New collection available in Archives

Guide # OHA 227.05 - Personal papers - [McGrath Notebooks]

Two notebooks from Thomas  McGrath with course notes on Experimental Physiology and Physiological Chemistry from classes at Albany Medical College, 1906-1907.

NY Times on cancer research

Today's Times has a very interesting article on how cancer research grants now go to the cautious - quite a change from the way Bert Hansen described late 19th and early 20th century medical research in his book.

Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe
By GINA KOLATA
Published: June 28, 2009
A major impediment in the fight against cancer is that most research grants go to projects unlikely to break much ground.

Bert's book has quite a bit on antitoxins, serums and therapies derived from attenuated germs in animals. So much so that I was planning on writing to him and asking if he knew why nobody was using these types of methods anymore, in favor of relying on vaccination and antibiotics. At one point he noted that there were over 70 different tuberculosis serums - if drug-resistant TB continues to evolve, and by definition it will, one would think this earlier cure holds new promise.

However, this article from tomorrow's paper harks back to the future, and again, Bert's book can shed light on these historical techniques being rediscovered.

New Treatment for Cancer Shows Promise in Testing
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: June 29, 2009
A new method of attacking cancer cells, developed by researchers in Australia, has proved surprisingly effective in animal tests.

Medical exhibit at Smithsonian Folklife Festival

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is going on this week, and in the Wales section is a small exhibit on the history of medicine.



Wales turns out to be a major source for medicinal leeches, sold by Biopharma.

There is also a small display of historical pharmaceuticals.



Pill rollers aren't all that uncommon even now, but that's a nice ledger and some good ephemera in the labels.



The largest section was a medical garden.







The exhibit is up through July 5th

I hate flies

Liz was in the archives today, looking at some of our original medical illustrations in preparation for her class on doing, um, medical illustrations. You might think we know every scrap of paper we have in the archives but that's just not the case. I know for a fact that even Mike doesn't know everything. That's just so refreshing to say.

Anyway, she found two pen-and-ink drawings made by the Medical Illustration Service for disease prevention that I'd never seen before. The originals are much better than what's reproduced here, but they're a great example of one kind of work the Medical Museum illustrators did.

Typhoid Mary prepares food

From the barnyard to your plate

PICTURING MEDICAL PROGRESS FROM PASTEUR TO POLIO draws on Otis Archives

My friend Bert Hansen's got an excellent new book out, PICTURING MEDICAL PROGRESS FROM PASTEUR TO POLIO: A History of Mass Media Images and Popular Attitudes in America that includes a minuscule amount of research from the Medical Museum (and cites me in the acknowledgments, but don't buy it just because of that). I'm about 1/3 of the way through and learning about the history of both medicine and cartoons.

I'm really enjoying his look at the graphic history (including editorial cartoons and comic books) of medicine. Bert's explanations of the shifting cultural view of medicine resulting from mass media, especially regarding both the transmittal of knowledge to a wider audience than ever before, and, as he points out most convincingly in this book, for the public support of science and medicine, is wildly overlooked in the field at large. His website has reproductions of some of the cartoons and he's planning on adding to it.

Here's the official PR:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PICTURING MEDICAL PROGRESS FROM PASTEUR TO POLIO
A History of Mass Media Images and Popular Attitudes in America
Bert Hansen

“Bert Hansen’s rich exploration of the intersection of popular culture and the history of medicine opens wide a window on a time between the 1880s and the 1950s when physicians, nurses, and scientists were highly regarded warriors against disease and human suffering. It is a major contribution to our understanding of how medicine’s cultural authority was established and expanded in the United States, vital to scholars and valuable to those who hope to spark a renewed enthusiasm among Americans for the study of science and medicine.”
—Alan Kraut, professor of history, American University

Today, pharmaceutical companies, HMOs, insurance carriers, and the health care system in general may often puzzle and frustrate the general public—and even physicians and researchers. By contrast, from the 1880s through the 1950s Americans enthusiastically embraced medicine and its practitioners. PICTURING MEDICAL PROGRESS FROM PASTEUR TO POLIO (Paper $37.95, ISBN: 978-0-8135-4576-9, July 2009), by Bert Hansen, offers a refreshing portrait of an era when the public excitedly anticipated medical progress and research breakthroughs.

PICTURING MEDICAL PROGRESS FROM PASTEUR TO POLIO is a unique study with 130 archival illustrations drawn from newspaper sketches, caricatures, comic books, Hollywood films, and LIFE magazine photography. This book analyzes the relationship between mass media images and popular attitudes. Bert Hansen considers the impact these representations had on public attitudes and shows how media portrayal and popular support for medical research grew together and reinforced each other.

“This book is analytical, nostalgic, sensitive, and just plain fun. Bert Hansen's meticulous privileging of the visual is a pathbreaking achievement for methods in the social and cultural history of medicine. You can be rewarded simply by looking at the wonderful pictures, but you will ‘see’ so much more in his lively prose.”
—Jacalyn Duffin, Hannah Professor, Queen's University, and former
president of the American Association for the History of Medicine

“Even as a long-time collector of medical prints, I learned a lot from this extraordinary book. Hansen's digging has turned up many discoveries, providing a new perspective on graphic art in popular culture. The images are wonderful, but this is not just a picture book; it's a great read as well, filled with remarkable insights.”
—William Helfand, trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

“PICTURING MEDICAL PROGRESS FROM PASTEUR TO POLIO is an authoritative, well-written account that will be a significant contribution not only to the history of American medicine, but to the history of American popular culture.”
—Elizabeth Toon, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester


BERT HANSEN, a professor of history at Baruch College, has published a book on medieval science and many articles on the history of modern medicine and public health.

PICTURING MEDICAL PROGRESS FROM PASTEUR TO POLIO
A History of Mass Media Images and Popular Attitudes in America
Bert Hansen

Paper $37.95 | ISBN 978-0-8135-4576-9
Cloth $75.00 | ISBN 978-0-8135-4526-4 | 350 pages | 7 x 10

Publication Date: July 2009

AFIP: Supplemental Appropriation Bill signed by President with moratorium language

Office of the Press Secretary

_______________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                 June 24, 2009

 

The President released a statement after signing HR 2346 in the Oval Office:

 

"I want to thank the Members of Congress who put politics aside and stood up to support a bill that will provide for the safety of our troops and the American people. This legislation will make available the funding necessary to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end, defeat terrorist networks in Afghanistan, and further prepare our nation in the event of a continued outbreak of the H1N1 pandemic flu."

 

Final Moratorium Language for Public Law No: 111-32

 

“Sec. 1001. None of the funds appropriated in this or any other Act may be used to disestablish, reorganize, or relocate the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology , except for the Armed Forces Medical Examiner and the National Museum of Health and Medicine, until the President has established, as required by section 722 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Public Law 110-181; 122 Stat. 199; 10 U.S.C. 176 note), a Joint Pathology Center , and the Joint Pathology Center is demonstrably performing the minimum requirements set forth in section 722 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.”

 

The President signed the supplemental yesterday afternoon, with the moratorium language in it.

 

Florabel G. Mullick, MD, ScD, FCAP

Senior Executive Service

The Director

 

AFIP's Armed Forces Medical Examiner featured on Fresh Air

Slain Soldiers Offer Clues To Protect The Living

Fresh Air from WHYY, June 24, 2009 · In previous wars, fallen soldiers rarely received post-mortem examinations, but that changed in 2001, when the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology began conducting autopsies on all slain service men and women. In 2004, the examinations were expanded to include CT scans.

CT Scans help show the pathway of wounds caused by bullets or shrapnel so that a less invasive autopsy can be conducted. While this improves the work of doctors, the data has a grim upside.

Captain Craig T. Mallak, a pathologist and lawyer who is also the chief of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, describes how the physical and sometimes virtual autopsies of soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan have not only assisted in the design of body armor, helmets and vehicle shields, but medical equipment as well.

One specific example is the recent improvement of chest tubes used buy combat medics. By examining 100 Ct Scans and measuring wounds, doctors found that because soldiers were in better shape than civilians, they needed longer tubes and needles to penetrate the chest wall and reach the collapsed lung.

Combat medics now carry the improved equipment on the battlefield.

Brush your teeth

Here's a pretty neat super-zoom of the surface of a tooth.

Just ignore the flat-stomach ad off to the right of the video - they're not talking to you.

Seminary tours

The Seminary at Forest Glenn, the former’s girl school turned Army base, turned condos, has a tour this weekend:

 

http://www.saveourseminary.org/schedules.html

 

Visitors to the Museum can see a mural by Jack McMillen of how the Seminary appeared during World War 2.

 

NYTimes on traumatic brain injury research

The Museum has an extremely large collection of brains and slices thereof that can be used in this type of research. For information on current research in other places, see A Chance for Clues to Brain Injury in Combat Blasts
By ALAN SCHWARZ
Published: June 23, 2009
Twenty members of the military have donated their brain tissue upon death to help scientists determine the effects of blast injuries on the brain.

FW: Interested in medical illustration? Register today for NMHM's FREE medical illustration class, July 11th.

 

 

“An Introduction to Techniques in Medical Illustration”

When: Saturday, July 11, 2009 (1:00 – 4:00 p.m.)

 

Where: National Museum of Health and Medicine

 

What: This workshop will explore the delicate beauty of traditional carbon dust illustration. While working from real specimens, participants will learn about the careful observation and drawing techniques required to create beautiful and accurate drawings using carbon dust, colored pencil, and ink. Ages 13 to adult. All levels welcome.

 

Course leader: Elizabeth Lockett, Scientific Illustrator and Collections Manager of the Museum’s Human Developmental Anatomy Center

 

Pre-registration is required by July 1, 2009: (202) 782-2673. Class limited to 15 students.

 

Cost: FREE!

 

Photo ID required.

 

Information: nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil or (202) 782-2673

 

www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum

And here I thought no one read us

Mike sent this email around today. I don't know why he didn't post it here already - I know he's not shy so that can't be the reason.

The Medical Museion blog mentioned their blog rank and put a link to a blog ranking site - so I checked it out.

We’re #6, right above them, and higher than any art museums whom I expected would fill the top tier.

To be honest, I have no idea how they figure this out and looking at individual stats further down makes our whole ranking look fishy, but it was neat to see.

National Dental Museum in Baltimore seeks director

Here’s the announcement –

 

Director - National Museum of Dentistry - Baltimore, MD

http://www.museumprofessionals.org/forum/administrators/4551-director-national-museum-dentistry-baltimore-md.html

 

User-friendly syringes

From Core77, a design blog, comes news of a disposable syringe designed by the kitchen-tool people, OXO, for people with rheumatoid arthritis. I love ideas like this. The top of the picture shows the 5 newly-designed areas, plus they added easy-open packaging.

NMHM staff member attending cadaver prosection course

This local Indiana online news network talks about the cadaver prosection course that an NMHM staff member attended last year, and another is planning to attend this year.  

 

http://www.valpolife.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2883:iun-announces-2009-participants-in-international-human-cadaver-prosection-program&catid=160:education&Itemid=169

 

Smithsonian anthropologist profiled in Post

Doug Owsley is profiled in "Old West Mystery, Solved in D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Forensic Anthropologists Unravel Buffalo Soldier's Story," By Michael E. Ruane, Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 16, 2009 .

Eadweard Muybridge - an anniversary

Wired.com reports that on this day in 1878, Eadweard Muybridge used "high-speed stop-motion photography to capture a horse's motion." It just so happens we have a few samples of Muybridge's work. Here's (a scan of a photocopy of a copy print) of one of them from our collection.

David Macaulay at Medical Museum

David Macaulay spoke for 50 minutes at the Medical Museum today. He covered a few sections of his new book on the human body (of which originals are on display), showed some artwork and sketches that didn't go into the book, and it was a very good talk. He's speaking again twice on Saturday, June 13th so cruise 16th St and check it out.

TB Sanatorium records donated today

Charlotte Perry donated George Ellis Mills' records to the archives today. Mills, Charlotte's grandfather, was Director of the Boehne Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Evansville, Indiana, in the 1920s, until his untimely death in 1929. We received annual reports (no, no, not the boring, all-number kind; these have a lot of interesting narrative about the hospital with some great photos as illustrations), typewritten manuscripts about the rules and regulations there, more transcripts about tuberculosis, and 5 panoramic photos of staff and patients. I'll be making a finding aid next week, which will give me more time to read everything and scan some of the photos from the annual reports.

2057 new computer catalogue records added in Emu today

Catalogue records for 2057 files/folders from the Archives’ Medical Ephemera collection of clippings, brochures and pamphlets were imported as titles into our new computer catalogue EMU today. These are from 3 series – biographical, organizational and subject files. An example would read as: Ephemera - Trade Literature - folder - Barton, Clara (1821-1912) [Medical Ephemera] so when we eventually get the catalogue online you could search on *Barton in the titles, and you’ll get this file. In the meantime, you can still use this static (and sorry, out of date) finding aid at http://www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum/collections/archives/asearch/afinding_aids/ephemera/ephemera.html