Rediscovered photographs

Today I've been stabilizing and doing some research in the Crynes Collection (OHA 143.02). This collection documents the life, and particularly the military career, of Major Sylvester F. Crynes MC, a pathologist with the 217th General Hospital during WWII.

Before donating his papers, Major Crynes' family digitized 400 35mm slide from his time in northern France during WWII. They are uniquely beautiful and I wish I could post them all, but I'll settle for a just a handful.

Letter of the Day: February 23

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 08162

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

February 23, 1905

To the Surgeon General,
U.S. Army

Sir:

Referred to your endorsement of the 14th inst. I have the honor to inform you that my letter of the 9th inst. recommending the discharge of Patrick M. Kelly, Clerk, Class I, in this office, was based upon the following facts:

1st. Mr. Kelly came to this office on the morning of November 19, 1904 in an intoxicated condition, was totally incapacitated for work, and I sent him home. He remained absent until December 10, 1904, and upon his return was forgiven on his promise that the same condition would not occur again.

2nd. On the morning of February 6, 1905, Mr. Kelly reported for duty in a state of intoxication. He was again sent home and has been absent ever since that time.

Very respectfully,
C.L. Heizmann
Col. Asst. Surgeon General, U.S.A.
In charge of Museum and Library Division

Witnesses:
Col. C.L. Heizmann, Asst. Surg. Genl. U.S.A.
M.W. Bayliss, Clerk, Class IV, S.G.O.
Convis Parker, Asst. Mess., &Supt. Building

WISH I THOUGHT OF THAT ONE

Letter of the Day: February 22

Fort Columbus, N.Y.
Feb. 22, 1895

Hoff, John Van R.
Maj. and Surgeon, U.S.A
Post Surgeon

Reports that 1st Lieut. Fremont P. Peck, Ordnance Dep't., U.S.A. was fatally injured at the Ordnance Proving Grounds, Sandy Hook, N.J., Feb 19, 1895, by the explosion of a 4 7/10 inch Hotchkiss Rapid fire gun which he was then testing, furnished an account of accident, and autopsy and states that he forwarded, by mail, to the Army Medical Museum the pieces of metal removed from Lieut. Peck's body.

New book on craniology collectors is out

The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and America's Unburied Dead
By Ann Fabian
University Of Chicago Press (October 15, 2010)

Judging from Amazon's Look-Inside feature,while the Army Medical Museum is discussed regularly, the author did not actually use the Museum's archives, instead working from the Surgeon General's Office records in the National Archives, and correspondence transferred to the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives.

Available in the Museum's archives are Curatorial Records which cover the subject especially

OHA 13

* Curatorial Records: Incoming Correspondence (Loose), 1862-1894
* 2.5 cubic feet, 5 boxes.
* Finding aid, arranged, inactive, unrestricted.
* Correspondence, arranged alphabetically, from the first two decades of the Museum's existence. The series ends when the Museum began a correspondence numbering system (see Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence). Includes letters sent to curators John Brinton, George A. Otis, D.L. Huntington, John S. Billings, and Walter Reed. Most of the incoming correspondence from this period is currently missing.

OHA 15

* Curatorial Records: Letterbooks of the Curators, 1863-1910
* 8 cubic feet, 17 boxes.
* Finding aid, arranged, inactive, unrestricted.
* Bound volumes of outgoing correspondence by curators John Brinton, George A. Otis, D.L. Huntington, John S. Billings, Walter Reed, James Carroll, and F.F. Russell. See Curatorial Records: Outgoing Correspondence (Loose) for other outgoing correspondence that was not recorded in these books.

OHA 25

* Curatorial Records: Smithsonian Correspondence, 1867-1887
* .5 cubic foot, 1 box.
* Finding aid available, arranged, inactive, unrestricted.
* Incoming correspondence, mostly from Smithsonian Secretaries Joseph Henry and Spencer Baird, relating primarily to the exchange of specimens between the Museum and the Smithsonian. George A. Otis, D.L. Huntington, and John S. Billings were curators of the Museum during this time. See Museum Records: Accession Records and Curatorial Records: Letterbooks of the Curators for related correspondence.

OHA 26

* Curatorial Records: Special Correspondence, 1862-1887
* .75 cubic foot, 2 boxes.
* No finding aid, arranged, inactive, unrestricted.
* Box 1: Correspondence relating to photography and photographic services at the Museum between 1862 and 1885. Includes correspondence of curators George A. Otis, D.L. Huntington, and John S. Billings and Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes. Box 2: Correspondence relating to the craniology collection and craniometric/anthropometric measurement at the Museum between 1862 and 1887, mostly sent to curators Otis and Billings.

Letter of the Day: February 21

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 08159

War Department,
Office of the Surgeon General,
Army medical Museum and Library,
Washington

February 21, 1905

To the Surgeon General,
U.S. Army

Sir:

I have the honor to invite attention to the recent occurrence of two leaks in the ceiling of room 7 on the 3d floor of this building. These result from some obstruction to the carrying off of melted snow from the roof of the attic. The evil should be remedied at once, if possible, in order to prevent the occurrence of serious damage to the building in the future.

Very respectfully,
C.L. Heizmann
Col. Asst. Surgeon General, U.S.A.
In charge of Museum and Library Division

Letter of the Day: February 20

U.S.A. General Hospital,
Davids’ Island, New York,
Feb 20th, 1863.

General,

I send by today’s mail the histories of all the interesting surgical cases that I have been able to collect since the establishment of this Hospital, the preparation of which I undertook at the request of Surg. Simons, U.S.A. The morbid specimens accompanying the cases are few in number, owing to the fact that the man, who formerly had charge of the dead house, stole the majority of then, when he was discharged from the Hospital. Means were taken to have the man arrested, but they proved unavailing. Prof. James R. Wood, however, has some of these specimens in his museum, and I have written to him regard to them, but have received no answer. The box containing the remainder of the preparations will be expressed to you on Monday inst.

I am, General, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
S.W. Gross,
Surgn U.S.V.

Brig Genl. W.A. Hammond,
Surgeon General, U.S. Army

92 1046
94 1047
279 1048

Letter of the Day: February 19

Genl. Field Hospital, Bridgeport, Ala, February 19, 1864

Surgeon General U.S.A.
Washington, D.C.

Sir

I have the honor to report that I have sent today to the Army Medical Museum by Adams Express two (2) morbid specimens with histories.

Very respectfully
your obedient servant
H.T. Agler
Asst. Surgeon U.S.V.

Letter of the Day: February 18

Fort Bridger Wyo.
February 18. [18]84.

To
Major D.L. Huntington.
Washington, D.C.

Dear Sir:

I have this day mailed to you a microscopic specimen of some epidermas[sic] scales in a case I have diagnosed as chromophytosis.

This specimen was prepared after one application of chrysophanic acid and green soap according to Piffard in Wood's Library. I sought for the parasite withe[?] a 1/4 objective before any applications were made, but was unable to satisfy myself of its presence.

I regret that it did not occur to me to mount a slide before treatment was commenced. The slide is poorly mounted but represents the earliest specimen prepared.

To all appearances the disease which has existed since 1878 has entirely disappeared after five or six applications of the above treatment.

Will you have the kindness to forward me the results of your examination.

Very respectfully
Your obdt servt.
W.C. Shannon
Asst Surgeon, U.S.A
Post Surgeon

Folger Shakespeare Library's medical exhibit tour tomorrow

I saw this a couple of nights ago and it's an excellent exhibit. This bit is clipped from their e-newsletter.

Good for What Ails You Folger Exhibitions: Beyond Home Remedy   In an era before emergency rooms and HMOs, women offered vital medical care to their families and communities. This "kitchen physic" included dressing wounds, setting bones, delivering babies, administering medicine, and producing homemade remedies for a wide range of illnesses, including the much-dreaded plague. Beyond Home Remedy explores the broad scope of female medical practice in early modern England and America and sheds new light on women's contributions. through May 14 10am to 5pm, Monday–Saturday   Free Listen: Kitchen Physic Learn More: Plague Water Learn More: A Tudor Herbal     Personal Picks Folger Fridays: Exhibition Tour   Join Rebecca Laroche, curator of Beyond Home Remedy, for a personal tour of the exhibition, which features a broad range of items from ingredient samples for early modern medicines to Martha Washington's cookbook. "The exhibition cracks open our conventional sense of home remedies. We have countesses and duchesses and the serving women and everyone in between," she notes. Fri, Feb 18 7pm Meet at the First Folio display in the Great Hall.   Free About the Folger Home to the world's largest Shakespeare collection, the Folger Shakespeare Library is a major center for scholarly research; a lively venue for performances, readings, and exhibitions; and a national leader in humanities education.

Address: Folger Shakespeare Library 201 East Capitol Street, SE Washington, DC 20003 Get Directions Plan a Visit Public Hours: Monday through Saturday: 10am to 5pm Reading Room Hours: Monday through Friday: 8:45am to 4:45pm Saturday: 9am to 12pm and 1pm to 4:30pm Closed all Federal holidays.

Exhibit update. A single cell

(for those who haven't seen the exhibit, this is updated with new text written by the Human Developmental Anatomy Center staff, one of whom can be seen here).

NMHM joins History of Medicine Finding Aids Consortium

The History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is pleased to announce the latest release of its History of Medicine Finding Aids Consortium (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/consortium/index.html), a search-and-discovery tool for archival resources in the health sciences that are described by finding aids and held by various institutions throughout the United States. As with the initial release the new content crawled consists of finding aids delivered as EAD, PDF and HTML from a diverse institutional cohort. NLM is the world’s largest medical library and a component of the National Institutes of Health.

 

The site now indexes over 1,600 finding aids from 12 institutions.

 

The new content contributors are:

• Drexel University College of Medicine Legacy Center, Archives and Special Collections
• Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Center for the History of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Boston Medical Library
• Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine
• University of Pennsylvania Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing
• Washington University, St. Louis School of Medicine
• Yale University Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library

 

These institutions join the original consortium members:

• NLM History of Medicine Division
• Columbia University Health Sciences Library
• Medical Archives, Johns-Hopkins University Medical Institutions
• University of California-San Francisco
• University of Virginia Health Sciences Library
• Virginia Commonwealth University

 

For more information about the project or requests to join the Consortium, please contact John P. Rees, Archivist and Digital Resources Manager, NLM, at reesj@nlm.nih.gov.

 

 

Exhibit update. A single cell

So this is actually 2 years in the making 

it started as an concept to update the current exhibit

with some relevant current research on this old dusty

section of out of date cases cursed with this hospital blue 

color

i wind up using that to inspire a color pallette

its really a section of curiosities we have at the museum. 

skeletons, conjoined twins, cyclops baby and so

these specimens could and did serve as this section
of human dev anatomy

called a single cell...

but 

there was not much info, label text, which was fine, but no supporting

information, one of my colleagues, Emily Wilson, an anthropologist in the

human developmental anatomy section had a great research topic

that dealt with the limb development, and also co wrote other areas of the exhibit, these panels
contain her

research which I believe was presented at last years Mayo Clinics Symposium.

Congratulatons to her on a great job. Here Ms. Wilson (pictured below) is preparing
the specimens for redisplay in the exhibit.
hopefully
this redesign can elevate this exhibit to another level.
More to come...

Exhibit update. A single cell

Exhibit update a single cell

Today's Flickr photos have a common piece to them.

Besides being part of the New Contributed Photograph collection, there’s something in common with most of the pictures being sent up to our Flickr site today. Can you spot it?

Letter of the Day: February 17

Fort Shaw, M.T.

February 17^th 1868.

 

Sir;

 

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication dated M.D.A. Dep’t of Dakota January 22d, 1868 stating it is the wish of the Surgeon General to secure for preservation in the army medical museum specimens of Indian Crania and Indian weapons and utensils as far as they can be procured of the different Indian Tribes; and giving directions ho these specimens are to be collected and forwarded +c.

 

In reference to which I would respectfully state that I shall willing lend my aid as far as possible in collecting specimens from the different Indian Tribes in this Territory.

 

There are no Indians residing within a radius of forty or fifty miles of this Post, the Sun River country being looked upon as neutral ground. Occasional parties of Bloods, Piegans, Pend D’Oreilles, Black Feet and other Tribes on hunting or horse stealing expeditions transverse this section of country but make no delay en route and seldom visit this Post. Nevertheless I shall not fail to avail myself of any means of communication with these Tribes with a view to secure specimens.

 

Actg. Asst. Surgeon Hitz has been furnished with an official copy of your communication and expresses his willingness to cooperate in securing these specimens.

 

Very Respectfully

Your ob’t. Servant

 

F.L. Town

Bre’t Lieut. Col. + Surgeon, U.S.A.

 

Surgeon Jno. E. Summers U.S.A.

Medical Director, Dept. of Dakota

St. Paul, Minn.

Yellow Fever and Walter Reed

This is the text for an exhibit at the Pentagon I did about two decades ago...

Yellow Fever and Walter Reed

Yellow fever is caused by a virus transmitted by a mosquito. This disease has menaced communities since before the founding of the United States. Yellow fever was first described by Joam Ferreyra Da Rosa in 1694. The origin of the term "yellow fever", however, is obscure. Some feel the name reflects the symptoms since the virus destroys liver cells and causes jaundice which is a yellowing of the skin and eyes. Others feel that the name refers to the yellow quarantine flag flown by ships carrying the disease, especially since the fever apparently travelled from Africa on slave ships which were notorious carriers of the fever.

Yellow fever has a wide variety of symptoms including headaches, backaches, nausea and fever. The most disturbing symptom is bloody vomiting which gave the disease the vivid name of "the black vomit". The disease has a fatality rate between 10 and 15% but is less virulent in children. Currently, the disease is incurable and attentive nursing and rest are the only treatments.

Walter Reed was born in Virginia in 1851. In 1869, Reed graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in medicine and studied at Bellevue Medical Hospital in New York. He joined the Army Medical Corps in 1875 and spent most of the next two decades at frontier posts. In 1893, Reed began serving as curator of the Army Medical Museum and professor of bacteriology and clinical microscopy at the Army Medical School. As part of the Surgeon General's Office staff in Washington, Reed was assigned to investigate typhoid fever in 1898 and then yellow fever a year later.

Reed was the first man to prove the mechanics of infection of yellow fever. Prior to his work, several novel ideas had been considered.

For instance, Benjamin Rush, the noted Philadelphia physician, believed the disease was caused by rotten coffee. Others held that "miasmas" or bad airs were the cause. However, throughout the century, glimpses of the true means of transmission had been noted. In 188 Dr. Josiah C. Nott of Alabama suggested that mosquitoes might be the vector or carrier of the disease. Carlos Juan Finlay of Cuba strongly advanced this idea although current theory held that "fomites" or household articles were somehow infected with the disease.

In 1899 during the wake of the Spanish-American War, Reed headed a team investigating the cause of yellow fever. The team, composed of Dr. James Carroll (also of the Army Medical Museum), Dr. Aristides Agramonte and Dr. Jesse Lazear, convened at Columbia Barracks near Havana, Cuba. Their first accomplishment was to quickly rule out a recently-proposed bacterial theory. Then, using volunteers, the team tested the fomite theory with articles fouled with the effusions from yellow fever victims. This theory, too, was proven wrong. After a prison outbreak when one prisoner was infected and died but the eight other prisoners were not infected, researchers could not suggest a method of transmission other than mosquitoes. Finlay had provided mosquitoes for testing and Dr. Lazear began experiments with them. By having a mosquito bite them, Lazear successfully infected Dr. Carroll and a volunteer soldier named Dean in August. Lazear may have been testing his theory on himself for he was infected and died on September 25, 1900. Lazear's notebooks enabled Reed to study the data Lazear compiled. Reed realized that the Aedes aegypti mosquito carried yellow fever but only under certain conditions. The mosquito must bite a yellow fever victim during the first three days of an attack, incubate the virus in its body for at least twelve days and then bite another person to pass on the disease. This discovery enabled the United States to essentially eradicate yellow fever within its borders after one last epidemic in New Orleans in 1905. The disease proved easy to conquer because the Aedes aegypti mosquito is an urban mosquito and breeds only in small pools of stagnant water such as fish ponds or even flower jars. Yellow fever is still prevalent in tropical climes due to both a different mosquito vector, the Haemagogus spegazzinii and the fact that jungle yellow fever, as it is occasionally known, can live in monkeys as well as human hosts.

Object List:

Two Reed medals (M-900 00682, ASTM medal; M-900 00683, Congressional medal) Text: Medals awarded to Walter Reed for his work on yellow fever by Congress and the American Society of Tropical Medicine. M-900 00683; M-900 00682.



Photo of Reed at 25 (NCP 876 Text: Reed at age 25. NCP #876



Sontag volunteers photo. Text: Soldiers who volunteered for yellow fever experiments. Sontag Collection.

Reed microscope (M-030 00420) Text: Microscope used by Reed. M-030 00420.

Mosquito drawing

Link Love from the Medical Heritage Library

NMHM, NCP 3280

For those of you who haven't heard, the Medical Heritage Library is a collaborative, digital curation project among some of the leading medical libraries, National Library of Medicine, The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine (Harvard), The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library (Yale), The Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library (Columbia), and the New York Public Library. They "promote free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine."

A friend and colleague of mine works for the team at the MHL and we chat often about the unique world of medical archives. She gave us a shout-out today on their blog: Digital Connections: The Otis Historical Archives, highlighting some of her favorite images from the NMHM flickr site.