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