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.

Two pictures from 1898

SKIN LESIONS OF HOG CHOLERA. AMM 489

SENDING CARRIER PIGEON FROM RELIEF (DURING THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR). AMM 64

This is a test to see what emailing photos to the blog results in...

More new pictures will go up on our Flickr site tonight as I browsed and picked some using the new software.

Museum's scanning software upgrade adds thumbnails

We've got 2 online catalogues running now - EMU for our internal databases and another for our scanning project. The scanning project one got upgraded yesterday. The latest version of NISC's AWARS / Wizard software carries thumbnails with it, making photo research much easier as you can see from the  picture. This is three shots from our Surgical Photographs collection which began with the Civil War but wandered into other types of surgical problems as the years went on. Hopefully we'll figure out how to share these photos online soon. More new pictures will go up on our Flickr site tonight as I browsed and picked some using the new software.