[Insert Epic Title Here]

Today is my last day at the museum. I refuse to say things like “It is with mixed emotions that I write today…” or anything else sappy or staid. The saddest part of all this is that I will have to give up my temporary AFIP badge at the end of the day, although I do plan to try my hardest to sweet talk them into voiding it and letting me keep it. This internship has been great and I learned a lot more about embryology than I ever thought I would in my entire lifetime.

On a happier note, the exciting intern project is almost finished – for real this time! We are still waiting on permission for one photo and need to edit the credits and such, but all the info is there and it looks good. We’ve been looking through the teratology collection at HDAC and found some great images to put up as well. I’m glad I won’t have to leave Sarah with tons of clean-up work to get the website working.

Today Liz is having a lunchtime class on medical drawing, which I plan to grace with my terrible artistic skills. She showed me some of the specimens we will be sketching and it looks like it will be interesting. Maybe Sarah and I can post some of our sketches after the class. We will probably also have to explain what the sketches are supposed to depict, since my drawing of a gangrenous foot will likely be confused with the skull with an arrow through its eye.

So goodbye to everyone at the museum and whomever may be reading this blog (I suspect just Mike and my parents)! I hope to read about more exciting things to come from the museum in the future.

**Update**

Sarah and I completed the sketching class and came back with two masterpieces. Sarah drew a 1959 Army medical model of a broken femur that could be strapped to a leg in a mock trauma situation. In her defense, the model itself was very amorphous and if you saw it in person the sketch would make sense. Maybe. I drew a gangrenous, frostbitten plastinated foot. I am thinking about framing it and giving it to my parents as an anniversary gift. I will judge where it is placed in the house as how much they love me.

Overall, the class was very successful and informative. Some of the students left with incredible (but extremely disgusting) drawings. Others, like myself, left with indistinguishable sketches, but this was certainly no fault of the instructor. Liz gave all the help she possibly could to salvage our sketches, but they were doomed like the Titanic the second Sarah and I held pencils.

Letter of the Day: July 21

COPY

 

3200 A.G.O. 1884.

 

War Department,

Adjutant General’s Office,

Washington, July 21^st, 1884.

 

The Surgeon General

 

Sir:

 

Referring to your endorsement of the 17^th instant, forwarding a communication from Acting Assistant Surgeon H.C. Yarrow submitting suggestions for an  expedition having for its object the collection of Indian skeletons, crania and other material for the Army Medical Museum; I have the honor to inform you that the proposed expedition is approved by the Secretary of War.

 

A copy of Dr. Yarrow’s letter will be furnished the Commanding General of the Division of the Missouri, with instructions to cause the requisite orders to be given for the necessary escort, transportation and outfit from Fort Douglas, as indicated therein.

 

I am Sir,

Very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

(Signed) C. McKeeever

Acting Adjutant General

 

(over)

 

Official copy respectfully furnished for file in the Army Medical Museum.

By order of the Surgeon General:

D.L. Huntington

Surgeon, U.S. Army.

 

Surgeon General’s Office,

July 23^rd, 1884

Intern John's Post

Hello. This is my second to last week working as an intern at HDAC. Today our mentor Ms. Lockett and assistant Emily treated us out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant which I very much appreciated. Over the course of this week I have been working on a project to create games and activities that relate to embryology. In entirety I have made 5 games; a word search, crossword puzzle, sliding puzzle, hangman, and word scramble using www.proprofs.com. I have also continued to improve and modify the flashcards that were mentioned in my last post. After finalizing the games and flashcards, I placed them on the HDAC website with the help of Rebecca (another intern working here). So far I’ve enjoyed working here over the summer and have learned a great deal about embryology.

Letter of the Day: July 20 (2 of 2)

Office of Geo. W. Knox

Storage Passenger, Freight, and Baggage Express.

Cor. 2d. & B Sts NW

Washington, D.C. July 20^th 1887

 

Dr. J. S. Billings USA

Army Med: Museum

City

 

Dear Sir,

 

I have been informed by Capt C. H. Hoyt, USA in charge Supply Division &c War Dept. of the acceptance of my proposal for removal of Army Med: Museum from its present quarters to the new Building and that you have been addressed as to the conditions of contract, and will call on me for the transportation as required.

 

As my teams are often engaged three or four days ahead of the time the work is to be done, I respectfully ask that you give me as much notice of time you will require the wagons, as possible, so that I can arrange for prompt attention to your orders.

 

Respectfully +c

Geo. W. Knox

Letter of the Day: July 20 (1 of 2)

U.S. Army General Hospital,

McKim’s Mansion,

Baltimore, MD., July 20^th 1863

 

J.H. Brinton

Surgeon U.S. Vol.

Curator Medical Museum.

 

Sir

 

I have the honor to request that you send me one half barrel spirits for the preservation of morbid specimens.

 

Very respectfully

Your obt Servant

Lanvington Quick

Surgeon U.S. Vol.

 In charge of Hosp

The restoration of Eakins' Gross Clinic

Shedding Darkness on an Eakins Painting

By RANDY KENNEDY

Published: July 18, 2010

After a revealing restoration, Thomas Eakins's masterpiece "The Gross Clinic" will go on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

While it's not as exciting a painting, the National Gallery of Art has had the Museum's "John Hill Brinton" on loan for almost 50 years and has cleaned it recently. Interesting details showed up and I think there will be an academic article or two on it, if not a NY Times piece.

Letter of the Day: July 19

Surgeon General’s Office

Washington City, D.C.

July 19^th 1866

 

Hon. G. W. Scofield

 

Sir

 

In reply to your letter of the 17^th I have the honor to state that in the case of the Assassin Booth the fracture was of the left fibula just above the malleolus.

 

Very Respectfully

Your Obedient Servant

By order of the Surgeon General sgd. J.J. Woodward

Bvt. Maj. and Ass’t. Surg. U.S.A.

Letter of the Day: July 18 - French skull

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 44

July 18, 1894

Mr. Gustav Goldman,
Maryland General Hospital,
Linden Ave., North of Madison St.,
Baltimore, Md.

Dear Sir:

In reply to your favor, just received, I beg to inform you that a French skull, disarticulated, will be forwarded to your address this afternoon.

Hoping that it will prove satisfactory, I remain,
Yours very sincerely,
Walter Reed
Major and Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Curator Army Medical Museum.

The skull has been sent as directed, to 841 Hollins St., Baltimore

Letter of the Day: July 17 (2 of 2)

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1601

W.W. Godding, M.D.,
Superintendent.

Government Hospital for the Insane.
Washington, D.C., July 17, 1896

Dr. Walter Reed.
Curator, U.S. Army,
Medical Museum,
Washington, D.C.

Dear Doctor:

In reply to your communication of recent date referring to your investigation of the etiology of malarial diseases etc; I have to inform you that we record the mental rather than the physical condition of our patients, and in this respect our statistics differ from those of a general hospital.

Many of the insane treated here suffer from malaria, but up to this time it has only been treated as a complication and not as a distinct disease, hence it would be impossible to give you definite information in the direction you request.

Regretting my inability to aid you in your interesting and valuable investigations, I remain,
Very respectfully,

W.W. Godding,
Superintendent.

Letter of the Day: July 17 (1 of 2)

No 115 Cedar St New York
July 17, 1866

Sir,

I have the have (sic) honor to enclose herewith duplicate accts for cast of Dr. Thebard’s case of elephantiasis of scrotum and also Express receipts for package containing the same, I paid the cash bill $11.50 and will send photography and history of case as soon as received.

I am, sir,
Very respectfully
Yr. Obt. Svt.
John P. Milham
Bvt Lt. Col. + Surg. USA

Dr. Geo. A. Otis
Asst. Surg U.S.A.
Curator A.M.M.

Wash Post on the commercialism of human remains, and art

An artistic body of work's bone of contention
By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 16, 2010

I hadn't realized the supply had become quite that tight. In the museum, we tend to get decades-old collections.

Letter of the Day: July 16 - spreading the word

War Department,
Adjutant General’s Office,
Washington, July 16 1867

The Surgeon General is authorized to furnish Dr. Pancoast such publications, drawings etc for distribution abroad as can be spared or as may be current with the service.

E.M. Stanton

Letter of the Day: July 15

Ahh, bureaucracies never change…
Commissary Office
Alton, Illinois, July 15th, 1863

Surgeon:

Enclosed I send you a copy of a Voucher, for commutation of rations in favor of C.A. Dresser, certified to by you, but which is defective by reason of the omission of his Regiment, Company and rank, and the clause, in the certificate, which alleges that he has “no opportunity of messing.” Will you be so kind as to insert, in this copy, the requisite additions and return them to me with an authorization to make the same corrections in the original. I have put in, in pencil, the words which you are requested to fill in with ink.

By favoring me with an early reply, you will greatly oblige,

Very Respectfully,
Your Obt. Servant,
R.C. Rutherford, Capt. & C.S.

Surgeon J. H. Brinton, U.S.A.

And the enclosure, with the missing words in bold-
The United States.
To C.A. Dresser
Private Co. A. 11 Regt US Vols.

For commutation of rations while on detached service as Clerk in Medical Directors Office from Nov 12th, 1861 to Dec. 4th, 1861, twenty-three days at .75 per day - $17.25

I certify that the above account is correct, that the commutation was made by my order, and was necessary for the public service -and that he had no opportunity of mess.
J.H. Brinton
Bvt Surg. + Me. Director

Approved
U.S. Grant
Brig. Genl. Com.

Received Cairo Dec. 4th, 1861 of R.C. Rutherford … Seventeen dollars and twenty five [missing] in full of the above account.
C.A. Dresser

Brinton filled the missing parts in, but apparently forgot to send it in because there was another note asking him about it in August.

Bones Abroad

Last semester I studied abroad in Prague. One of the trips I went on was to a tiny town in Bohemia called Kutna Hora. There was absolutely nothing of interest in this town except for a single tourist attraction: the bone church!

This small, unassuming church had a huge graveyard in front and a giant skull ice sculpture outside. My friends, already familiar with my tendency to freak out in the face of anything anthropological, had to constantly remind me to not look so excited in a church full of human bones, but I couldn’t help it - it was amazing! As the story goes, an old half-blind monk was in charge of the church and when the cemetery reached capacity during the time of the bubonic plague, he simply dug up the old bodies in 1511 and put their bones on display in the church. This cemetery was a hoppin’ resting place as it had been sprinkled some years earlier with earth from Golgotha. During the plague, 30,000 bodies were to be interred here.

He turned their bones into works of art, carefully sorting and arranging all the different body parts around the church. There are strings of vertebrae running like garland from the eaves and great shields made of femora hanging on the walls. The focal point of the church interior is definitely the chandelier, a massive, intricate structure of many different types of bones in front of the altar. Sure, it’s all a little macabre but I think this church lends reverence to the dead in a way no other church could.


The chandelier in the center of the church made with innominates, femora, vertebrae and skulls, among other bones

Exciting Intern Project Part III (!)

This past week Rebecca and I have been working diligently to finish up our project and it looks like we should be done by the end of the month (fingers crossed). I am especially hopeful on this point since Rebecca will be returning home after next week. Aside from more editing, it looks like we will be making our project website compatible, with any luck I will be able to recall the basics HTML coding. Converting our PowerPoint document to an on-line set of web pages has had its own share of difficulties, especially regarding the formatting abilities of the HDAC Wiki.

The authors that we contacted last week have been very helpful, offering further papers to look into and advice on the challenges in confronting publishing companies for permission. We would recommend checking out “Self-recognition in an Asian Elephant” PNAS 2006; one of the authors J. Plotnik has been exceedingly helpful and encouraging. If our schedules permit we may even meet with him in person to talk about his research. We also found a great site, brainmuseum.org, which has a large database of brain specimens that we were able to compare and use in our project. We are hoping that our luck with compliant authors continues, since we sent out a few more request for image permission.

This is an image of our projects proposed title page, with images taken from Moore, Persaud and Shiota Color Atlas of Clinical Embryology

Letter of the Day: July 14

Smithsonian Institution,
July 14, 1869

Dr. G.A. Otis,
Army Med’l. Mus’m.

Dear Sir:

We have lately selected from our alcoholic collections a number of human foetuses, animal monstrosities, entozoa, etc, which we shall be happy to deliver to your messenger, together with a human skull [AMM No 623 Anatomical Sect.] from the mounds of Indiana.

Please send us the label of the Indian Cerement lately forwarded by you to this Institution,

Yours very truly
Joseph Henry

John's post

This is an example of one of the flashcards I made.


Hi, my name is John Kim and I go to Magruder High School. I’ve been working as an intern at the Human Developmental Anatomy Center tying packages, working on projects and at the same time learning about embryology. During this week I have been able to work on creating flashcards accompanied with pictures that test one’s knowledge on general embryology and more specifically the nervous system. In total I made 15 flashcards. This was interesting to do because I learned a new thing for almost every flashcard I made. Besides making flashcards, I have also made a couple jigsaw puzzles from pictures related to embryology that can be both fun and stimulate thinking on the subject at the same time.

The image on this flashcard was taken from: http://www.proprofs.com

Letter of the Day: July 13 - veterinary museum continued

Surgeon General’s Office
Washington City, July 13, 1868

Dear Doctor

Veterinary Surgeon Braley has called on the Surgeon General this morning to ask that the “horse collection” may be inspected before it is packed up and sent to the Surg Genl, so that a proper selection of those specimens really desired for our Museum may be made.

Will you please ride over to the Lincoln Depot tomorrow morning, see Braley and the Collection, select the specimens you think desirable to accept and ask him to send them to the Museum building?

Yours very truly,
C.H. Crane

Dr. Geo. A. Otis
U.S. Army

Letter of the Day: July 12 - Pompeii

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 9748

War Department,
Office of the Surgeon General,
Army Medical Museum and Library,
Washington,
July 12, 1906

The Kny-Scheerer Co.,
225-233 Fourth Avenue,
New York City.

Gentlemen,

Referring to your letter of the 6th instant, please furnish to the Army Medical Museum the collection of thirty-seven imitation surgical instruments from the Ruins of Pompei (sic, Pompeii), enumerated in your letters of June 12 and 16 and July 6, 1906, as follows:

Speculum
Scissors
Trocar & canula
Cautery iron
Lancets
Dilator
The crochet or obstetric forceps
Colpeurynter
Spatula
Pair of pincers
2 bladed vaginal specula, with wide handle bars
Craniotomy forceps
Surgical forceps
Tongue depressor
Vaginal depressor
Curette
Pincers
Elevator
Female catheter
Drainage canula
Conical catheter, female
Hook retractor, large
Hook retractor, small
Pair of pincers, with button end
Pair of pincers, flat end
Abolition hook
Spoon curette & spatula
Specula & probe
Round spoon on metal handle
Probe & spoon
Probe pointed sound
Spatula & probe
Spatula & sound
Spatula & sound, smaller size
Spatula, small
Probe & curette

You state in your letter of June 16th, “It is possible that we may be able to offer these duty free to the Museum, in which case a reduction of fully 18% can be made upon the prices stated”; it is assumed therefore, that the price quoted in your letter of July 6, 1906 ($220.00) includes the import duty, and as articles for Government use are admitted duty free, you will please render bill accordingly.

Kindly notify this office of the arrival of the instruments so that an application can be made for their free admission at the Custom House, New York, N.Y.

Very respectfully,
V. Havard
Col., Asst. Surgeon General, U.S.A.
In charge, Museum & Library Div.

Letter of the Day: July 11 - veterinary museum?

Surgeon General’s Office
Washington City, July 11th 1868

Dear Doctor

Genl. Meigs informs the Surgeon General that “veterinary Surgeon Braley has been directed to turn over to the Surgeon General’s Office the veterinary museum some time since collected and arranged by him for this office and now in his possession, for enlargement and re-arrangement.”

The Surgeon General desires that you will designate a suitable place for the reception + exhibition of these specimens.

I am going to the Arsenal this evening and see what I can do with Genl Ramsay about obtaining the “fourteen skeletons” or “remains”.

Yours truly,
C.H. Crane

Dr. Geo. A. Otis
U.S. Army