Pages

Friday, March 27, 2015

NMHM reports new finding aids and updated guide to collections

The National Museum of Health and Medicine has recently posted over 100 new finding aids, as well as a new 254-page guide to its collections at www.medicalmuseum.mil/assets/documents/collections/archives/2014/Guide-to-Collections-2014.pdf. The breadth of medical subjects highlighted in these new finding aids extends to the history of forensic medicine, entomology, electron microscopy, medical illustrations, nursing, penicillin research, photo-micrography, physical therapy, pathology, and yellow fever. For those interested in the history of the Army Medical Museum, new finding aids also chronicle its early work. Some particularly rich collections related to these subjects, which may be of particular interest to archivists and librarians in the history of the health sciences, are described below.


Forensic Medicine:

The Stahl Collection (OHA 315.5) contains materials from the first formal resident in forensic pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), and the first Navy officer to enter that field, Dr. Charles J. Stahl. Appointed as an approved pathologist for the State of Maryland while completing his residency in the early 1960s, Stahl conducted autopsies in Montgomery County and Baltimore during off duty hours. After finishing his residency, Stahl then spent two years in Guam as the Chief of Laboratory Service and Deputy Medical Examiner from 1963-1964. In 1965, he began his assignment as the Chief of Forensic Pathology at the AFIP, where he remained for the next ten years. During this period, Stahl led the largest department at the Institute, helped develop an extensive educational program, and consulted on a number of high profile cases including the Vietnam War crimes that inspired the film Casualties of War, the deaths of three NASA astronauts at Cape Kennedy, and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. After stints at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, the Department of Veteran Affairs in Tennessee, and Wright State University


Stahl became the Deputy Medical Inspector for the Naval Medical Research Institute; he returned to the AFIP in October of 1992, as the Chief Armed Forces Medical Examiner, and remained in that position until his retirement. Subjects in the collection include anatomical and clinical pathology, forensic pathology, development of forensic pathology at AFIP, aerospace pathology, AFIP training, Vietnam, forensic military cases, Project Gemini, Robert Kennedy, pathology at the Naval Medical Center, and the AFIP's Medical Examiner's Office.


Material in this collection is complemented by the Wright Collection (OHA 375.2), which chronicles the work of Dr. Donald Gene Wright who served as a medical technician and pilot in the Air Force, logging over 3,300 hours of B-52 time from 1958- 1965. Wright went on to earn his medical degree from the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1969 where he began his internship and residency, finishing at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas. He completed his forensic residency at AFIP in 1984, received his training at the medical examiner's offices in Baltimore and Washington, DC, and became well-known as a specialist in the investigation of aircraft accidents and mass disasters. After retiring in 1990, he served for several years as Deputy Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland. The bulk of the collection consists of over 15,000 slides from Wright's collection of forensic pathology cases. Manuscripts in the collection include military and professional service records, administrative material, lectures, articles, and material related to Wright's investigations and research, including some photographs.


Medical Illustrations:

The Civil War Medical Illustrations Collection (OHA 135.05) offers graphic depictions of the work captured by trained artists who were recruited by Army Medical Museum Curator John Brinton in the early years of the Civil War. Brinton had illustrators enlist as hospital stewards who were then assigned to duty in the Surgeon General's office. Given the number of casualties during the war, both the Confederacy and the Union needed to educate as many doctors as possible in the skills of military medicine. Medical illustrations were used to depict wounds commonly encountered but rarely seen by civilian practitioners, and were used to demonstrate surgical procedures and the reasons for those procedures. Many of the illustrations in this collection also subsequently appeared in the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, a six-volume set of books that played a critically important role in illustrating the lessons learned on battlefields.

The Medical Illustrations Collection (OHA 229) is an artificial collection of medical art (completed primarily by Museum staff), and includes illustrations from the nineteenth century, World War I era, the interwar period, and World War II through the 1960s. This collection is organized into three series based on chronology. Within each series the illustrations are organized by the individual artists represented. The collection includes a wide range of military medicine subjects such as battlefield wounds, anatomical and pathological studies, hygiene and preventive medicine measures, and innovative surgical techniques.


Medical Research:

A number of collections with new finding aids also relate to medical research, primarily covering the period from the Spanish-American War to the Vietnam War. The Osborn Collection (OHA 258.05) includes material related to the service, medical career, and personal life of Dr. William S. Osborn, who joined the U.S. Army in 1899 at age 22 as a hospital corpsman. Osborn spent at least a year stationed in California before serving in the Philippines until 1902. He then graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of Illinois in Chicago in 1904 and went on to work as superintendent at the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane and the State Hospital for the Insane in Knoxville, TN during the 1920s. Items of note in the collection include notebooks from the Army Pathological Laboratory and Santa Mesa Hospital in the Philippines (1900-1901); letters written by Osborn to his colleagues and friends describing life in the Philippines; and three personal scrapbooks made by Osborn and continued by his daughter after his death. Additional items include material on his daughter Clare Osborn, a nutritionist, reprints on the subject of fevers in the Philippines, and photographs of the Army Pathological Laboratory and life in Manila.


The Elton Collection (OHA 153) includes papers and research material gathered by pathologist Norman W. Elton, primarily for his studies of yellow fever in Central America in the 1940s and 1950s, when he served on the Canal Zone Board of Health. Elton served in the Panama Canal Zone and Philippines during World War II and was appointed a Colonel in the Medical Corps and Director of the Board of Health Laboratory at Gorgas Hospital in the Canal Zone in 1948. Elton published widely on various subjects in several medical journals throughout his career and became one of the foremost experts on yellow fever in the 1950s. Additional background material on the Board of Health Laboratory and yellow fever research dates to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Materials include Panama Canal Zone government documents, correspondence, patient records, reprints, notes, photographs, newsclippings, maps, X-rays, and slides.


The finding aids for these and other collections are available by contacting the Museum at: http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/index.cfm?p=collections.archives.collections.index

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

History of Naval Medical Dept in WWII vol 3 NOW ONLINE

THE HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY IN WORLD WAR II Volume 3: The Statistics of Diseases and Injuries (1950)

https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfTheMedicalDeptInWWIIV3


Volume 2 was previously available:


THE HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY IN WORLD WAR II Volume 2: A COMPILATION OF THE KILLED, WOUNDED AND DECORATED PERSONNEL (1953)

https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfNavyMedicalDeptInWW2Vol.2

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

NMHM public affairs position open

Job Title: Public Affairs Specialist

SALARY RANGE:

$107,325.00 to $139,523.00 / Per Year

OPEN PERIOD:

Tuesday, March 17, 2015 to Tuesday, March 24, 2015

SERIES & GRADE:

GS-1035-14

POSITION INFORMATION:

Full Time - Permanent

About the Position:
The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) 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 since 1862, 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.


https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/397791500 - existing Federal employees

https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/397601600 - non-Federal employees

2015 Spurgeon Neel Award competition open


 The Army Medical Department Museum Foundation is pleased to announce the 2015 Spurgeon Neel Annual Award competition for a paper of 5,000 words or less that best exemplifies the history, legacy, and traditions of the Army Medical Department.

Named in honor of Major General (Retired) Spurgeon H. Neel, first Commanding General of Health Services Command (now U.S. Army Medical Command), the award competition is open to all federal employees, military and civilian, as well as nongovernmental civilian authors. More information about MG (Ret) Neel can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spurgeon_Neel.

The AMEDD Museum Foundation will present a special medallion award and a $500 monetary prize to the winner at a Foundation-sponsored event early in 2016. The winning submission will be published in the AMEDD Journal during 2016.

All manuscripts must be submitted to the AMEDD Museum Foundation by September 30, 2015. At the time of submission, a manuscript must be original work and not pending publication in any other periodical. It must conform to the Writing and Submission Guidance of the AMEDD Journal, and must relate to the history, legacy, and/or traditions of the Army Medical Department. Manuscripts will be reviewed and evaluated by a six-member board with representatives from the AMEDD Museum Foundation, the AMEDD Center of History and Heritage, and the AMEDD Journal. The winning manuscript will be selected and announced in December 2015.

Submit manuscripts to amedd.foundation@att.net.  Additional details concerning the Spurgeon Neel Annual Award may be obtained by contacting Mrs. Sue McMasters at the AMEDD Museum Foundation, 210-226-0265.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Now Available! Recommended Practices for Enabling Access to Manuscript and Archival Collections Containing Health Information about Individuals

Medical Heritage Library collaborators the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions [http://www.medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/] and the Center for the History of Medicine at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine [http://www.countway.harvard.edu/index.html] are pleased to announce the distribution of their jointly authored recommended practices to enable access to manuscript and archival collections containing health information about individuals [available here http://www.medicalheritage.org/announcements-and-articles/ under "Documentation."] These recommendations are intended to alleviate many of the concerns repositories have related to collecting and preserving health services records, especially those repositories that are not affiliated with hospitals or medical schools.

The recommendations are presented in four categories: 1) Determining an Institution’s Status and Policy Needs; 2) Implementing Policy and Fostering Process Transparency; 3) Communicating the Nature of Restrictions; and 4) Describing Records to Best Enable Discovery and Access. Those who care for and provide access to records containing health information about individuals are invited to test the recommendations and provide feedback on their utility; those who use such records in their research are equally invited to comment on their scope.

Researchers who have used or are seeking access to primary sources containing health information about individuals are encouraged to share their experiences and difficulties accessing health services records. Visit the MHL’s researcher access survey site [https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/M38FD39] and contribute to our efforts to improve access to these important records.

For more information, please contact the Medical Heritage Library at MedicalHeritage@gmail.com

This work was made possible through the generous funding of the Mellon Foundation through the Council for Library and Information Resources’ Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives [http://www.clir.org/hiddencollections] program (2012: Private Practices, Public Health: Privacy-Aware Processing to Maximize Access to Health Collections [https://wiki.med.harvard.edu/Countway/ArchivalCollaboratives/PrivatePractices]).

Thank you!
-Hanna Clutterbuck-Cook (on behalf of Emily Gustainis and Phoebe Evans Letocha)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Processing Assistant, Center for the History of Medicine and
Project Coordinator, Medical Heritage Library (http://www.medicalheritage.org/)

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

NLM History of Medicine Lecture - African American History Month

 
You are cordially invited to the next NLM History of Medicine lecture, to be held on Wednesday February 18, from 2pm to 3pm in the NLM Lister Hill Auditorium, Building 38A, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD.  In recognition of African-American History Month, Laura Bothwell, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in Pharmaceutical Law and Health Services Research, Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Harvard Medical School, will speak on "The History of Race in Randomized Controlled Trials: Ethical and Policy Considerations"
 
This lecture will examine how race has been embedded in the history of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Clinical trial research policies and norms have grown increasingly attentive to the inclusion of racial minorities in RCT subject populations. This lecture will consider when race has been measured in RCTs and why, exploring the question of whether racial groups have been fairly represented in RCTs. Relying on broad collections of historical trials and archival materials in the collections of the NLM's History of Medicine Division, it will include a timeline of racial trends in RCT research subject populations, accompanied by discussion of the role of the NIH in key historic developments related racial diversity in clinical trials
 
All are welcome.
 
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 NLM Visitors and Security website:
 
 
Sponsored by:
NLM's History of Medicine Division
Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, Chief
 
Event contact:
Stephen J. Greenberg, MSLS, PhD
Coordinator of Public Services
History of Medicine Division
National Library of Medicine, NIH
 
 



Tuesday, February 10, 2015

3000th BUMED item uploaded to online Medical Heritage Library

Survey Of U.S. Navy Medical Personnel In Operation Desert Shield / Storm (May 1993) at
https://archive.org/details/SurveyOfU.S.NavyMedicalPersonnelInOperationDesertShieldStorm
is the 3000th item BUMED's medical history office has uploaded to the Medical Heritage Library at
https://archive.org/details/medicalheritagelibrary

All of our items can be seen at https://archive.org/details/usnavybumedhistoryoffice and range from  an 1862 Surgeon's diary from the American Civil War through a 2015  video on the mechanics of blood donation at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth.

The items uploaded by BUMED have had over 130,000 downloads in the three years that we have been adding material to the project.

Michael Rhode
Archivist / Curator
US Navy BUMED Communications Directorate (M09B7)
Office of Medical History
703-681-2539
michael.g.rhode2.civ@mail.mil
Photographs - https://www.flickr.com/photos/navymedicine/
Documents - https://archive.org/details/usnavybumedhistoryoffice

mailing address:
7700 Arlington Blvd
Falls Church, VA 22042

physical address:
BUMED Detachment, Falls Church.
Four Skyline Place, Suite 602,
5113 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA



Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Jan 28: NLM History of Medicine Lecture

 
You are cordially invited to the next NLM History of Medicine lecture, to be held on Wednesday January 28, from 2pm to 3pm in the NLM Lister Hill Auditorium, Building 38A, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD.  Michael Sappol, PhD, Historian with the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine will speak on "The Apotheosis of the Dissected Plate: Spectacles of Layering and Transparency in 19th- and 20th-Century Anatomy."
 
This is a story about "topographical anatomy — a tradition of slicing and sawing rather than cutting and carving — and its procedures for converting bodies from three dimensions to two dimensions and back again. In topographical cross-section anatomy, the frozen or mummified body is cut into successive layers that are then transcribed and reproduced as pages of a book or a sequence of prints or slides (sometimes with the original slices preserved as a sequence of specimens for the anatomical museum). The talk also confronts our ambivalent relation to anatomical images, which can serve as an effigy of self and other that we all inhabit. This talk features photographs of materials in the NLM collection by artist Mark Kessell.
 
All are welcome.
 
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 NLM Visitors and Security website:
 
 
Sponsored by:
NLM's History of Medicine Division
Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, Chief
 
Event contact:
Stephen J. Greenberg, MSLS, PhD
Coordinator of Public Services
History of Medicine Division
National Library of Medicine, NIH
 
 
 

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Mutter Museum claims another fan

Mutter Museum: More than just a freak show

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER The Mutter Museum is home to the Hyrtl Skull Collection, which displays 139 human skulls.
ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER The Mutter Museum is home to the Hyrtl Skull Collection, which displays 139 human skulls.
By Helen Ubinas, Daily News Columnist
Posted: December 24, 2014
http://articles.philly.com/2014-12-24/news/57353628_1_j-nathan-bazzel-mutter-museum-freak-show

Thursday, November 20, 2014

BUMED history office uploads 2500th item to Medical Heritage Library


Today we interrupted our uploading of The Examiner, Naval Hospital Twentynine Palm's base newspaper, to upload our 2500th item.  Upon requests from researchers using the physical collection today, we scanned two items for them, and thus also for the MHL.

#2499 is MEMOIR OF THE FOUNDING AND PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL OBSERVATORY (1873)
https://archive.org/details/MEMOIROFTHEFOUNDINGANDPROGRESSOFTHEUNITEDSTATESN
AVALOBSERVATORY1873


#2500 is Welcome Aboard - A Handbook For Naval Medical Personnel, National
Naval Medical Center (1960)
https://archive.org/details/WelcomeAboardAHandbookForNavalMedicalPersonnelNN
MC

All of BUMED's contributions to the Medical Heritage Library can be seen at
https://archive.org/details/usnavybumedhistoryoffice


Michael Rhode
Archivist / Curator
US Navy BUMED Communications Directorate (M09B7)
Office of Medical History



Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Woodward's 1870 histology online now

Report to the Surgeon General, of the United States Army, on certain points connected with the histology of minute bloodvessels (1870) by JJ Woodward

- this rare report with tipped-in photographs has been scanned and placed online by the National Library of Medicine. Woodward did his photomicroscopy work on weekends at the Army Medical Museum.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Nov 5: NLM History of Medicine Lecture on antibiotics

 
You are cordially invited to the next NLM History of Medicine lecture, to be held on Wednesday, November 5, from 2pm to 3pm in the NLM Visitor Center in the Lister Hill Center, Building 38A, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. Scott Podolsky, MD, Director of the Center for the History of Medicine, Countway Library, Harvard University, will speak on "Antibiotic Pasts and Futures: Seven Decades of Reform and Resistance."
 
Antibiotics served as the leading edge of the post-World War II wonder drug revolution. But from the beginning, they also served as the leading edge of concerns regarding the irrational development and use of the wonder drugs. Rising apprehension over antibiotic resistance and the prospect of a post-antibiotic era have drawn attention to the possible means of preventing such an "apocalypse." Making extensive use the Archives & Modern Manuscripts Collections at NLM, including the papers of James Goddard, Herbert Ley, and John Barlow Youman, this talk narrates the history of antibiotic reform from the 1940s onward, and it explores the evolving relationships between industry and academia, town and gown, and education and regulation, as reformers have attempted to promote a rational and enduring antimicrobial therapeutics.
 
All are welcome.
 
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 NLM Visitors and Security website:
 
 
Sponsored by:
NLM's History of Medicine Division
Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, Chief
 
Event contact:
Stephen J. Greenberg, MSLS, PhD
Coordinator of Public Services
History of Medicine Division
National Library of Medicine, NIH
 
 


 

Friday, October 24, 2014

Civil War images on Flickr

Before I left the Museum, I got a few hundred of the Civil War photographs online. An article featuring them went online today.






Hyperallergic
Civil War Portraits of the Broken Bodies Sent Home
On the National Museum of Health and Medicine's Flickr Commons, portraits of these wounded soldiers show the grim resilience, military pride, and ...









Friday, October 17, 2014

Battlefield Surgery 101 catalog available electronically for the first time

Battlefield Surgery 101: From The Civil War To Vietnam


Part 1
Patient Flow in a Theater of Operations
Dave Ed. Lounsbury, MD, FACP
Colonel, Medical Corps, US Army
Director, Borden Institute (Office of The Surgeon General, US Army)

Part 2
Twentieth Century Warfare and the Evolution of American Battlefield Surgery
Ronald F. Bellamy, MD , FACS
Colonel, US Army, Retired
Military Medical Editor, Borden Institute (Office of The Surgeon General, US Army)

Part 3
Selected Photographs From BATTLEFIELD SURGERY 101: From the Civil War to Vietnam based on the Exhibit by J. T. H. Connor, Michael G. Rhode, and J. Carey Crane

This catalogue was prepared by the Borden Institute (Office of The Surgeon General, US Army) in support of the exhibit BATTLEFIELD SURGERY 101: FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO VIETNAM at the National Museum of Health and Medicine of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology

Thursday, October 9, 2014

World War I lecture by Army medical historian online



The audio and slides from W. Sanders Marble's lecture, "Mending The Casualties of WWI: The Army Rehabilitates The Wounded, 1918-1920," has been posted to the Bullitt History of Medicine Club website: http://www.med.unc.edu/bhomc/schedule-of-speakers/sched

Michael North of NLM interviewed

Early Latin American Medicine in the NLM Collections

by Circulating Now
http://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2014/10/08/early-latin-american-medicine-in-the-nlm-collections/

Michael J. North spoke today at the National Library of Medicine in recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month on "Early Latin American Medicine in the NLM Collections." Mr. North is Head of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts in the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine. Circulating Now interviewed him about his work.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Dr Francis Medical Museum news

State commission to consider handing over ownership of Jacksonville museum
Officials of the Alabama Historical Commission will meet Tuesday to discuss the possibility of handing over the Dr. Francis Medical Museum — the ...

Monday, October 6, 2014

Medical Heritage Library User Survey

The Medical Heritage Library is looking to gain first-hand information from our users. We've designed a very short – really! – survey that you can find here: http://www.medicalheritage.org/2014-user-survey/ It should only take about ten minutes at most to complete.

 

We want to know how people are finding our collection and what they're using in it – or what they're not using in it because it isn't there. Please help us get to know our users better and plan more intelligently for the future of our collaboration.

 


Sunday, October 5, 2014

VOA looks at the Mutter Museum

Get 'Disturbingly Informed' at Museum of Medical Monstrosities
Mega Colon, or Hirschprung's Disease, occurs when the muscles receive no signals to contract and move waste through the system, causing chronic ...

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Monday, September 8, 2014

Sept 23: The Visual Culture of Medicine & Its Objects

Symposium

The Visual Culture of Medicine & Its Objects

September 23, 2014

Riggs Library, Georgetown University

Organizers: Keren Hammerschlag (Georgetown University),

Michael Sappol (National Library of Medicine)

 

 

 

                                                                          

 

 

 

 

The Department of Art & Art History at Georgetown University, in collaboration with the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine (National Institutes of Health), presents an interdisciplinary symposium dedicated to critically and creatively examining medical objects, broadly conceived. Presenters from diverse scholarly and professional backgrounds will undertake close readings of medical objects in a variety of media and genres—book illustrations, paintings, sculptures, pamphlets, photographs, instruments, motion pictures and more—from the collections of the National Library of Medicine, Georgetown University, and other repositories. Our aim is to encourage new ways of engaging with objects that sit at the intersection between art and medicine. The outcome, we hope, will be a broadened conception of how the visual and notions of visuality function or falter in medical practice past and present.  The program can be found online at http://art.georgetown.edu/story/1242756485205.html


All welcome but numbers are limited. Please register by emailing: keren.hammerschlag@georgetown.edu

 

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Sept 2: NLM History of Medicine Lecture

Dear Colleagues,
 
You are cordially invited to the next NLM History of Medicine lecture, to be held on Tuesday, September2, from 2pm to 3pm in the Lister Hill Auditorium, Building 38A, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. Dr. Julia Hallam, University of Liverpool, will help celebrate the opening of NLM's newest exhibition, Pictures of Nursing: the Zwerdling Postcard Collection. The project encompasses a special display, future traveling banner exhibition, an online presence with education resources, and a digital gallery highlighting 585 postcards from the Zwerdling collection of postcards about nurses and nursing. Dr. Hallam will discuss her work with the collection and the exhibit.
 
All are welcome.
 
Sign language interpretation is provided. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate may contact Kenneth Koyle at 301-496-5407, e-mail ken.koyle@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 NLM Visitors and Security website:
 
 
Sponsored by:
NLM's History of Medicine Division
Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, Chief
 
Event contact:
Kenneth M. Koyle
Deputy Chief
History of Medicine Division
National Library of Medicine, NIH

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Pictures from NMHM's Medical Heritage Library submissions are now on Flickr

Pictures from NMHM's Medical Heritage Library submissions are now on Flickr. This includes the Civil War-era Pleasants photograph album, and presumably eventually ALL the images in the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Two Army Medical Museum letters from J.J. Woodward


Today, I ran across a photocopy from some old research I'd done, and experimented with putting it online at the Medical Heritage Library. If there's interest, I can scan more.

Letter from J. J. Woodward to Bowditch on Army Medical Museum - Army Medical Museum
Dr. Joseph Woodward writes to Dr. Bowditch expressing his opinion on the use of the medical museum in determining the causes of disease. He also expresses appreciation for the Surgeon General's Library. Original in National Museum of Health and Medicine's OHA 28: Curatorial Records: Woodward Letterbooks.

Letter from J.J. Woodward To Joseph Henry On Comparative Anatomy Books - Army Medical Museum
Dr. Joseph Woodward writes to Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution asking for books on animals for the Museum's comparative anatomy collection with the books to be added to the Surgeon General's Library. Original in National Museum of Health and Medicine's OHA 28: Curatorial Records: Woodward Letterbooks.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Johns Hopkins considering a history of medicine certificate

from Christine Ruggere, Associate Director, Institute of the History of Medicine & Curator, Historical Collection ​ at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine:​

 The Department of the History of Medicine of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is currently developing a set of online courses in the history of medicine in order to provide greater access to the study of that subject.  Mapped out over time, the courses will also be part of a larger project creating an online certificate program and an online Masters' degree in the history of medicine.   One of our main goals is to provide graduate-level teaching in the field to interested health care students/professionals and others who are otherwise unable to take a year or two away from their work to pursue a degree in person or who wish to take just a few courses at their own convenience.  In order to have our degree programs certified by the state of Maryland, we are required to submit results from a survey indicating any interest in these programs.   It is a very short, quick survey: http://www.johnshopkinssurveys.com/se.ashx?s=705E3F16491130AA.

Friday, July 25, 2014

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Thai medical museum in the news



Bangkok Post
'Dark tourism' creeps out Thailand
Originally established as a teaching venue for the school's medical students, Siriraj Medical Museum today is increasingly better known as a tourist ...



Wednesday, July 16, 2014

A new book on World War II VD posters is out

7.16.14 / THE ART OF VD PROTECTION

http://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/the-art-of-vd-protection-posters-of-world-war-ii/

The National Museum of Health and Medicine has a large collection of b&w copy photographs of these type of posters.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Monday, July 14, 2014

The Grog, A Journal of Navy Medical History and Culture (Issue 40)


It is with great pleasure that we present to you the latest "ration" of The
Grog, a Journal of Navy Medical History and Culture.  In this edition, we
offer you original stories about: Navy Medicine's forgotten hero of the
Second Battle of Fort Fisher; a Navy nurse who was awarded the prestigious
St. Anne Medal in 1919; Navy's World War II hospital on the Emerald Isle;
Navy Medicine's role with the Marine Corps in World War I; a medical
entomologist's tale of hope after suffering great loss; and a Navy
physiologist-turned dentist's incredible mission to locate a missing
aircraft with the aid of a Deep Submersible Vehicle. We bolster this
literary line-up with the usual assortment of historical sidebars, trivia as
well as a book review by our own Col. Ginn.

The Grog is accessible through the links below.

http://issuu.com/thegrogration/docs/the_grog__issue_40__2014
https://archive.org/details/TheGrogIssue402014

As always we hope you enjoy this tour on the high seas of Navy Medicine's past!

André B. Sobocinski
Historian
Communications Directorate (M09B7)
Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED)



19th century publication on teeth in the Army Medical Museum

A critical examination of the teeth of several races, including one hundred and fifty moundbuilders, selected from the collection of the Army Medical Museum at Washington, D. C

https://archive.org/details/criticalexaminat00bett

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

July 15: NLM History of Medicine Lecture


 
You are cordially invited to the next NLM History of Medicine lecture, to be held on Tuesday, July 15, from 2pm to 3pm in the Lister Hill Auditorium, Building 38A, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD.  As its Annual James H. Cassedy Memorial Lecture, we are proud to present Dale Smith, PhD, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, who will speak on "Anatomy Acts and the Shaping of the American Medical Profession's Social Contract."
 
Since the time of the Hippocratics, physicians had been offering society a community of practitioners committed to patient care, high moral values, and lifelong learning, but societies across the ancient world and early modern Europe were reluctant to set physicians apart.  In the early United States, the exceptionalism of physicians was less widely acknowledged because of the Jacksonian emphasis on self-sufficiency.  Colonial licensure laws which tried to register qualified practitioners were repealed. Medical education was voluntary, variable, and completely self-funded; schools were owned by the faculty and operated as proprietary ventures.  The medical sects – botanic, hydropathic, homeopathic – were often accepted but had little in the way of professional discipline.  Physicians wanted to be set apart as a profession, but American society did not accept the offer of professionalization until after the Civil War, when 'regular' physicians reaped the benefits of their wartime service. Ultimately the American system of licensure based on examination was instituted by states and affirmed by the courts. In return for the promise of good medicine today and better medicine tomorrow, the profession of medicine obtained legal protection, subsidized education, and socially supported and separately financed practice venues. As part of this transformation, anatomy acts were passed by the individual states: they were, in many cases, the first move to affirm a "social contract" between physicians and the communities they served.
 
All are welcome.
 
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 NLM Visitors and Security website:
 
 
Sponsored by:
NLM's History of Medicine Division
Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, Chief
 
Event contact:
Stephen J. Greenberg, MSLS, PhD
Coordinator of Public Services
History of Medicine Division
National Library of Medicine, NIH
 
 
 

Thursday, July 3, 2014

My Visit to The National Museum of Health and Medicine article


My Visit to The National Museum of Health and Medicine
The National Museum of Health and Medicine is housed in its new facility in Silver Springs, Maryland. Originally located in the former Walter Reed ...



Tuesday, June 24, 2014

NLM Planning Blog launches

The U.S. National Library of Medicine will soon be initiating development of its next long-range plan and, in so doing, welcomes public feedback through its recently-launched "Voyaging to the Future" blog, located at:

 

http://nlmvoyagingtothefuture.org/

 

Thank you for your feedback, and for sharing this information with interested colleagues and friends.

 

Sincerely,

 

Steve Greenberg

 

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

Bethesda, MD

 

301-435-4995

greenbes@mail.nih.gov

 

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Southern California Medical Museum moves to Pomona











Southern California Medical Museum moves to Pomona
A 1740 microscope will be among the display at the Southern California Medical Museum in Pomona. Jennifer Cappuccio Maher — Staff ...









Monday, June 9, 2014

Burns Archive in New York Magazine 6/9/14


From: Stanley Burns:

Thought you would like to know that I and The Burns Archive have been showcased in the Best Doctors of New York, - Health Issue June 9th of New York Magazine. It's on the newsstands now.
I have enclosed the link to the site. Amazingly --historic medical photographs are highlighted in four full pages.

Its the first time a Medical Humanities topic makes the Best Doctors issue.

To see the article--

New York Magazine:


All 6 "Navy Medicine at War" World War II films are online


The US Bureau of Medicine and Surgery's history office produced 6 films about the history of Navy Medicine in World War II. They're all online again at https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Navy+Medicine+at+War+films%22

Navy Medicine at War: Trial by Fire (2010 version)


This installment recounts the "day that will live in infamy" through the stories of Navy medical personnel who witnessed the tragic events at Pearl Harbor.

Navy Medicine at War: Guests Of The Emperor


Pearl Harbor was just the beginning of a Japanese rampage throughout the Pacific.  With nothing to stop their expanding empire, the enemy rolled through the Pacific conquering at will.  This installment of the film series tells the tragic story of those who fought to defend Guam, Bataan, and Corregidor against the Japanese invasion.  Their heroism throughout the following years in brutal captivity, under extremely trying conditions exemplifies the enduring values of Navy Medicine.

Navy Medicine at War: Battle Station Sick Bay

After the battle of Midway, even though the pendulum had swung in favor of the United States, final victory was many campaigns and many, many lives away.  Throughout the next three years, Navy medicine would accompany the carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and thousands of other vessels on the long bloody road to Tokyo.  As crewman aboard these ships, physicians, dentists, and hospital corpsmen would man battle stations and sick bays during the battle—and the lulls in between.  And they would do what Navy medical personnel had always done—treating torn, burned, and bleeding bodies, and returning men to duty.


Navy Medicine at War: Navy Medicine At Normandy, D-Day June 6, 1944

Although less well known, Navy medicine made important contributions in the Atlantic, most notably in the Normandy campaign.  The physicians and hospital corpsmen of the 6th Naval Beach Battalion are highlighted in this installment. 


Navy Medicine at War: Stepping Stones To Tokyo

The fifth installment in the six-part Navy Medicine at War film series chronicles the Navy medical experience with the Marine Corps' island-hopping campaign during the first three years of the war.


Navy Medicine at War: Final Victory

"Final Victory" is the last installment of the six-part World War II film series, "Navy Medicine at War." The film tells the story of the war's final campaign and aftermath - the bloody fight to take Okinawa, the dress rehearsal for the invasion of the Japanese home islands, the dropping of the two atomic bombs, Japan's surrender, and the liberation of the prisoners of war.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Clyster found in maritime archeology










Urethral syringe used in 19th century venereal treatment declared best archaeological find
Alan Humphries, the Librarian of the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds, identified this as a urethral syringe used to treat ailments in men by injecting ...









Monday, May 19, 2014

BUMED's historians upload 2000th item to Medical Heritage Library


May 19, 2014

After slightly more than a year of uploading material to the Medical
Heritage Library, the US Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery's 2000th
item appeared online today. "A Series of Reports to the Nursing Division
of the activities of the Nurse Corps Officers serving aboard the U.S.
Naval Hospital in the Repose"* is now easily available for research. The
reports from CDRs Angelica Vitillo and M.T. Kovacevich back to Captain
Ruth Erickson, Director of the Navy Nurse Corps, and her successor CAPT
Veronica Bulshefski date from 8 November 1965 to 2 December 1966. They
are in turns informative, chatty and sad.

"Our first direct casualty which arrived Saturday, the nineteenth, was
a nineteen year old bilateral mid-thigh amputee who to date has received
over 45 pints of blood." (28 February 1966)

"The improvements we have initiated in our individual staterooms have
contributed to maintaining a high state of moral among the nurses, One
of the base shops at Hunters Point allowed us to misappropriate an
assortment of very colorful and feminine looking bedspreads for our
rooms." (13 December 1965)

"Death claimed the life of a very young man who had extensive chest
wounds on Monday, the seventh and a thirty three year old arm amputee
with other extensive wounds on Tuesday the eighth. Some of our young
nurses are feeling these losses acutely." (9 March 1966)

These letters join a soon-to-be complete set of over 1000 issues of 70
years of Navy Medicine magazine**; oral histories with veterans of World
War 2, Korea and Vietnam;*** a growing collection of audiovisuals
including one on the Navy's humanitarian efforts after the Vietnam
War****; and many other items.

*
https://archive.org/details/USSReposeSeriesOfReportsToTheNursingDivisionOfTheActivitiesOfTheNurseCorpsOffice

**
https://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Ausnavybumedhistoryoffi
ce%20AND%20subject%3A%22Navy%20Medicine%20magazine&sort=-publicdate


***
https://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Ausnavybumedhistoryoffi
ce%20oral%20history&sort=-publicdate


**** https://archive.org/details/THELUCKYFEWWMV91280x72016x9

A small selection of our photographs may  be found on Flickr at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/navymedicine/

Michael Rhode
Archivist / Curator
US Navy BUMED Office of Medical History




Wednesday, May 14, 2014

ALHHS Publication award goes to NMHM archivist Eric Boyle

The ALHHS awards committee is proud to announce the recipients of
ALHHS awards for 2014. Winners were recognized at the annual ALHHS
business meeting, held on May 8, 2014 at the American College of
Surgeons in Chicago, IL.

The ALHHS Publication award went to Eric W. Boyle for his book, Quack
Medicine: A History of Combating Health Fraud in Twentieth-Century
America (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013). Throughout the 20th
century, anti-quackery crusaders investigated, exposed, and attempted
to regulate allegedly fraudulent therapeutic approaches to health and
healing under the banner of consumer protection and a commitment to
medical science. Boyle's book reveals how efforts to establish an
exact border between quackery and legitimate therapeutic practices and
medications have largely failed, and details the reasons for this
failure.

The AlHHS Online Resource award went to the Waring Historical Library
Curator Susan Hoffius and Digital Archivist Jennifer Welch for their
on-line exhibit of the Porcher Medicinal Garden. The website and its
corresponding physical-location garden serve to increase public
awareness of the holdings of the Earing Historical Library and,
specifically the collection of Dr. F. Peyre Porcher.

The ALHHS Merit Award was given to Dr. and Mrs. Adam G.N. Moore for
their support of the collections of the Center for the History of
Family Medicine (CHFM). In 2012, the Moores donated more than 600
items including rare books, pamphlets, periodicals, and ephemera from
their personal library to create the new Adam G.N. Moore, MD,
collection in the History of Family Medicine at the CHFM.


Please join us in congratulating our award recipients for their
outstanding work.


- The 2014 ALHHS Awards Committee (Eric Luft, Rachel Howell,
and Judith Wiener, chair)

Monday, May 5, 2014

New medical museum in Louisiana



Willis-Knighton unveils WK Innovation Center
The expansion also includes the Talbot Museum, a medical museum that displays the history of the Willis-Knighton system created in 2004. Created ...
 




Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Indiana Historical Medical Museum theft




WRTV Indianapolis
Police discover more items in stolen brains investigation
... brains and other artifacts from the Indiana Historical Medical Museum after police recovered several boxes of allegedly stolen surgical instruments.


May 7: Lecture on wounded Civil War soldiers at Smithsonian

Erin Corrales-Diaz, Joe and Wanda Corn Predoctoral Fellow, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill
"Visualizing 'The Real War': Disabled Civil War Veterans and the U.S. Army Surgeon General's Office" 
4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Smithsonian American Art Museum's McEvoy Auditorium, located at 8th and G Streets NW, Washington, D.C.

Friday, April 25, 2014

NMHM mentioned in article on the Corcoran Gallery

The Great Divide
By Kriston Capps • Photographs by Darrow Montgomery 
Washington City Paper April 25, 2014

See the paragraph Where is the art going?


Wednesday, April 23, 2014

NMHM's embryology collection in Bull. of History of Medicine

Ex Utero: Live Human Fetal Research and the Films of Davenport Hooker

From: Bulletin of the History of Medicine 
Volume 88, Number 1, Spring 2014 
pp. 132-160 | 10.1353/bhm.2014.0002

Abstract

Summary:

Between 1932 and 1963 University of Pittsburgh anatomist Davenport Hooker, Ph.D., performed and filmed noninvasive studies of reflexive movement on more than 150 surgically aborted human fetuses. The resulting imagery and information would contribute substantially to new visual and biomedical conceptions of fetuses as baby-like, autonomous human entities that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Hooker's methods, though broadly conforming to contemporary research practices and views of fetuses, would not have been feasible later. But while Hooker and the 1930s medical and general public viewed live fetuses as acceptable materials for nontherapeutic research, they also shared a regard for fetuses as developing humans with some degree of social value. Hooker's research and the various reactions to his work demonstrate the varied and changing perspectives on fetuses and fetal experimentation, and the influence those views can have on biomedical research.

Friday, March 14, 2014