facility. The painting, entitled “Psychiatric Patients at Forest Glen,” is an incredible 7 feet by 10 feet and is hanging at the Museum near artifacts related to Major Walter Reed. 

 

All questions and comments may be directed to Tim Clarke, Jr., NMHM Deputy Director for Communications, phone (202) 782-2672, email timothy.clarke@afip.osd.mil.

 

About the National Museum of Health and Medicine:

• The National Museum of Health and Medicine of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, established in 1862, inspires interest in and promotes the understanding of medicine—past, present, and future—with a special emphasis on tri-service American military medicine. As a National Historic Landmark recognized for its ongoing value to the health of the military and to the nation, the Museum identifies, collects, and preserves important and unique resources to support a broad agenda of innovative exhibits, educational programs, and scientific, historical, and medical research. The Museum is an element of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), a tri-service Army, Navy and Air Force agency of the Department of Defense with a threefold mission of consultation, education and research. The Museum is located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. Visit the Museum Web site at www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum or call (202) 782-2200.

 

###

 

Yakovlev collection mentioned in passing in brain dissection article

This article is quite interesting in its own right, but also mentions “Perhaps the best-known pioneer of such whole-brain sectioning is Dr. Paul Ivan Yakovlev, who built a collection of slices from hundreds of brains now kept at a facility in Washington.” The facility is our medical museum and we’re busy digitizing slides and records from the collection.

 

Building a Search Engine of the Brain, Slice by Slice

By BENEDICT CAREY

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/health/22brain.html

 

December 22, 2009

 

Museum closed on Monday, December 21

The Federal Government in DC is closed on December 21 due to the snowstorm, so the Medical Museum will closed.

Sept 2010: European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences

The 15th biannual conference of the European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences (EAMHMS) will be held at the University of Copenhagen, 16–19 September, 2010.

This year's cross-disciplinary conference focuses on the challenge to museums posed by contemporary developments in medical science and technology.

The image of medicine that emerges from most museum galleries and exhibitions is still dominated by pre-modern and modern understandings of an anatomical and physiological body, and by the diagnostic and therapeutical methods and instruments used to intervene with the body at the `molar' and tangible level – limbs, organs, tissues, etc.

The rapid transition in the medical and health sciences and technologies over the last 50 years – towards a molecular understanding of human body in health and disease and the rise of a host of molecular and digital technologies for investigating and intervening with the body – is still largely absent in museum collections and exhibitions.

As a consequence, the public can rarely rely on museums to get an understanding of the development and impact of the medical and health sciences in the last 50 years. Biochemistry and molecular biology have resulted in entirely new diagnostic methods and therapeutic regimes and a flourishing biotech industry. The elucidation of the human genome and the emergence of proteomics has opened up the possibility of personalised molecular medicine. Advances in the material sciences and information technology have given rise to a innovative and highly productive medical device industry, which is radically transforming medical practices. But few museums have so far engaged seriously and in a sustained way with these and similar phenomena in the recent history of medical sciences and technologies.

The contemporary transition in medical and health science and technology towards molecularisation, miniaturisation, mediated visualisation, digitalisation and intangibilisation is a major challenge for the museum world; not only for medical museums, but also for museums of science and technology, and indeed for all kinds of museums with an interest in the human body and the methods for intervening with it, including art museums, natural history museums and museums of cultural history.

Contemporary medicine is not only a challenge to exhibition design practices and public outreach strategies but also to acquisition methodologies, collection management and collection-based research. How do museums today handle the material and visual heritage of contemporary medical and health science and technology? How do curators wield the increasing amount and kinds of intangible scientific and digital objects? Which intellectual, conceptual, and practical questions does this challenge give rise to?

The conference will address questions like (but not limited to):

+ How can an increasingly microanatomical, molecularised, invisible and intangible (mediated) human body be represented in a museum setting? Does the post-anatomical body require new kinds of museum displays?
+ How can museums make sense of contemporary molecular-based and digitalised diagnostic and thereapeutic technologies, instrumentation and investigation practices in their display practices?
+ How can museums make use of their older collections together with new acquisitions from contemporary medicine and health science and technology?
+ What is the role of the visual vs. the non-visual (hearing, smell, taste, touch) senses in curatorial practice and in the public displays of contemporary medical science and technology?
+ What can museums learn from science centers, art-science event venues etc. with respect to the public engagement with contemporary medical science and technology? And, vice versa, what can museums provide that these institutions cannot?
+ How can museums draw on bioart, `wet art' and other art forms to stimulate public engagement with the changing medical and health system?
+ How does physical representations of contemporary medicine in museum spaces relate to textual representations in print and digital representations on the web?
+ How can museums integrate emerging social web technologies (Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) in the build-up of medical and health exhibitions?
+ What kind of acquisition methods and policies are needed for museums to catch up with the development of contemporary medical science and technology, especially the proliferation of molecular and digital artefacts and images?
+ What kind of problems do museum encounter when they expand the acquisition domain from traditional textual, visual and tangible material objects to digital artefacts (including software, audio- and videorecordings, and digitally stored data) and non-tangible scientific objects.
+ How can participatory acquisitioning, crowd-sourcing, wiki-based methods, etc. (`museum 2.0') be employed for the preservation and curation of the contemporary medical heritage?
+ How can curatorial work in museums draw on medical research and engineering and on academic scholarship in the humanities and social sciences? And, vice versa, how can museums contribute to medical teaching and research and how can their collections stimulate the use of physical objects in the humanities and social sciences?

The conference will employ a variety of session formats. In addition to keynotes and sessions with individual presentations of current research and curatorial work there will also be discussion panels and object demonstration workshops.

We welcome submissions from a wide range of scholars and specialists – including, for example, curators in medical, science and technology museums; scholars in the history, philosophy and social studies of medicine, science and technology; scholars in science and technology studies, science communication studies, museum studies, material studies and visual culture studies; biomedical scientists and clinical specialists; medical, health and pharma industry specialists with an interest in science communication; engineers and designers in the medical device industry; artists, designers and architects with an interest in museum displays, etc.

We are especially interested in presentations that involve the use of material and visual artefacts and we therefore encourage participants to bring illustrative and evocative (tangible or non-tangible) objects for demonstration.

100-300 word proposals for presentations, demonstrations, discussion panels, etc. shall be sent before 28 February 2010 to the chair of the program committee, Thomas Soderqvist, ths@sund.ku.dk.

For further information, see http://tinyurl.com/ylx5atx or contact Thomas Soderqvist, ths@sund.ku.dk. For practical information about travel, accommodation, etc., please contact Anni Harris, konference2010@sund.ku.dk, after 4 January 2010.

The 15th biannual conference of EAMHMS is hosted by Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen.

Morbid Anatomy on TV

Joanna Ebenstein of Morbid Anatomy reports she's on YouTube: "My Library (and, sadly, me), Now on You Tube.

"For those of you who've not been to the Morbid Anatomy Library yet,
this short (and embarrassing) video will give you a sense of what I'm
up to over here in Brooklyn (and maybe urge some of you to come pay a
visit!). A bit hard to watch for me, but some of you may enjoy it."

http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/2009/12/morbid-anatomy-library-on-you-tube.html

You can also see her at
www.astropop.com
morbidanatomy.blogspot.com

Obituary for former AFIP staff

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/12/AR2009121202705.html

DAVID T. ARMITAGE, 70 ; Medical officer served at Walter Reed

Matt Schudel

Washington Post

Sunday, December 13, 2009

 

Dec 29: Program for Students (Grades 5-8) on Medieval Medicine

National Museum of Health and Medicine, Classroom

 

Who:

 

Students grades 5-8 (space is limited; pre-registration required; click here to download the registration form.) Students under age 15 must be accompanied by an adult.

 

What:

 

Participate in hands-on activities to learn about the history of medieval medicine and diseases of the time. Activities will include making a plague mask, creating a mini medieval herb garden, and designing a pomander. The program will include a tour of OUTBREAK. Presented in conjunction with OUTBREAK: Plagues that Changed History, on display through January 22, 2010.

 

Cost:

 

FREE.

For more information:

 

On the Web or call (202)782-2673 or nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil

 

 

 

Tim Clarke, Jr. (Contractor, American Registry of Pathology)

Deputy Director (Communications), National Museum of Health and Medicine

6900 Georgia Avenue, NW, Building 54, Washington, D.C. 20307

Phone: (202) 782-2672 -- Mobile: (301) 814-4498 -- Fax: (202) 782-3573

Email: timothy.clarke@afip.osd.mil

Website: www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum

 

NMHM on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MedicalMuseum

NMHM on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MedicalMuseum

 

Mailing Address: NMHM/AFIP, PO Box 59685, Washington, D.C., 20012-0685

 

NOTE: We may be experiencing technical difficulties with email; if you have not received a reply, call (202) 782-2672 to follow-up.

 

Dec 30: Scientific Illustration Using a Microscope

Winter Break Workshop: Scientific Illustration Using a Microscope

 

When:

 

Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

 

Where:

 

National Museum of Health and Medicine, Classroom

 

Who:

 

Ages 15 and up (space is limited; pre-registration required; click here to download the registration form.)

 

What:

 

Want to try your hand at scientific illustration? The museum hosts a hands-on workshop on how to use microscopes to view germs and "animalcules" and to teach you how to draw what you see. We'll be drawing with pencils but if you have a favorite media bring it along.  There will be a brief discussion of the history of illustration using microscopes, and a brief demonstration of how to use a scope.  Presented in conjunction with OUTBREAK: Plagues that Changed History, on display through January 22, 2010.

 

Cost:

 

FREE.

 

For more information:

 

On the Web or call (202)782-2673 or nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil

 

 

 

 

 

Tim Clarke, Jr. (Contractor, American Registry of Pathology)

Deputy Director (Communications), National Museum of Health and Medicine

6900 Georgia Avenue, NW, Building 54, Washington, D.C. 20307

Phone: (202) 782-2672 -- Mobile: (301) 814-4498 -- Fax: (202) 782-3573

Email: timothy.clarke@afip.osd.mil

Website: www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum

 

NMHM on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MedicalMuseum

NMHM on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MedicalMuseum

 

Mailing Address: NMHM/AFIP, PO Box 59685, Washington, D.C., 20012-0685

 

NOTE: We may be experiencing technical difficulties with email; if you have not received a reply, call (202) 782-2672 to follow-up.

 

NY Times article on drugs for menopause

The original article is illustrated with advertisements which the slug below doesn't mention, but which does show a usfeul side of trade literature collections.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/13drug.html

Menopause, as Brought to You by Big Pharma

By NATASHA SINGER and DUFF WILSON

Published: December 13, 2009

Lawsuits and internal documents show how Pfizer and its predecessors promoted the idea of taking hormone drugs.

Bryn Barnard at Museum photos

Ace amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie has put up his photographs of Bryn Barnard speaking at the Museum last weekend. I couldn't make the talk, and I don't know if we recorded it. I can check if anyone would like. We may still have signed copies of his book "Outbreak" as well.

Jim Edmondson on 'Dissection' on Lopate radio show

Leonard Lopate Show / December 07, 2009
Dissection

Author James Edmonson, Chief Curator of the Dittrick Medical Center and Museum at Case Western Reserve University, explains why, in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, medical students took pictures of themselves with the cadavers they dissected. His book Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine includes 138 rare, historic photographs that reveal a strange piece of American medical history

Dec 9: Lecture on emerging diseases

Lecture at the NMHM: Investigating Emerging Diseases

When: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 1:00-2:00 p.m.

What: Dr. Michael Turell, a research entomologist with the Virology Division of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute on Infectious Disease, will discuss the institute's role in investigating several outbreaks including Hantavirus, Ebola, and West Nile virus.

Cost: FREE.

For more information: (202)782-2673 or nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil

 

900,000 and counting

We've broken the 900,000 mark on our Flickr account. Hot dog. That's an average of about 524 views per image. But our most-viewed image?

MIS 66-9275 has 63,345 views

Dec 9: AFIP professional staff conference by Museum curator

The following lecture is presented by the National Museum of Health and Medicine

 

Date/Time:                   09 Dec 09/1100am

 

Location:                     Dart Auditorium

 

Speaker(s):       Franklin Damann

                        Curator

                        National Museum of Health and Medicine     

           

Title:                Human Decomposition Ecology

 

Details:                        The museum Curator discusses recent research exploring the regulation of human decomposition at the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility. One goal of this research is to assess the potential the microbial community to estimate time since death.

 

 

Department of Medical Education

Armed Forces Institute of Pathology

6825 16th Street, NW

Washington, DC  20306-6000

Ph:     (202) 782-2596

 

 

Jan Herman on History of Naval Medicine in World War 2

Navy Medicine in the Last Campaigns: Iwo Jima and Okinawa

 

The presenter is Jan Herman, M.A.

Historian of the Naval Medical Department

Special Assistant to the Navy Surgeon General

 

http://mediasite.cidde.pitt.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=7b8b1494-f99f-4726-8177-46b28a75bd7f

 

 

Famous brain dissected for study

The brain of Henry Molaison, who could not form memories after his brain surgery, is being dissected – you can read about it in this article - Dissection Begins on Famous Brain, By BENEDICT CAREY, December 3, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/health/research/03brain.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=brain%20memory&st=cse and view it live here - http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu/hm_live.php

We have a very large brain collection in our Neuroanatomical Division.

Harvard's Comparative Zoology Museum

A nice article on the Museum is at http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/HarvardGazette12.03.091.pdf

 

Dec 5: The Art and Science of "OUTBREAK: Plagues that Changed History"

The Art and Science of "OUTBREAK: Plagues that Changed History"
with the artist Bryn Barnard

When: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (Feel free to drop in; no reservations required.)

What: Bryn Barnard, author and artist of "OUTBREAK," will host three exciting programs on Saturday, December 5, 2009, including an illustration workshop and a special session aimed at younger audiences. Free, open to the public, no reservations required. See the schedule below for more details. Questions? Call (202) 782-2673 or email nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil. Schedule: (Come for one program, or stay for the whole day!): 10:00 a.m.: Writing and Illustrating Demonstration: Bryn Barnard will explain how he combined history, science, and art to create “OUTBREAK.” Listen as he reveals how he evolved as an illustrator working on projects as wide-ranging as illustrations for science-fiction paperbacks to working for National Geographic and eventually to writing and illustrating his own non-fiction science history books. Barnard will discuss the writing and illustration process, from researching topics through the important editorial stage, and finally discuss the place of the illustrator in the world of writing. 11:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.: Book Signing (limited quantity of books available for sale in the Museum gift shop) 1:00 p.m.: “OUTBREAK: Plagues That Changed History”—Join Bryn Barnard for a discussion about several diseases represented in his book, including the plague, cholera, tuberculosis, and toxoplasmosis. 2:15 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.: Book Signing and Coffee Break with the Artist 3:00 p.m.: Family Program: Children will enjoy this special presentation on illustrating science books, including a demonstration by the artist! Presentation will be followed by a book signing.

 

 

Dec 9: Lecture at the NMHM: Investigating Emerging Diseases

Lecture at the NMHM: Investigating Emerging Diseases

When: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 1:00-2:00 p.m.

What: Dr. Michael Turell, a research entomologist with the Virology Division of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute on Infectious Disease, will discuss the institute's role in investigating several outbreaks including Hantavirus, Ebola, and West Nile virus.

Cost: FREE.

For more information: (202)782-2673 or nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil

 

Suraci photo album

We have the Alfred J. Suraci (1911-1993) Collection in the archives, which includes the papers and two photograph albums Dr. Suraci made of his World War 2 patients at Northington General Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Later Dr. Suraci was the chief of plastic surgery at Providence Hospital, Prince George's Doctor's Hospital, and Sibley Memorial Hospital. Here are scans of the cover of one of the albums and a title page.

 

 

Can we make 1,000,000 Flickr views in 2009?

We're at 898,380 photostream views now. Or 1,149,005 photos and video views. I'm not sure what the difference is, but anyone who wants to help push our Flickr views over 1 million will be appreciated. Since we've figured out how to email pictures to the site, I'm sure there will be more to view.

Painting by Samuel Bookatz in Museum

There's an obituary for Samuel Bookatz in today's Washington Post - in our collection is an oil portrait of Ross T. McIntire, Franklin D. Roosevelt's physician, by Samuel Bookatz (1942).

Now that I'm at home, I can post the pictures.


Bookatz at the Medical Museum in 1990, cleaning up the paperwork on the painting.


A bad snapshot of the painting.

Dec 5: Book illustrator at Medical Museum

 

 

The Art and Science of "OUTBREAK: Plagues that Changed History" with the artist Bryn Barnard

 

When:

 

Saturday, December 5, 2009, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (Feel free to drop in; no reservations required.)

 

What:

 

Bryn Barnard, author and artist of "OUTBREAK: Plagues that Changed History," (on exhibit through Jan 22, 2010 at NMHM) will host three exciting programs on Saturday, December 5, 2009, including an illustration workshop and a special session aimed at younger audiences. Free, open to the public, no reservations required.

 

See the schedule online at http://nmhm.washingtondc.museum/events/event_2ed.html for more details. Questions? Call (202) 782-2673 or email nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil.

 

Where:

 

National Museum of Health and Medicine, on the campus at Walter Reed Army Medical Center

6900 Georgia Avenue, NW, Building 54, Washington, D.C. 20307  (Enter at Elder St., NW)

Adults must present photo identification to gain entry to Walter Reed.

 

Contact:

 

(202) 782-2673 or email nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil

 

 

"Forever Forward" patch

I'm going to try this again, this time including the image.

From our researcher Mike Lemish, whose book on military working dogs in Vietnam is due out in January:

 

 

This is the 4” patch that will accompany the book, which should be out by mid-January, at the latest (I hope!):

 ARF!

 

 

 

Museum souvenier DIY repost

Should you be looking to make … distinctive… holiday gifts, you can use the Museum’s public domain photos on Flickr and a printing company like Zazzle or Café Press.

Here’s how you do it.

Go to the Medical Museum flickr site. Look through the photos and select the one you like. There's roughly 1600 photographs in the account.

Click on it and then on the top of the photo, click on ‘all sizes’. Select ‘download’ for the large size which will save it to your harddrive.

For Zazzle, where I’ve been experimenting, go to http://www.zazzle.com and establish an account. Click on ‘create a product’ and pick a product. Click on ‘add an image’ and then pull the picture off your harddrive. Position it on the product until you like it. You can add multiple images or text to some products. You can also make multiple products using the same image which will have been stored in your account under ‘my images.’

Click on either ‘add to my cart’ or ‘post for sale’ when you’re happy with the way it looks.

Pay them and do what you will with the finished product. They can be a bit cranky when it comes to publishing stamps and wouldn’t let my Civil War surgery experiment go out to the world, although they sold me the stamps.

Have fun. Let me know if you do anything particularly interesting.

Holiday Mail for Heroes

From today's Stripe, the Walter Reed newspaper:

The American Red Cross again is sponsoring a national "Holiday Mail for Heroes" campaign to receive and distribute holiday cards to service members, veterans, and their families in the United States and abroad. The card campaign includes those working and receiving care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The American Red Cross and Pitney Bowes Inc. will partner for the third year to provide screening of all mail sent to the following P.O. Box address:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

People should not send cards to Walter Reed unless they are addressed to a specific wounded warrior. Due to security reasons, Walter Reed cannot accept generic mail. Cards should be postmarked not later than December 7 to reach service members recovering at Walter Reed.

Yellow Fever vaccine

I heard on NPR this morning that millions of yellow fever vaccines, about 12 million actually, are now being offered in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Benin. According to the World Health Organization, since 2007 a total of 29 million people have been protected through mass vaccinations conducted in other African countries.  We have in our Registry of Noteworthy Research in Pathology some records of Max Theiler, who received a Nobel Prize in 1951 for his development of an effective vaccine against the disease.

 

The Journal of Experimental Medicine published an article in 2007 about Max Theiler and his years-long efforts to develop a vaccine. The first field trial in Brazil in 1938 proved to be highly successful and since then, more than 400 million doses have been shown to be safe and effective. The vaccine is still produced the same way as Theiler developed it in 1938: by passing the virus through chicken embryos.

 

Theiler won the Nobel Prize after just four nominations. The first time was in 1937 for his work on yellow fever in mice. The committee wasn't impressed. In 1948 the second nomination came from Albert Sabin (later of polio vaccine fame). The committee was a little more impressed but said Theiler's work would be prize-worthy if someone could show it was he and not his colleague Wray Lloyd who had conceived of and planned the work. The committee accepted the documentation that was produced and said good job, but gave the prize to Paul Müller for his work on DDT.

 

1950 produced another nomination. The committee said really good job this time but gave the prize to three other researchers for their discoveries on hormones of the adrenal cortex.

 

In 1951, on the very last day that prize nominations were being accepted for the year, the chairman of the committee, Hilding Bergstrand,  slid in his recommendation for Theiler under the wire. Theiler was in competition with Selman Waksman for his discovery of streptomycin. Can't you see the committee holding yellow fever vaccine in one hand and streptomycin in the other, weighing them against each other? To Theiler's advantage, not only did Bergstrand do the nominating, he also did the evaluating. Fourth time was the charm, and Theiler won the only Nobel Prize ever awarded for a vaccine. Waksman won the following year but it had taken him 39 nominations over six years.

Mologne House

Mologne House
Originally uploaded by tiz_herself

The Walter Reed Society is selling their annual ornament to further their mission to aid soldiers and their families. This photo of the Mologne House is on this year's ornament, which sells for $15. You can call the Society's office at (202) 782-6607.


(what Kathleen didn't say was that the WRS saw her photograph in the WRAMC History book and asked her if they could use it, and she kindly said yes - Mike)

Dr. John H. Brinton

Dr. John H. Brinton
Originally uploaded by tiz_herself

I finally got a shot of this portrait of John Hill Brinton, which lives at the National Gallery of Art. We're just letting them borrow it.

Marine Biologists

I just found this while looking for something else. That's usually the way it is around here. It's from the BUMED (U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine) collection that we scanned. It has to be under copyright, so hopefully someone will tell us who the cartoonist is.

Reeve 035097

Reeve 035097
Originally uploaded by otisarchives1

I just uploaded several medical illustrations of empyema on our Flickr page. I came across at least a couple of dozen of them today and this is the first installment.

Another one of those weird coincidences

Yesterday I received a question about a Dr. Trudeau who practiced from about 1830-1877 (who, it turned out, we don't have any information about). Out of curiosity and because we have the massive Vorwald Collection that includes tuberculosis research done at the Trudeau Foundation at the Saranac Laboratories in New York, I Googled the name and dates and found this entry on Wikipedia:

[Edward Livingston] Trudeau had two sons, Edward Livingston Trudeau Jr., who died of tuberculosis, and Francis B. Trudeau, who succeeded his father at the sanatorium as director until 1954. Francis B. Trudeau's son, Francis Trudeau, Jr. is the father of cartoonist Garry Trudeau.

Where the coincidence comes in is that we have original art for the April 21 and 22, 2004 Doonesbury comic strips, which of course are done by Garry Trudeau.

Good advice during this flu season

Some helpful advice I found while searching for images in the Archives -

 

Jasmine High, MA

Archives Technician

Otis Historical Archives

National Museum of Health and Medicine

Graphic Tales of Cancer in America

I'll be lecturing on this on Sunday, November 22 at 10 am at the History of Science Society meeting. If you're planning on being there, stop in and say hello. - Mike

Otis Archives' Flickr image used to make art

Joanna of Morbid Anatomy pointed out that Tanya Johnston used some images from the Ball Collection on the Archives' Flickr site to make a piece of artwork. Cool! That's what public domain is all about.

To see it, click through the link to her site, click on illustration at the top, and then click on the right arrow to get to the second page of illustrations. It's the bit with all the eyes in the middle.

Only a pathologist

Who else would make art based on a house fly's intestinal parasite?

On defining a psychiatric disease

Op-Ed Contributor

The Short Life of a Diagnosis

By SIMON BARON-COHEN

Published: November 10, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/opinion/10baron-cohen.html

 

Asperger syndrome and autism should be thoroughly tested before being lumped together in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

 

Dissection makes Amazon's Top 10 for 2009 in Science

Dissection, based on works from a medical museum, has made Amazon's Top Ten Best Books of 2009 in Science, Editor's Picks.

Medical challenge coin challenge

Challenge coins have been proliferating in recent years, due to decreasing costs among other reasons.

Information can be found in this article -http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/01/AR2009110102261.html

 

We have an extremely large, but not well-catalogued, numismatics collection occupying a couple of safes in Historical Collections. To better position the Museum for the long-term addition of these to the numismatics collection, I’ve proposed that we scan the ones that people have on their desks, and record who was giving the coin out and when. I did the ones on my desk this morning

 

Einstein correspondence

This week, or maybe it was last week, I found two letters that were signed by A. Einstein. I think they may have been form letters because they were addressed to Dear Friend, but it looks like the signatures are original. Maybe an expert out there can make a guess.

James Carroll turns up again

I think I wrote about James Carroll, who volunteered to be bitten by a mosquito carrying yellow fever. He contracted the disease which had long-term effects on his health and when he died, several years later, his widow was unsuccessful in securing a government pension.

 

His name turned up again just now. We got a request for some information on a soldier wounded at Little Big Horn, which led me to pull the accession file that includes an article written about skeletal remains at the battlefield. There's a photograph of a skull and the caption says it was discovered by hospital steward James Carroll of Fort Custer, in 1886. Could this be the same man?

 

Sure seems like it. The James Carroll who died of the effects of yellow fever was at Fort Custer during this time and was later assigned to be Walter Reed's assistant when Surgeon General George Sternberg chose Reed to teach Clinical and Military Microscopy at the US Army Medical School. Reed and Carroll served together again on the US Army Board which pursued scientific investigation of infectious diseases in Cuba.

 

I'm always amazed at these coincidences. Even today, those two places are huge distances apart and what are the odds, I wonder...

International Museum of Surgical Science featured

I visited the International Museum of Surgical Science about a decade ago. They've got some neat collections and were headquartered in an old mansion near the lake in Chicago. Here's a pictorial on them. Note that the collection isn't all surgery - there's an iron lung and patent medicines shown in the photos.

Have you ever heard of the Isthmian Canal?

My education is sorely lacking. I never heard the Panama Canal referred to as the Isthmian Canal, but saw a reference to it today when I went through a truly fascinating set of lantern slides from the William Gorgas era of the Canal. Here are two of several dozen that date from about 1902 to 1914. I wish I could scan them all.

This first one is a lovely hand-tinted lantern slide of Spanish laborers.






















This second one is a chart (table?) showing a marked decrease in fatalities from various diseases, supposedly when sanitary measures were put in place- such as covering food, digging drainage ditches, oiling still bodies of water, etc. Note the Americans giving themselves a big old pat on the back.

Lecture on Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building

The Army Medical Museum and Library building, demolished in 1968, had the same architect. - Mike







The Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians



proudly presents



What's New in What We Know About the Smithsonian's Arts & Industries Building



Panel Discussion led by Cynthia Field, Emeritus Architectural Historian, Smithsonian Institution



Monday, November 9, 2009



Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives



6:30 P.M. - light refreshments, 7:00 P.M. - lecture



Five years ago, Cynthia Field thought she told us everything there was to know about Adolf Cluss and his fascinating masterwork, the Smithsonian's Arts & Industries Building. That was then, and this is now. Join us to hear from Dr. Field and the Smithsonian team who have been studying the building in ever greater detail. They will present findings so new they have only just been learned using sophisticated analyses as well as old fashioned research.



The panel will consist of three Smithsonian members: Cynthia Field, now Emeritus Architectural Historian for the Smithsonian; Sharon Park, Associate Director, Architectural History and Historic Preservation; and Christopher Lethbridge, Project Manager. They will be joined on the panel by two members of the Washington office of Ewing-Cole who worked on the historic structures report: Gretchen Pfaehler, Managing Principal, and Cristina Radu, Architectural Historian.



After a brief reminder of the important historical information, Park and Lethbridge will discuss the sustainability aspects their studies have revealed and consultants Pfaehler and Radu will tell us their findings about the use of materials in the building.



Their work will elucidate the structure we have come to regard as one of Washington's grandest buildings. All the members of the panel will answer questions following the presentations.



The discussion takes place at The Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives,



1201 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC. Reservations are not required.



$10.00 for Latrobe Chapter Members and full-time students (with ID), $18.00 for non-members.



For general information, please see the Latrobe Chapter website at www.latrobechaptersah.org, or contact Caroline Mesrobian Hickman at (202) 363-1519 or cimhickman@yahoo.com

You never know where your name will turn up

I'm mentioned in an article here.

 This turns out to be about the Kennedy Assassination.

The 1997 report I wrote that the article mentions is online here.

The original Finck report was scanned this past year and we put it online here.

84 Charing Cross Road

I watched 84 Charing Cross Road last week so imagine my pleasure when I came across a folder in the Registry of Noteworthy Research in Pathology that holds correspondence, invoices, and customs forms for book purchases, mostly from Europe. The correspondence is between Dr. Esmond Long and booksellers in London, Florence, Amsterdam, Paris, Leipzig, Berlin, and Zurich in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

One letter from R. Lier & Co. in Florence says they're sending him the book he ordered and, "As we have not had the pleasure to do business for you other times, we should appreciate very much your kind remittance by cheque soon. We take advantage of this opportunity to send you, under separate cover, our last Bull. XI on Anatomia and Chirurgia in the hope that you will find in same something interesting. Please believe us." I don't know what that last sentence means, but I like it, and think about getting something in the mail you have not yet paid for.

Some of the names of the bookstores are Emile Nourry Librarie Ancienne (Paris); Libreria Antiquaria Editrice (Florence); and Buchhandler und Antiquar (Leipzig). I think they'd be great places to poke around in.

What was 'black tongue?'

We got a research inquiry today asking ‘what was ‘black tongue’ which threw me for a moment as I’d never heard of it. Fortunately my predecessors recorded information about it.

Black Tongue was a common name for erysipelas – see the two attached documents from the Medical & Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (3^rd Surgical vol.) in the footnote starting on the first page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erysipelas gives an overview and you can see why it would be a dangerous disease before antibiotics.

Latest Flickr statistics

1,625 items - 885,625 views.

This mustard gas testing shot has been popular lately:



We're working on a project to get many 700,000 images we currently have scanned online for searching and use (although as many as 50,000 of those are book pages we've already loaded onto Internet Archive). Stay tuned for more details.

Clubfoot treatment developer dies

Fascinating article here on Ignacio Ponseti and his development of non-surgical treatment for clubfoot, which took fifty years to become widespread.

Ignacio Ponseti, Hero to Many With Clubfoot, Dies at 95
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: October 24, 2009

Photographic coverage of military war dead at Dover

Here's a good article from the Washington Post about changes in media coverage of the arrival of military dead to Dover Air Force Base -

With ban over, who should cover the fallen at Dover?
Few in media choosing to capture events, but military posts pictures
By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 24, 2009

- after the fallen soldiers arrive, they're examined by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner which is part of AFIP (until BRAC finishes)

Oct 26: Museum on History Channel's Death Masks

 I think I was interviewed for this about Lincoln and the Civil War and they filmed in the archives with spooky blue lighting - Mike

 

Bring your kids! Halloween at the Medical Museum, Sat. 10/31, 10am-1pm

Halloween at the Medical Museum

 

When: Saturday, October 31, 2009, 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

 

Where: The National Museum of Health and Medicine

Building 54

 

What: The National Museum of Health and Medicine and Family Magazine will host family-friendly Halloween activities for ages 5 and up. Children will be able to participate in a costume contest (with prizes!) and make skeleton crafts (a dancing macaroni skeleton, a medieval plague mask, and a skeleton wall hanging) as well as join in a Halloween-themed family yoga demonstration by Shakti Yoga.

 

Cost: FREE

 

Photo ID required.

 

For more information: nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil or (202) 782-2673

 

http://www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum

 

NEW TEMPORARY EXHIBITION OPENS ON HALLOWEEN:

Outbreak: Plagues That Changed History

 

On Exhibit October 31, 2009 – January 22, 2010

 

OUTBREAK is the story of epidemics that changed human society. Learn how diseases such as smallpox, cholera and yellow fever shaped our history, our culture and our civilization. Featuring the art of Bryn Barnard.

 

More Agent Orange news

Maybe you remember that I wrote about the link between the Vietnam War's use of Agent Orange and diabetes. Well, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki just added three new ailments to the list: hairy-cell leukemia and other B-cell leukemias, Parkinson's disease, and ischemic heart disease. Thanks to a recent National Academy of Science's report, there's enough evidence to make the presumption that if you're a Vietnam vet and have these, you don't have to jump through 1000 hoops to receive services. These latest three, which will probably be official early next year, join this infamous list:

Acute and subacute transient peripheral neuropathy
AL amyloidosis
Chloracne
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
Diabetes Mellitus (type 2)
Hodgkin's disease
Multiple myeloma
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
Prophyria cutanea tarda
Prostate cancer
Respiratory cancer
Soft tissue sarcoma other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi's sarcoma or mesothelioma

Here's a link to the Washington Post article about Agent Orange and the new diseases.

Morbid Anatomy in Time Out New York

Joanna Ebenstein has an article profiling her in Time Out New York. She's the force behind morbidanatomy.blogspot.com which has said kind things about us in the past. There's a lot of pictures on the website.

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/halloween/79539/morbid-anatomy-library

Blog tip - Civil War Medicine (and Writing)

Steven Solomon, our former public affairs officer, pointed out this Civil War Medicine (and Writing) blog to me today. At my first quick glance, the author Jim Schmidt has a couple of posts about the Medical Museum - one on the Museum proper and another new one on Doctor (and photographer) Reed Bontecou which is the one Steven pointed out. Besides Blair's articles mentioned therein (I think I'm a co-author on the 2nd), anyone interested in Civil War medical photography might want to check out this Shooting Soldiers article.

Trade literature additions

A couple of weeks ago, I personally bought a few pieces of 1950s trade lit for the collection - these pharmaceutical ads are all blotters for fountain pens. They're filed under companies' names now. They're not exciting, but the price at the flea market was right, and now perhaps someone will use them. Blotters, Phedrol, Agarol, Alcaroid... all gone.


Blotter - Phedros eases spasmodic and irritating bronchial coughs due to colds.


Blotter - Agarol for Constipation, William E Warner & Co.


Blotter - Alcaroid, an effective alkalizer and digestant, American Ferment Company.
[American Ferment Company? An honest name at least.]

Dr. Paul Cannon's vision of the future

Paul Roberts Cannon is another name on the list of Noteworthy Pathologists. He received the Golden Cane Award (a kind of interesting story I'll tell another time) in 1965 and we have his handwritten notes for his acceptance speech. He led off with paraphrasing what Jack Benny said when Benny received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award: "Modesty should force him to say that he didn't deserve it. But he couldn't do that because he also had arthritis and he didn't deserve that either."

But he ended with his vision of the future. I think he'd be pretty disappointed to see what little progress has been made.
--Vaccinations for leukemia and cancer
--Control of population explosion
--Control of atherogenic elements [having to do with cardiac disease, if I read Google correctly]
--Control of air pollution
--Control of water pollution
--Control of factors of mental health

Another museum selling collections to pay bills

Widow of Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum founder works to save husband's legacy

By Joan Mazzolini, The Plain Dealer

October 05, 2009, 6:29PM

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/10/post_52.html

NARA on MSHWR

This was a bit of a surprise* when it was pointed out to me, but I'll be there.

National Archives
9th and Penn Ave, NW
Tuesday, October 27, at 11 A.M.
Room G-24, Research Center (Enter on Pennsylvania Avenue)
Civil War Medicine
Archives specialist Rebecca Sharp and reference librarian Nancy Wing discuss The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865. This published source contains details of Civil War medical and surgical procedures, and information about individual patients. (This lecture will be repeated at the National Archives at College Park, MD, in Lecture Room B, on Thursday, October 29, at 11 a.m.)

This one looks relevant too:

Tuesday, October 6, at 11 A.M.
Room G-24, Research Center (Enter on Pennsylvania Avenue)
Documenting Death in the Civil War
John Deeben, genealogy archives specialist at the National Archives, explores death records created during and after the Civil War by the War Department, examining how they documented personal circumstances of soldiers’ deaths in various situations, including the battlefield and military hospitals and prisons. (This lecture will be repeated at the National Archives at College Park, MD, in Lecture Room B, on Thursday, October 8, at 11 a.m.)

*The Army Medical Museum (ie us) wrote the book and we retain original records and specimens that were used to compile it.**

**We also scanned it for you all.

More good stuff from the Registry

I finally got back to work on the Registry of Noteworthy Research in Pathology and today found some letters.

James Carroll was a Major in the Army who worked with Walter Reed on his yellow fever research. He volunteered to be bitten by a mosquito that had previously bitten three others who had yellow fever. He contracted the disease and several years later died of cardiac disease that was attributed to his bout of yellow fever.

Here's a letter from the President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, petitioning a Congressman to grant a special pension to Carroll's widow.

Page 1














Page 2




















And here is the Congressman's reply.






















Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought being a Major in the Army meant you were in military service to your country.

Red Cross selling items from Archives to close budget gap

The NY Times has the story today -

Red Cross to Auction Off Little Pieces of Its History
By STEPHANIE STROM
Published: October 3, 2009
To help address a $50 million budget deficit, the American Red Cross will sell some of the memorabilia it has squirreled away over many years.

This is a trend we're seeing more and more of.

Garfield autopsy letter

I just scanned this letter, written by the surgeon (D.W. Bliss, but the signature doesn't look like "Bliss" to me) who performed President James Garfield's autopsy, where he certifies that the bullet shown with the letter was taken from the body of the president. Thought you might like to see it.

You never know what you'll find in the archives

Balkan Owls, ca 1913, by Merl LaVoy. (Reeve 39645)

And our Flickr stats for the moment stand at 1,618 items / 876,972 views, up only ~7000 views in the two weeks from Sept 15th when I posted 1,605 items / 870,097 views.