Dr. Chevalier Jackson in NY Times

The NMHM also has a collection of material from Dr. Jackson, similiar to that from the Mutter Museum and discussed here...

Down the Hatch and Straight Into Medical History

By AMANDA SCHAFFER,

New York Times January 11, 2011

From brain tissue to gallstones, doctors have long preserved specimens from their patients — sometimes as trophies, sometimes as teaching tools, sometimes as curiosities or even art. But Dr. Chevalier Jackson went much further than most.

A laryngologist who worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he preserved more than 2,000 objects that people had swallowed or inhaled: nails and bolts, miniature binoculars, a radiator key, a child's perfect-attendance pin, a medallion that says "Carry me for good luck."

January 22: Lecture on Walter Reed radio show in WW2

Michael Henry of the University of Maryland's Library of American Broadcasting has let me know about a lecture he's doing:

Parks Johnson's radio show Vox Pop visited Walter Reed on March 15, 1943. Co-host Warren Hull specifically refers to the fact that they are broadcasting from the "Red Cross Recreation Hall". On Saturday January 22, I will be giving a presentation about the broadcast at the Radio & Television Museum in Bowie, MD. The event is free and open to the public. The presentation will start at 2pm. The museum is located at 2608 Mitchellville Rd in Bowie.

Pictures of the show being done at Walter Reed are online.

Letter of the Day: January 11

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 01948

January 11, 1897

Dr. L. Campbell,
Slatington, Pa.

Dear Sir:

I answer to your letter of the 7th inst. I would state that we have several specimens of the effect of scorbutus on the jaw of grown persons, but none in a child. and I should, therefore, be pleased to receive the specimen referred to.

If you conclude to donate it to the Museum, please have it packed in a box marked: Army Medical Museum, Cor. 7th and B sts, S.W., Washington, D.C., and send it by Adams Express, which has authority to receive and forward it and collect freight charges here.

Very respectfully,

D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army
In charge of Museum and Library Division

We're still sending Civil War pictures to Flickr.

Visit us!


Contributed Photograph 0936

PATTERSON, JAMES

GUNSHOT WOUND OF ARM. SAME MISSILE WOUNDING ABDOMEN ALSO.

PVT, Company H, 5th Pennsylvania CAVALRY

Wounded NEAR RICHMOND, 2 APR 1865

Dr RB BONTECOU, HAREWOOD HOSPITAL

See also CP 628

BOUND IN HAREWOOD, VOL. I. HISTORY ON VERSO.

CIVIL WAR

Letter of the Day: January 10

All communications to this Office should be addressed "To the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, Washington, D.C."

Subject: Repairs of heating apparatus.

War Department
Surgeon General's Office,
U.S. Army Medical Museum and Library
Corner of 7th and B Streets S.W.

Washington, D.C. January 10, 1895

To the
Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Washington, D.C.

Sir:
I have the honor to request authority to have repairs made to the heating apparatus in this building, at the estimated cost of $15.00, and to be paid for from the Museum appropriation as an emergency purchase.

Very respectfully,
JS Billings
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Army Medical Museum and Library.

Letter of the Day: January 9

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1956

Fort Walla Walla Washington
Saturday, January 9th 1897

Major Walter Reed
Surgeon U.S. Army
Washington, D.C.

My dear Doctor

I have sent you by mail today a piece of a testicle, the organ having been removed about five weeks ago. I will be very much obliged a microscopical examination as well as for a mounted slide if not too much trouble. The former owner, a man about forty years of age denies and I think honestly as far as he knows any syphilitic history, he dates his trouble from an injury received while riding about nine years ago. During the past year the organ has increased very much in size + has been painful. The surrounding lymphatic were not markedly enlarged nor tender, tho there has been a gradual loss of flesh[,] general weakness and cachexia.

On examination there was found an eggshaped tumor adherent in one place to the scrotum, much larger than the other testicle and quite solid with severe pain on pressure.

The diagnosis was a toss up between syphilitic and sarcoma with a leaning toward the latter. Trusting that I am not giving too much trouble I am with best wishes for the New Year

Very sincerely yours
John Phillips
Capt + Asst Surgeon A.S.U

Advances in military medicine featured in good newspaper article

The Washington Post has been doing an excellent series on this, and is now joined by the NY Times.

In Wider War in Afghanistan, Survival Rate of Wounded Rises

By C. J. CHIVERS,

January 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/world/asia/08wounded.html

Letter of the Day: January 8

Museum of Hygiene
Bureau of Medicine & Surgery,
Cor. 18th & G. Streets, N.W.
Washington Jany 8 1883

D.L. Huntington,
Lt. Col. + Surgeon, U.S.A.
+c +c

Sir:

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communications of the 5th + 6th instant.

I gratefully acknowledge the receipt of the following articles for the Museum of Hygiene, viz:

1. A model of Tompkins wheeled stretcher.
2. A full sized folding hand-litter with telescopic handles, made at Watervliet Arsenal.
3. A model of an ambulance wagon made at Watervliet Arsenal, accompanied by a copy of Report of a Board of Officers to decide upon a Patter of Ambulance Wagon for Army Use, etc.
4. A model of a ward of a hospital.
5. A model of Hick’s Hospital, with table.
6. A set of Microscopical photographs by Surgeon J.J. Woodward, U.S.A.
7. A set of Centennial photographs with explanatory pamphlets.

Very respectfully,
Your obd’t servant.
J.M Browne
Med. Director, U.S.N.
In charge

Letter of the Day: January 7

See Dr. Huntington's reply on January 11, 1897

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 01948

Established 1870
Treating and Filling
Crowns in Porcelain and Gold
Artifical Teeth
Bridge Work, etc.

Dr. L. Campbell's
Dental Rooms

Slatington, Pa., Jan 7th, 1867

Dr. D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General
Washington
D.C.

My Dear Doctor

I am in receipt of the Report of the Committee on the National Dental Museum + Library and certainly am in sympathy with such a grand movement and will do all I can for the sucess of it I have a case of "Scorbutus" in a child 2 yrs old a rare case although I do not like to part with it still I may send it I have the teeth of lower jaw all mounted on a plaster cast shape of jaw and set are the same as in the mouth let me know if you have any such case at the Museum

Respectfully
L. Campbell

Navy World War 2 cartoon by Hotchkiss online now

MIS 09-7914-1

"He had his heart set on pate de foie gras. Navy chow is the best!
Take all you can eat, eat all you can take! Don't be finicky!"
[Nutrition.] [Propaganda.] [World War 2.] [Illustration by: "Hotchkiss
USNR".] World War II. Cartoon.

1944; Bureau of Supplies and Accounts: Navy; U.S. Government Printing
Office; U.S. Navy BUMED Library and Archives

Letter of the Day: January 6

This is one of the earliest letters in the collection that documents the acquisition of the Gibson collection. Other letters regarding the purchase of the Gibson collection arrive two years later, in 1868: April 22, May 1, and August 16.


Office Medical Surveyor,
Richmond, Va., January 6th, 1866

Doctor

In accordance with your note of Dec 29th, 1865, I visited in company with Dr Gaillard of this city + Col. I Simons U.S.A Mw.[?] Director of the Dept. the collection of the late Dr. C. B. Gibson + now offered for sale I have the honor to transmit herewith a catalogue of the same. The great bulk of this collection was made by Prof William Gibson Emeritus Professor of Surgery University of Penn. + which for a long time was used by him in his lectures + well known for its completeness + great value.

The forty two (42) oil paintings aside from their professional are of great value as works of art.

The osteological part of the collection I consider unique. Enhancing I think every known fracture + disease of bone + showing the powers of nature in the repair of the same. A number of specimens are from Waterloo -

I think that this part of the collection would be of great value in filling a gap in the Army Museum which must necessarily exist (ie) showing reunion after fracture, sabre cuts, + repair from disease. The wax preparations are elegant specimens of art the leather ones though not much used now are the finest that I have ever seen.

The whole collection is in good state of presivation [sic] - specimens well mounted + enclosed in upright cases-

The college at N.O. and at this place + some parties in Philadelphia have been asking about the price +c. Mrs. Gibson proposes in regard to price the following which I consider very liberal. She will appoint one professional man the other party to appoint one + they to appoint a third + she agrees to be bound by the decision of the three.

I have the honor
Very Respectfully I am
Your Obedient Servant
John H. Janeway
Bvt. Maj. + Asst Surgeon, U.S.A


[To] Bvt. Maj. + Asst Surgeon
A.A. Woodhull U.S.A.
Surgeon Generals Office
Washington
D.C.

Letter of the Day: January 5

War Department,
Surgeon General's Office,
Washington, D.C., Jan. 5th, 1870

Sir:

I have the honor to report that the four (4) blank- books, furnished last January, to be used as registers for Visitors at the Museum, will be completely filled in a few days, and others will be required.

I, am, Sir, very respectfully,
Your obt. servant,

Robt. E. Williams
Hospl. Stew'rd
U.S.A.


[To] Brt. Lt. Col. Geo. A. Otis,
Assistant Surgeon, N.S.A.
Curator of the Army Med. Museum.

Letter of the Day: January 4

[Historian of medicine Bert Hansen has written on the early days of vaccination in NYC, and tells me this is probably a cowpox cultivated in calves and used to immunize people against smallpox. Reed had written to the Health Department a week earlier asking about the failure after several months of two samples of bovine vaccine he had made himself. Here’s two relevant photographs - http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cowpox&w=99129398%40N00 One further note – by the end of the nineteenth century, it was known that something smaller than bacteria could cause disease, but the first actual virus was isolated by Martinus Willem Beijerinck in 1898; hence the terminology used in this letter is imprecise to modern readers.]

 

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1903

 

Health Department,

Centre, Elm, White & Franklin Streets,.

(Criminal Court Building)

Office of the Pathologist, and Director of the Bacteriological Laboratory.

New York, Jan 4^th, 1897

 

Walter Reed, M.D.,

Curator U.S. Army Museum,

7^th and B. Streets S.W.,

Washington, D.C.

 

Dear Doctor:-

 

Your communication of the 28^th ult. To Dr. H.M. Biggs has been received, and he has requested me to reply to the same. With reference to the statement made on the printed directions accompanying the package of vaccine virus sent you on Dec. 24^th, I would say that this label was prepared at a time when the keeping quality of the vaccine virus produced by this Department had not yet been fully ascertained. As a matter of fact, we find that the virus preserves its potency unchanged for fully six months; not only does it not deteriorate in strength during this period, but its quality with regard to the number of bacteria present is improved. We have found it impossible to produce a virus absolutely free from bacteria, although we are able to assure the absence of pathogenic organisms. The bacteria originally present in the virus diminish as time goes on, and the age of the virus is, therefore, an important factor with relation to the number of bacteria contained.

 

Respectfully,

 

Alfred L. Beebe

Asst. Director, Diagnosis Bacteriological Laboratory

 

Meet Joshua

Joshua was a rhesus macaque born in a "monkey colony" maintained for research on primate development and reproduction. The monkey colony was part of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Embryology from 1925-1971, and the collections are now housed at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Researchers were able to use data on how monkeys develop to better interpret data on how another primate, humans, develop.

The rhesus macaque species has served as a useful animal model for research on human physiology and disease, including the discovery of the namesake Rh factor in blood.

Flickr statistics after Boing Boing's link to Civil War photos

Flickr daily view statistics for roughly ~250 images*.

 

December 27, 2010: 327,779

December 28: 245,041

December 29: 83,579

December 30: 30,834

December 31: 14,260

January 1: 8,268

January 2: 10,569

 

7 day total: 720,330 views

 

*images were added on a daily basis and some previous uploads not identified as Civil War were moved into the set.

Burns Archive blog

Dr. Stanley Burns is one of the most prolific collectors of history of medicine photographs, and he’s got a blog at http://www.theburnsarchive.blogspot.com/ which has some very neat images.

 

Dr. Burns is about to wrap up a book on Dr. Reed Bontecou, a Civil War doctor, based in Harewood Hospital in DC, who was a strong supporter of the Museum and donated many photographs here, some of which have been appearing on our Flickr site recently. Dr. Burns has albums of the pictures that were returned to Dr. Bontecou’s son in 1915 and will be drawing on them for the book.

Museum Administrator Donna White retired December 30

Museum Administrator Donna White retired on December 30, 2010, after 11 years in the Museum and over 40 years of government service. Donna handled the nuts and bolts behind the scenes, working on personnel, contracts, payroll, supply orders and the like - not glamorous, but vitally important work.

Here's Donna's profile from the Museum's website:

Donna R. White is the museum's administrator. Her background includes experience in human resources and equal opportunity counseling and instruction. She has worked extensively with the military, having spent five years in Germany working at various military bases in a human resources capacity. During this time, she had the opportunity to travel extensively and to learn the German language.

Speaking personally, Donna's been my supervisor for years, and I appreciate both her support and her forbearance.

Letter of the Day: January 3

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 00409

January 3, 1895

Messrs Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & co.,
Paternoster House,
Charing Cross Road,
London, W.C., England.

Gentlemen:

Please purchase for the Army Medical Museum,

1 Arteriometer, and
1 Pulse-pressure gauge,

devised by Dr. George Oliver and figured in his work "Pulse-Gauging. A clinical study of radial measurement and pulse pressure." London, 1895, pp. 3 and 95.

The instructions can be obtained of the maker, Mr. Hawkesley, 357 Oxford St., London.

Have the kindness to send the articles with separate bill in the usual manner.

Very respectfully,

J. S. Billings

Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Director Army Medical Museum and Library.

Letter of the Day: January 2

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 00376

[handwritten notation] Note: These histories relate to specimens received Dec 17 + Dec 21, 1894. See Record Cards nos. 376 + 383

Lt. Colonial W. H. Forwood
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Attending Surgeon, Soldier's Home,
Near Washington, D.C.

Dear Doctor:

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the histories of the cases of John King, "D", 1st Cavalry, and of John Engel "H", 8th Infantry, which furnished specimens contributed by you to the Army Medical Museum, and to thank you for these additions to the Museum records.

Very respectfully,

Walter Reed

Major and Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Curator, Army Medical Museum

Letter of the Day: January 1

Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology,
Harvard University

F.W. Putnam,
Curator of Museum
Lucien Carr,
Assistant Curator

Cambridge, Mass., Jan 1 1886

Dr. Billings

Dear Sir

I have the material for five hundred skull stands abd partly made up shall I finish them up and send them to you

Truly yours
Edw. E. Chick

PS I'm in no hurry about the miny [money] if you have not got the appropriation yet