An unofficial blog about the National Museum of Health and Medicine (nee the Army Medical Museum) in Silver Spring, MD. Visit for news about the museum, new projects, musing on the history of medicine and neat pictures.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Dr. John H. Brinton
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.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
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
[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.
Monday, November 16, 2009
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
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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
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.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
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.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Dissection makes Amazon's Top 10 for 2009 in Science
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
Friday, November 6, 2009
Einstein correspondence
James Carroll turns up again
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
International Museum of Surgical Science featured
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Have you ever heard of the Isthmian Canal?
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.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Lecture on Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building
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
Thursday, October 29, 2009
You never know where your name will turn up
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
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.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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 (3rd 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.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Latest Flickr statistics
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.