NMHM's embryology collection in Bull. of History of Medicine

Ex Utero: Live Human Fetal Research and the Films of Davenport Hooker

Emily K. Wilson

From: Bulletin of the History of Medicine 
Volume 88, Number 1, Spring 2014 
pp. 132-160 | 10.1353/bhm.2014.0002

Abstract

Summary:

Between 1932 and 1963 University of Pittsburgh anatomist Davenport Hooker, Ph.D., performed and filmed noninvasive studies of reflexive movement on more than 150 surgically aborted human fetuses. The resulting imagery and information would contribute substantially to new visual and biomedical conceptions of fetuses as baby-like, autonomous human entities that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Hooker's methods, though broadly conforming to contemporary research practices and views of fetuses, would not have been feasible later. But while Hooker and the 1930s medical and general public viewed live fetuses as acceptable materials for nontherapeutic research, they also shared a regard for fetuses as developing humans with some degree of social value. Hooker's research and the various reactions to his work demonstrate the varied and changing perspectives on fetuses and fetal experimentation, and the influence those views can have on biomedical research.

Last 'Radium Girl' dead?

Mae Keane, Whose Job Brought Radium to Her Lips, Dies at 107

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

Mrs. Keane, one of the so-called radium girls, was employed at the Waterbury Clock Company in the 1920s when a relatively new material, radium, was used.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/nyregion/mae-keane-who-painted-watch-dials-with-a-radium-mixture-dies-at-107.html

Heard embryology models at Medical Museum

	Local man's father honored with national embryology exhibition Walla Walla Union-Bulletin ... and to attend an exhibit on Tuesday that celebrates their father's work in research embryology at the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

Army Medical Museum's Shufeldt was an unattractive character

	Beyond this article, which has to be read to be believed, he was a fervent racist.
	Museum Files: Audubon legacy outshines scandal Glens Falls Post-Star In 1882, Shufeldt was named curator in the Army Medical Museum. He retired in 1891 with a disability for heart disease. Shufeldt had a thirst for ...

Dr Damann speaks to students about forensic anthropology

	Scientists share experiences with students to encourage interest in ... Gazette.Net: Maryland Community News Online Franklin Damann, forensic anthropologist at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Silver Spring, spoke to students at Rockville High School ...

Newly-created digital archives from African-American psychiatric hospital

Digital Archive to House 100 Years of Historical Documents from World's First Black Mental Institution; UT Scholar Tells Forgotten Story of African-American Psychiatric Patients

Released: 1/23/2014 12:00 PM EST
Source Newsroom: University of Texas at Austin

 

 

http://www.newswise.com/articles/digital-archive-to-house-100-years-of-historical-documents-from-world-s-first-black-mental-institution

 

 

Caricature at the Wellcome Library is online

Artists' Caricatures Show The Macabre History Of Medicine

The Huffington Post  |  By Sara GatesPosted: 01/22/2014http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/22/history-of-medicine-photos-wellcome-images_n_4645670.html

Mutter Museum's Civil War exhibit

Stark Reminders of How Uncivil a War It Was

'Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits' at the Mütter Museum

By DENISE GRADYJAN. 20, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/science/broken-bodies-suffering-spirits-at-the-mutter-museum.html

Indiana Medical History Museum profiled after brain thefts

This is a nice little museum with a great operating theater.

	Brain thefts boost attendance at tiny museum USA TODAY - The medical museum had an exhibit in 2010 called "The Resurrectionists: Body Snatching in Indiana," which recalled a string of grave robberies in ...

National Library of Medicine's World War I digitization

National Library of Medicine appears to be scanning World War I books and putting them on the Medical Heritage Library. As of now, 32 are cataloged and tagged. There's some obscure-looking material there.

Newly found dissection photo

My good friend Jim Edmonson put together a book of dissection photographs a couple of years ago. Since then, I've been keeping my eyes open for them. Here's one from a collection recently transferred to BUMED's Office of Medical History. Alexander Lyle, one of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery graduates won a Medal of Honor in World War I.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/navymedicine/12000032284/

Jan 22: Drawing History: Telling the Stories of Science through Comics and Graphic Novels

On January 22 the Chemical Heritage Foundation will present a live webcast exploring how graphic novels, comic books, and animation are used to tell true stories about science. Titled "Drawing History: Telling the Stories of Science through Comics and Graphic Novels," the webcast will feature graphic novelist Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and historian of science Bert Hansen. Our guests will discuss the power of visual media in telling history.

Jonathan Fetter-Vorm is the author of Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb, which merges text and imagery to vividly detail the race to build and the decision to drop the first atomic bombs.

Bert Hansen is professor of history of science and medicine at Baruch College of The City University of New York. His book, Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio, shows how mass-media images both shaped and reflected popular attitudes to medicine from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. Professor Hansen has also contributed to Chemical Heritage magazine.

 

You are invited to watch this discussion via webcast. "Drawing History: Telling the Stories of Science through Comics and Graphic Novels" will air at 6:30 p.m. EST at chemheritage.org/histchem.

 

For further information contact Michal Meyer via e-mail at MMeyer@chemheritage.org or call her at 215 873-8217.

West Virginia medical museum proposed

Doctor hopes to bring children's medical museum to the city Huntington Herald Dispatch Dr. Ali Oliashirazi laid out his plans for the Huntington Children's Medical Museum during his inaugural presidential address at the society's first ...

Mutter Museum specimen used to track cholera dna

With Help of Victims From 1849, Scientists Decode Early Strain of Cholera

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

JAN. 8, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/09/science/with-help-of-victims-from-1849-scientists-decode-early-strain-of-cholera.html

Turkish medical museum to open

cal museum"

EXHIBITIONS > Seljuk Museum set to open in central Anatolian ... Hurriyet Daily News Some parts of the museum will focus on the Seljuk civilization and other parts have been organized as a medical museum, which highlights the ...	Hurriyet Daily News

Brain samples stolen from Indiana medical museum

Brain samples stolen from Indiana medical museum nwitimes.com INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Authorities say a man stole brain samples of long-dead mental patients from the Indiana Medical History Museum that were ...

Philly.com

Daily Heller blog on French medical packaging.

More French Medical Fun

By: Steven Heller | January 2, 2014

Vintage medical and medicinal products in France are designed second to none. The typographic flair and aesthetic joie de vivre are apparent in all the sundries and druggist's wares. Here are a few I just picked up.

http://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/more-french-medical-fun/

BUMED's 1500th item uploaded to Medical Heritage Library is WW2 POW journal

Today we've uploaded our 1500th item to the Medical Heritage Library. It's a journal kept by a Pharmacists Mate in a Japanese prison throughout World War II.  Our main page is at https://archive.org/details/usnavybumedhistoryoffice and includes Navy Medicine magazine and other publications, ephemera and a few manuscripts.  Robert Kentner's journal information follows.

https://archive.org/details/KentnersJournal
Kentner's Journal.
Bilibid Prison, Manila, P.I. from 12-8-41 to 2-5-45.

A Daily Journal of Events Connected with the Personnel of the U. S. NAVAL HOSPITAL, CANACAO, P. I . From the Outbreak of the War in the Philippine Islands 12-8-41 Until the Liberation of Bilibid Prison
2-8-45.
By Robert W. Kentner, PhM1c USN
A Prisoner in Bilibid
*****
This journal was presented to the Hospital Corps Archives Unit, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, by the Author, on 21 April, 1945, after his arrival as a repatriated prisoner of war at the U.S. Naval Hospital, Bethesda, Md.



Michael Rhode
Archivist / Curator
US Navy BUMED Office of Medical History
703-681-2539
michael.rhode@med.navy.mil

mailing address:
7700 Arlington Blvd
Falls Church, VA 22042

physical address:
BUMED Detachment, Falls Church.
Four Skyline Place, Suite 602,
5113 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA

Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh gets new funding

I really enjoyed this museum when I was there a few years back.

Historical medical museum to get multi-million pound upgrade stv.tv An Edinburgh museum - home to one of the UK's largest and most historic collection of surgical pathology artefacts - is to be transformed with the help of a £2.7 ... See all stories on this topic »	Stornoway Gazette
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh's museum to get £2.7 ... BBC News Open to the public since 1832, it is Scotland's oldest medical museum. The museum charts the transition of medicine from witchcraft through to science.

Nice "found" bit of history on artificial legs, ca. 1885.

Ghosts of DC at http://ghostsofdc.org/2013/12/02/amazingly-detailed-fords-theatre-photo-1870s/ discusses a picture of Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, but also notes that an artificial limb store can be seen in the photo, and then quotes an 1886 Wash. Post article w/ the owner.

The Army Medical Museum & Library would have been in Ford's at this time, as was the Records and Pension Office (which did the research on Civil War pension claims).

Mike Rhode