St Roch's cemetery gate

St Roch gate
Originally uploaded by tiz_herself

On a visit to New Orleans this weekend, I saw mention of a cemetery founded by a priest in thanksgiving for his parishioners being spared death by yellow fever. Apparently those interred here died of something other than yellow fever. Well, I had to go see this place and thought I finally found somewhere that Joanna of Morbid Anatomy had not been. No. Not only did she beat me there, she got pictures of the discarded prosthetics room with the gate open; I had to make do shooting through the bars. Follow this picture back to the rest I've posted on my flickr page.

Finds from the Carnegie Reprints

Found an article called "Irrational Elements in Some Theories of Life" by C. P. Raven, 1956. Its opening paragraphs really struck me.

"One of the starting points of modern (study of significance) is the recognition that the words of everyday language for each person are charged with a complex of 'meanings', and that part of this complex of meanings, of emotional and volitional elements, is taken over in the language of science.

As the progress of science is entirely dependent on the mutual understanding between people working in the same field, it is important at least to recognize these irrational elements in our scientific thinking, and were possible to eliminate them..."

So much information is presented to us these days from so many sources, how often do we stop to think about the "emotional and volitional elements" that had probably colored what was said?

Preserving poster sessions

I was given a couple of cds of AFIP poster sessions by the IT department guy who puts them together. I got 83 attached to the online catalogue today – barely catalogued themselves, but still findable, and not dependent on cd technology, or the hard drive of one computer.

Morphine and PTSD

An interesting article in the Post looks at a new claim that morphine can prevent PTSD. "Morphine found to help stave off PTSD in wounded troops," By David Brown, Thursday, January 14, 2010.

Article link: Fort Detrick to inherit medical museum

Fort Detrick to inherit medical museum Originally published January 12, 2010 By Megan Eckstein News-Post Staff http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?storyid=99997

Fort Detrick will bring a renowned medical museum under its control, as the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington prepares to close and scatters its resources to local military installations....

Lexie Lord's 'Condom Nation' reviewed by Post

Alexandra Lord was the US Public Health Service Historian after John Parascandola, and there must be something about that position, because they both wrote books about sexually-transmitted disease education. Lexie's is reviewed in today's Washington Post -

Book review: Susan Jacoby reviews 'Condom Nation' by Alexandra Lord
By Susan Jacoby
Sunday, January 10, 2010

CONDOM NATION
The U.S. Government's Sex Education Campaign From World War I to the Internet
By Alexandra M. Lord
Johns Hopkins Univ. 224 pp. $40

One slight note about the review - there seems to be some confusion about the various Surgeon Generals. There are four SGs in the US government - Army, Navy, Air Force and Public Health Service. The article is illustrated by a poster from the US Navy, a poster by the US Army is quoted in the review, and the book itself is on the PHS Surgeon General of course.

Primate Researcher Bluntschli

Emmy was organizing our bio-files this week and made some fun finds. These are from the Bluntschli file. The photo on the left is a post card from his travels in Madagascar around the turn of the last century. Dr Bluntschli did some seminal work in describing the primates and other animals there. He clearly had a great sense of humor. Many of the specimens can be found at the American Museum of Natural History.

Kindred embryology notebook

From the Kindred notebook. An interesting end of career project. For all you students out there this is a great example of what a lab notebook should look like.

(this notebook was discovered mixed in with Registry of Noteworthy Pathology records by Ass't Archivist Stocker, and we've housed it in the Human Developmental Anatomy Center for researchers - Mike Rhode)

Addition to the Archives

While cleaning out boxes that hadn’t been looked at in a while, I found a 2-ring binder of notes and drawings done by James E. Kindred in 1959. He was a Ph.D. in the Anatomy Department at the University of Virginia and the binder is a record of some studies on vestigial tail (embryology). This is a kind of find we call “Found in Collection.” When I googled his name to find out more about him, it looks like he had a long career: I found articles published as early as 1929. If his name rings a bell, please let us know.

Miscellaneous Articles, Chiefly Interesting as Curiosities

I’ve been busy uploading PDFs of our scanned curatorial logbooks to our in-house database (and to a lesser extent to the Internet Archive, although they will all be eventually put there too), and came across a few entries in the logbook with the above title. I mean, how could you not open this one up for a look, with a title like that?

 

“One foot of submarine telegraph cable. It is made of copper wire, coated with gutta-percha cased in tarred [coke?] and spirally wrapped with twelve strands of iron wire in one layer. Believed to have been laid by the Rebels between forts Gregg and Sumter and Charleston, and to have been contributed by Acting Assistant Surgeon H.K. Neff.”

 

“Four arrows pulled from the bodies of men slain in the massacre at Ft. Phillip Kearney December 1866. The one with a head is an ordinary hunting, showing that they are also sometimes used in war. Contributed by Bvt. Lt. Col. H.S. Schell, Asst. Surg. USA.”

 

“A crudely fashioned strap, two inches wide made of Army cloth and fastened with two buckles, which was successfully used by a malingerer to induce atrophy of the right leg. Private Ira A. Davidson. E. 13 Connecticut at Knight U.S.A. General Hospital, New Haven, Connecticut.”

 

“A carved soapstone pipe from the West Coast of America. Presented by Mr. J.B. McGuire.”

 

 

 

 

Good summary of influenza response in NY Times

The Museum had an epidemiologist from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research speaking last month, and he noted that if you prevent an epidemic, you never know. His example was West Nile Fever - he said that if you had completely fogged New York City the first year it showed up, and killed all mosquitoes, it wouldn't be established in the US -- but would the political cost have been possible to do that? Especially since one would never have seen the following year's hysteria?

U.S. Reaction to Swine Flu: Apt and Lucky
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: January 2, 2010
Medical experts have found that a series of rapid but conservative decisions by federal officials worked out better than many had dared hope.

Meanwhile, over on our Flickr site

Kathleen's put up some pages I was surprised by on our Flickr site. We've had some logbooks from the 19th-century scanned, but I didn't remember that the logbook of woodcuts had the actual Civil War woodcut prints pasted into it. Very cool. These are for the Medical and Surgical History again.

It looks like we're wrapping up the year with slightly under a million views - 906,255 at the moment. Or maybe 1,165,674. We've never been quite sure of how they measure.

Army Medical Museum mention in American History

I was pleased to find the Civil War history, the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion by the Army Medical Museum on display in an exhibit on images in books, "Picturing Words: The Power of Book Illustration" by Smithsonian Institution Libraries. The exhibit is at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

AUGUST 2010 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN CADAVER PROSECTION PROGRAM

******   11th ANNUAL SESSION   ******

All interested parties are invited to apply for the

AUGUST 2010 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN CADAVER PROSECTION PROGRAM

August 3 - 5

at the Indiana University School of Medicine - Northwest Dunes Medical
Professional Building 3400 Broadway Gary, Indiana 46408

NEW APPLICATION DEADLINE:       *** APRIL 15, 2010 ***

PROGRAM SPONSORS: Rocco Prosthetics & Orthotic Center (Cincinnati, OH) &
MORTECH Manufacturing (Azusa, CA).

Applications for the August 2010 INTERNATIONAL Human Cadaver Prosection Program are now being accepted.   All participants will learn human gross anatomy, radiology/medical imaging, and the art of skillful dissection of human cadavers.  The CADAVER PROGRAM is an intensive experience of "hands-on" dissection.  Participants who complete the program will receive a certificate of completion and certification for work with biohazards & blood-borne pathogens.  SPECIAL Awards will be presented. [CME Credit is offered]

Representatives from Zimmer, Inc. (Zimmer Orthopedics) will conduct an on-site surgical, orthopedic workshop, and Rocco Prosthetics will present a special prosthetic session.

The Cadaver Prosection will be held on Wednesday, August 4 and Thursday, August 5, 2010, from 7:45 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., and will include 3 evenings of preparatory work in late June (out-of-state participants need not be present for the June sessions).

NEW EVENTS for 2010 include:
Anatomy Research & Clinical Session (June)   -    Suturing Workshop* (Aug.  3rd)   -   IHCPP Reception (Aug.  3rd)
Expanded Hands-On Medical Imaging of Human Cadavers:  US, CT Scan, MRI Scan, plain x-ray (July)*

*Selection of participants to take place in mid-May

TO APPLY for this program and  DOWNLOAD the COMPLETE SUMMER EVENTS SCHEDULE, FLYER and NEW PROGRAM BROCHURE, place the web address (below) into your browser, and then scroll down and click on the AUGUST 2010 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN CADAVER PROSECTION PROGRAM link.

http://medicine.iu.edu/body.cfm?id=4951&oTopID=225

You need not be a medical professional or pre-medical student to participate.  All are encouraged to apply.  Prior participants have included pre-med and pre-vet, nursing, radiologic technology, mortuary science students, other undergraduate and graduate students, teachers, attorneys, lab technicians, etc.  All application materials must be received no later than APRIL 15, 2010.  Accepted applicants will receive notification in early May.  Training begins in June 2010.

For information contact:
Ernest F. Talarico, Jr., Ph.D.
Assistant Director of Medical Education & Assistant Professor of Anatomy
& Cell Biology Director, INTERNATIONAL Human Cadaver Prosection Program
TEL:  (219) 981-4356;  FAX:  (219) 980-6566
Email:  cadaver@iun.edu (Prosection Program); etalaric@iun.edu (IUSM-NW)

Ophthalmologist William Holland Wilmer's legacy in two DC institutions

Here's William Holland Wilmer's plaque at National Cathedral.



We have his ophthalmoscopes. I was surprised to see his name on a post-Christmas visit to the Cathedral.

Mini Book Review: Cranioklepty: Graverobbing and the Search for Genius by Colin Dickey.

$25.95 / $30.95 Can | Non-Fiction Hardcover | 6x9 | 272 pages

September 2009

ISBN: 978-1-932961-86-7

http://unbridledbooks.com/our_books/book/cranioklepty/

This is an entertaining book about the posthumous history of the skulls of a few select famous people, as well as those individuals involved in keeping the skulls and parts thereof above ground. The skulls of Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig Beethoven, Emmanuel Swedenborg and Sir Thomas Brown are each discussed in detail. Dickey does an excellent job retelling the stories of each skull and his historical details contextualize the stories quite nicely.

Dickey claims that phrenology, the 19^th century pseudoscientific belief that personality and mental ability could be determined via skull morphology, was the main reason for acquiring these skulls. While he does a good job summarizing the history of phrenology, he places an unnecessary emphasis on using it as the rationale for the collecting of famous skulls rather than the more likely rationales of some form of fetishism or for keeping a personal souvenir of a revered person (think along the lines of the purported remains of saints and religious figures).

While phrenology may have had a role in the creation of large collections of some early craniologists, it does not sufficiently explain the singular thefts of opportunistic grave robbers. Admittedly some of the thieves held the then-popular belief that the shape of the skull revealed the high character of its owner, but that is flimsy evidence that they carried out their secret deeds to further the science of phrenology. Non-academic collectors of human remains still exist, even today, though phrenology is thoroughly discredited.

The stories of the skulls are interesting on their own, but the justification of ‘the search for genius’ subtitle is lacking. Overall, I recommend the book for its historical interest, but as a practicing physical anthropologist, and as such, an admittedly biased critic, I was under whelmed by the contextualization of the stories within the framework of early studies of cranial variation. Such studies, broadly referred to as craniology, were common during the mid 19th century and were part of a search for anatomical basis for intelligence, but unfortunately do little to illuminate the histories of the skulls of these famous men.

-Brian Spatola

The publisher provided the book gratis to Bottled Monsters for the purpose of review.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE TO RELOCATE TO SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND

Contact Information: Tim Clarke, Jr., Deputy Director for Communications, (202) 782-2672, timothy.clarke@afip.osd.mil

 

 

 

 

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE TO

RELOCATE TO SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND

Museum to construct new facility on U.S. Army post known as Forest Glen Annex

 

December 23, 2009, Washington, D.C. – The National Museum of Health and Medicine of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology will relocate to a new state-of-the-art facility in Silver Spring, Maryland, built by Costello Construction of Columbia, Maryland. The relocation is a result of the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission decision to close Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

 

“The Museum is ready for this exciting phase in our relocation,” said Adrianne Noe, Ph.D., Director of the Museum. “We’re encouraged by the warm welcome we’ve received as we engage the local and state community about the Museum’s move into Montgomery County, Maryland. And we’re especially pleased with the support we’re receiving from Ft. Detrick as we look forward to working with them on the Forest Glen Annex campus.”

 

Staff are actively working on prospective exhibit and interpretive plans while, at the same time, working to best integrate the Museum’s vast collections, all with an eye on maintaining and amplifying the Museum’s mission. As plans for exhibit development and public access become more certain, information will be posted to the Museum’s Web site.

 

The Museum’s new facility will include collections management space as well as public exhibitions and offices. A construction schedule has yet to be set but the building is scheduled to be fully functional as of September 15, 2011.

 

Today, a bit of history from the Forest Glen Annex is on display at the Museum. Restored to its original condition is a painting by Jack McMillen, depicting life at the hospital annex during World War II when the facility housed a major U.S. Army rehabilitation facility. The painting, entitled “Psychiatric Patients at Forest Glen,” is an incredible 7 feet by 10 feet and is hanging at the Museum near artifacts related to Major Walter Reed. 

 

All questions and comments may be directed to Tim Clarke, Jr., NMHM Deputy Director for Communications, phone (202) 782-2672, email timothy.clarke@afip.osd.mil.

 

About the National Museum of Health and Medicine:

• The National Museum of Health and Medicine of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, established in 1862, inspires interest in and promotes the understanding of medicine—past, present, and future—with a special emphasis on tri-service American military medicine. As a National Historic Landmark recognized for its ongoing value to the health of the military and to the nation, the Museum identifies, collects, and preserves important and unique resources to support a broad agenda of innovative exhibits, educational programs, and scientific, historical, and medical research. The Museum is an element of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), a tri-service Army, Navy and Air Force agency of the Department of Defense with a threefold mission of consultation, education and research. The Museum is located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. Visit the Museum Web site at www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum or call (202) 782-2200.

 

###

 

Yakovlev collection mentioned in passing in brain dissection article

This article is quite interesting in its own right, but also mentions “Perhaps the best-known pioneer of such whole-brain sectioning is Dr. Paul Ivan Yakovlev, who built a collection of slices from hundreds of brains now kept at a facility in Washington.” The facility is our medical museum and we’re busy digitizing slides and records from the collection.

 

Building a Search Engine of the Brain, Slice by Slice

By BENEDICT CAREY

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/health/22brain.html

 

December 22, 2009

 

Museum closed on Monday, December 21

The Federal Government in DC is closed on December 21 due to the snowstorm, so the Medical Museum will closed.

Sept 2010: European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences

The 15th biannual conference of the European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences (EAMHMS) will be held at the University of Copenhagen, 16–19 September, 2010.

This year's cross-disciplinary conference focuses on the challenge to museums posed by contemporary developments in medical science and technology.

The image of medicine that emerges from most museum galleries and exhibitions is still dominated by pre-modern and modern understandings of an anatomical and physiological body, and by the diagnostic and therapeutical methods and instruments used to intervene with the body at the `molar' and tangible level – limbs, organs, tissues, etc.

The rapid transition in the medical and health sciences and technologies over the last 50 years – towards a molecular understanding of human body in health and disease and the rise of a host of molecular and digital technologies for investigating and intervening with the body – is still largely absent in museum collections and exhibitions.

As a consequence, the public can rarely rely on museums to get an understanding of the development and impact of the medical and health sciences in the last 50 years. Biochemistry and molecular biology have resulted in entirely new diagnostic methods and therapeutic regimes and a flourishing biotech industry. The elucidation of the human genome and the emergence of proteomics has opened up the possibility of personalised molecular medicine. Advances in the material sciences and information technology have given rise to a innovative and highly productive medical device industry, which is radically transforming medical practices. But few museums have so far engaged seriously and in a sustained way with these and similar phenomena in the recent history of medical sciences and technologies.

The contemporary transition in medical and health science and technology towards molecularisation, miniaturisation, mediated visualisation, digitalisation and intangibilisation is a major challenge for the museum world; not only for medical museums, but also for museums of science and technology, and indeed for all kinds of museums with an interest in the human body and the methods for intervening with it, including art museums, natural history museums and museums of cultural history.

Contemporary medicine is not only a challenge to exhibition design practices and public outreach strategies but also to acquisition methodologies, collection management and collection-based research. How do museums today handle the material and visual heritage of contemporary medical and health science and technology? How do curators wield the increasing amount and kinds of intangible scientific and digital objects? Which intellectual, conceptual, and practical questions does this challenge give rise to?

The conference will address questions like (but not limited to):

+ How can an increasingly microanatomical, molecularised, invisible and intangible (mediated) human body be represented in a museum setting? Does the post-anatomical body require new kinds of museum displays?
+ How can museums make sense of contemporary molecular-based and digitalised diagnostic and thereapeutic technologies, instrumentation and investigation practices in their display practices?
+ How can museums make use of their older collections together with new acquisitions from contemporary medicine and health science and technology?
+ What is the role of the visual vs. the non-visual (hearing, smell, taste, touch) senses in curatorial practice and in the public displays of contemporary medical science and technology?
+ What can museums learn from science centers, art-science event venues etc. with respect to the public engagement with contemporary medical science and technology? And, vice versa, what can museums provide that these institutions cannot?
+ How can museums draw on bioart, `wet art' and other art forms to stimulate public engagement with the changing medical and health system?
+ How does physical representations of contemporary medicine in museum spaces relate to textual representations in print and digital representations on the web?
+ How can museums integrate emerging social web technologies (Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) in the build-up of medical and health exhibitions?
+ What kind of acquisition methods and policies are needed for museums to catch up with the development of contemporary medical science and technology, especially the proliferation of molecular and digital artefacts and images?
+ What kind of problems do museum encounter when they expand the acquisition domain from traditional textual, visual and tangible material objects to digital artefacts (including software, audio- and videorecordings, and digitally stored data) and non-tangible scientific objects.
+ How can participatory acquisitioning, crowd-sourcing, wiki-based methods, etc. (`museum 2.0') be employed for the preservation and curation of the contemporary medical heritage?
+ How can curatorial work in museums draw on medical research and engineering and on academic scholarship in the humanities and social sciences? And, vice versa, how can museums contribute to medical teaching and research and how can their collections stimulate the use of physical objects in the humanities and social sciences?

The conference will employ a variety of session formats. In addition to keynotes and sessions with individual presentations of current research and curatorial work there will also be discussion panels and object demonstration workshops.

We welcome submissions from a wide range of scholars and specialists – including, for example, curators in medical, science and technology museums; scholars in the history, philosophy and social studies of medicine, science and technology; scholars in science and technology studies, science communication studies, museum studies, material studies and visual culture studies; biomedical scientists and clinical specialists; medical, health and pharma industry specialists with an interest in science communication; engineers and designers in the medical device industry; artists, designers and architects with an interest in museum displays, etc.

We are especially interested in presentations that involve the use of material and visual artefacts and we therefore encourage participants to bring illustrative and evocative (tangible or non-tangible) objects for demonstration.

100-300 word proposals for presentations, demonstrations, discussion panels, etc. shall be sent before 28 February 2010 to the chair of the program committee, Thomas Soderqvist, ths@sund.ku.dk.

For further information, see http://tinyurl.com/ylx5atx or contact Thomas Soderqvist, ths@sund.ku.dk. For practical information about travel, accommodation, etc., please contact Anni Harris, konference2010@sund.ku.dk, after 4 January 2010.

The 15th biannual conference of EAMHMS is hosted by Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen.