John's Last Blog - July 27

Over the course of this summer I have learned a lot while working at the Human Developmental Anatomy Center (HDAC). It has been an interesting experience working here as an intern; I have never before worked a 7-8 hour day with the exception of school. During my time here I was assigned a variety of projects. Some of the things I did were creating games relating to the topic of embryology, tying packages to ensure they would not come open when transferred, and in the spare time reading about embryology. One of the things I learned while doing all this is what embryology actually is - the study of the developmental process. I was able to learn things I never knew and things that were not taught in school. I appreciate the guidance of my mentor and her assistant along with the help provided from the other interns. Ultimately, I enjoyed working at HDAC and am saddened as this is my last day and last blog.

Letter of the Day: July 27 - early radiology?

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1622

 

July 27, 1896

 

Queen & Co., Inc.,

1010 Chestnut St.,

Philadelphia, Pa.

 

Gentlemen:

 

Please forward to the Army Medical Museum at your earliest convenience, with bill: 1 Fluorescent screen, 11” x 14”, (tungstate of calcium) for use in contact with plate for lessening time of exposure – the screen to be made as fine as possible to prevent granulation.

 

Very respectfully,

D.L. Huntington

Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,

In charge of Museum and Library Division.

Letter of the Day: July 26

American Museum of Natural History,

Central Park, (77^th St. & 8^th Ave.)

New York, July 26 1880

 

Genl. Geo. A. Otis.

 

Esteemed Sir.

Will you have the kindness to send me a copy of the “List of Specimens in the Anatomical Section of the Army Medical Museum. 1880.” Prefer a copy bound in cloth.

 

I am Sir, with respect,

Very Truly Yours,

James Terry

 

Pl address corr above.

Who is Walter Reed?

Walter Reed was born in Virginia in 1851.  In 1869, after a year of medical school, Reed graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in medicine. He then 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, but did post-graduate education at Johns Hopkins and other places.  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 spent the war studying typhoid fever.  In 1899 during the wake of the Spanish-American War, Reed and Dr. James Carroll (also of the Army Medical Museum) investigated the bacteria thought to cause the disease and concluded that it did not.  In May 1900, Reed headed the Yellow Fever Board, investigating the cause of the fever.  The team, including Reed and Carroll also included Dr. Jesse Lazear and Cuban-born probably-immune Dr. Aristides Agramonte.  The men who all knew each other convened at Columbia Barracks near Havana, Cuba.  Their first accomplishment was to again rule out the recently-proposed bacterial theory. After a prison outbreak when one prisoner was infected and died but the eight other prisoners were not infected, Reed suggested a method of transmission by mosquitoes, which were already known to transmit malaria.  Finlay was contacted and provided mosquitoes for testing and Dr. Lazear, who had previously worked with mosquitoes, began experiments in a lab at the Barracks with them while Reed returned to Washington to finish the Typhoid Board's report.  Since no animals were known to get the fever, the Yellow Fever Board concluded that the ethical experiment would be to try to infect themselves. By having a mosquito bite them, Lazear successfully infected Dr. Carroll and a volunteer soldier named Pvt. William Dean in August.  Lazear though may also have been testing himself for he was infected and died on September 25, 1900.  He had reported being bitten by accident in Havana, but his notes implied he might have experimented on himself; Reed was not sure if Lazear was infected accidentally or purposefully, but accepted the accidental theory.  Lazear's notebooks enabled Reed to study the data Lazear compiled when he returned from the States.  Transmission by mosquito was obvious to the Board at that point and Reed reported that they were the cause in October - after 5 months of work, not a year as stated in the movie.  The Washington Post called the hypothesis "the silliest beyond compare," but in November, Camp Lazear was established as a quarantine site to prove the theory beyond a doubt.    Fourteen American soldiers volunteered and recent Spanish immigrants were hired using the first "informed consent" form.  Private John Kissinger was the first to get the fever, and Charles Sontag, the last. No one in the experiment died, Spanish or American. Congress eventually authorized gold medals for the American volunteers.   Using volunteers, the team also tested the fomite theory with articles fouled with the effusions from yellow fever victims including the dead men's clothes (although they were allowed to eat outside).  This theory was proven wrong - "burst like a bubble" in Reed's words.

 

            Reed realized that the Aedes aegypti  mosquito (which has been renamed three times) carried yellow fever but only under certain conditions.  The female 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.  Reed's team was the first to prove the mechanics of infection of yellow fever.  Since there was no cure or vaccine, soldiers continued to die from the disease, but Gorgas' mosquito control efforts meant by the summer of 1901, Havana was free of yellow fever.  This discovery enabled the United States to essentially eradicate yellow fever within its borders after one last epidemic in New Orleans in 1905.  In Panama, William Gorgas was able to suppress the disease so the Panama Canal could be built, although he was able to use methods such as oiling water so the mosquitoes suffocated. 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.  Although a vaccine was developed in the 1930s, yellow fever is still prevalent in tropical climes due to both a different mosquito vector and the fact that jungle yellow fever, as it is occasionally known, can live in monkeys as well as human hosts.

 

Reed died in 1902, of appendicitis, at Washington Barracks hospital, now on Fort McNair in the District. The hospital named in his honor opened in 1909, and the Museum he headed is open to the public on its grounds until the hospital closes and the Museum moves in 2011.

 

 

 

Letter of the Day: July 25

Nunda, N.Y. July 25 /85
Hon. Geo A Otis
Asst Surgeon USA

My dear Sir

Please send me four sep slips of the printed history of my wound. I refer to Nos. 167, 168, 169, 170 + 186 – my photographs in your Department. You promised me them.

Very Respectfully Your Obedient Servant,
Rowland Ward
Nunda N.Y.

Here's the photographs and printed history that Ward referred to:









ROWLAND WARD 12 YEARS AFTER HIS INJURY. (CP 1150)

Surgical Photos
SP #
167-170, 186

Title (Caption)
CASE OF CHEILOPLASTY.

Name
WARD, ROLAND

Rank
PVT

Company
E

Regiment
4

State
NY

MOS
HEAVY ARTILLERY

Doctor
McKEE, J.C.

Battle
REAM'S STATION

Additional Photos In Series
SP 167-170; CP 1145-50

Comments
CP 1145 SAYS THE BATTLE WAS WELDON RAILROAD.

MSHWR
SURG I, P. 373.

Date of Injury
25 AUG 1864

Galileo's bones go on display

A Museum Display of Galileo Has a Saintly Feel
By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: July 22, 2010

A Florence museum, renamed for Galileo, is exhibiting newly recovered bits of his body as if they were the relics of an actual saint.

Dengue fever, mosquito-borne disease, found in US first time since 1934

Dengue Fever? What About It, Key West Says
By DENISE GRADY and CATHARINE SKIPP
Published: July 23, 2010
Floridians are unsettled by the disease’s impact, and the way the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has publicized it.

Letter of the day, July 24

We still have this painting in our collection, although it's been on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Art. Which might give you the idea it's probably worth more than $350.00.

Army Medical Museum
War Department
Washington, D.C.

July 24, 1936.

MEMORANDUM for the Executive Office, S.G.O.:

1. You will note from the attached letter that the Museum has been left a legacy consisting of a portrait of the first curator, Dr. John H. Brinton, Surgeon, U.S. Volunteers. It is very appropriate that this portrait should hang in the Museum and we will be very glad to receive it. Such a portrait is of great sentimental value to the Museum but it probably would have little monetary value in the open market, although it is valued at $350.00 in the letter.

2. An opinion is desired from the Judge-Advocate General's Department as to our legal right to accept this legacy and as to whether or not the Museum would be required to pay the Pennsylvania inheritance tax.

[signed] Hugh R. Gilmore, Jr.
Captain, Medical Corps, U.S.A.
Acting Curator

HRG/M
(Encl.)

Who is George Otis?

Dr. George Otis must be regarded as one of the mainstays of the Museum. He served for 17 years until his early death at 50 in 1881. Under his direction, the second, much larger Catalogue of the Army Medical Museum and the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion were published, as well as many shorter monographs. Over 100 years after his death, Otis has become something of a cipher. His personal life is hard to trace. He married Pauline Baury in 1850. They had three children, Agnes Pauline, Anna Maria, and Alfred Louis, but only the girls seem to have survived to adulthood. His wife apparently died as well, since in 1869 he married Genevieve Poe and later disinherited her for abandonment. Thousands of pages of his official correspondence exist, but the formal style of the nineteenth century gives little feeling for the man. We can turn instead to his friends. Otis is described by his colleague J.J. Woodward as, "Hesitating, often embarrassed in his manner in ordinary conversation, especially with strangers, he became eloquent when warmed by the discussion of any topic in which he took interest." Otis was born in Boston on November 12, 1830. His father died before his first birthday and his mother returned with her son to her native Virginia. Otis had an undistinguished career at Princeton, preferring to read French literature instead of the assigned material. He returned to Virginia and privately studied in Richmond. He received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in April, 1851. He spent the rest of that year and the next studying in Paris. A coup d'etat gave him the opportunity to begin a first-hand study of military medicine. He returned to Virginia in spring 1852 and the next year began the Virginia Medical and Surgical Journal. The Journal, in competition with the Stethoscope, was not a financial success. Otis sold a partial interest to Dr. James McCaw and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts but maintained his connection as corresponding editor. McCaw later became known for his organization of Chimbarozo Hospital in Richmond for the Confederacy. Otis enlisted as a surgeon in the 27th Massachusetts Volunteers to particpate in the war. He moved over to the regular army as the war continued and joined the Museum staff in 1864.

Otis wrote the first two volumes of the Surgical Section of the Medical & Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion as well as curating the collection of bones. He also oversaw the Division of Surgical Records. Otis supervised or created four photographic collections, the Surgical, Medical, Microscopical and Anatomical, which loosely paralleled the arrangement of the Museum. The Medical Series photographs, a very small run, consists of now little-used pictures of colons made by Woodward, who during the war was looking for physical clues to the cause of disease, especially the "alvine fluxes" or dysentery and diarrhea. Woodward also took thousands of Microscopical Series photographs in which he experimented with photomicrographs using artificial lights and specialized stains. Otis's Anatomical Series photographs compared skulls of aboriginal people throughout the world. This work stemmed from an arrangement with Secretary Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution, under which the Army Medical Museum became the government's home for human anthropological remains while the Smithsonian handled cultural remains. Otis had plans for a larger publication (probably like the Surgical Photographs) and began compiling a checklist of the specimens which was published for the 1876 Centennial. The Army was not interested in funding this project though, and most of the photographs and remains were returned to the Smithsonian some years after Otis's death. Otis was also an accomplished surgeon and performed the difficult amputation at the hipjoint on Julius Fabry, removing the infected remains of his femur. Fabry survived for many years after the second operation.

Otis stayed with the Museum through a stroke in 1877 until his death in 1881. He continued working on Museum projects even after the stroke made him an invalid.

Letter of the Day: July 23

Surgeon General’s Office

Washington City, D.C.

July 23d 1866

 

Prof. H.L. Smith

 

Dear Sir,

 

Yours of the 19^th came duly to hand and I thank you very much for the growing slides. They are very ingenious and I shall value them the more as being your work. You know that the whole energy of the microscopic labor under my direction is directed towards Pathology and I only turned to the Diatomacea as test objects in developing the photographic process which we are using with the most complete success on the tissues. Still as I feel we have mastered the whole matter of microphotography, I should be glad to photograph a few more diatoms by way of showing those who are not interested in Pathology how good and reliable our process is and of inducing them to use it also. Should you therefore care to take the trouble of sending us a few specimens of carefully selected single diatoms for the Museum, we would in the course of the summer and fall undertake their photography, and cheerfully furnish you copies of our results. I think Wales really a clever young man. He has made me a number of pieces of apparatus, which with rare exceptions have given perfect satisfaction. His photographic 4/10, 1/8 and amplified leave little to be desired further. I have just received from him a 1/5 for photography, which however I have not tried. All of these lenses are made on Rutherford’s formula and can only be satisfactorily used for vision when illuminated with violet light. He is now making me a 1/16 on the same principle, from which I expect great things. He has improved enormously since I first knew him.  In fact in /62 I saw lenses of his in the hands of various parties and regarded them as very inferior. It was not until 1864 that he began to make work of the highest class and I do not think that at present he would claim even to have made a 1/16 of the best quality. Barnard objects to his 4/10 that it is really a ¼ and so perhaps it is, but it is the habit of nearly all opticians to misstate the power of their lenses and I find his run quite parallel in nomenclature to those of Smith + Beck and other English opticians.

 

I am, Sincerely,

signedd. J.J. Woodward

Bvt. Maj. and Ass’t. Surg. U.S.A.

 

Letter of the Day: July 22

 

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1604

 

July 22, 1896

 

Sister Beatrice,

Superioress,

Providence Hospital,

Washington, D.C.

 

Sister Beatrice:

 

I return herewith four of the registers showing admissions etc., to Providence Hospital under your charge. The other two, being those at present in use at the Hospital, I returned yesterday by messenger, as I feared their retention by me might inconvenience you. I hope they reached you safely.

 

Please accept my sincere thanks for your kindness in permitting me the use of these records, which will, I hope, be of some service to me in an investigation regarding malarial fever at Fort Myer, Va., and Washington Barracks, D.C., which the Surgeon General has directed me to make.

 

Very respectfully,

Walter Reed

Surgeon, U.S. Army,

Curator.

Moulage kit

Jim Curley aka "niceguy", showed me some cool stuff from his historical collection,
its always fun to interact with Jim, he knows his stuff... as you walk into hammond hall the 12"floor to ceiling stacks of out of date medical instruments from the banal to bizarre in powder blue cabinets, labeled with wierd notes like... stop playing with this stuff or you'll go blind...
you start to have expectations of seeing something extrooordinary (said like the monarch) This moulage kit was from the 50's, my favorite inside is the atomic burn face. probably unlikey to
encounter this ever, but at least i know what to look for. doubt you could help that victim out unless its just sunburn and then you can hand em a can of cocoabutter.
Thanks to Jim C
NC out

Moulage kit from the museums historical collection

Moulage kit

[Insert Epic Title Here]

Today is my last day at the museum. I refuse to say things like “It is with mixed emotions that I write today…” or anything else sappy or staid. The saddest part of all this is that I will have to give up my temporary AFIP badge at the end of the day, although I do plan to try my hardest to sweet talk them into voiding it and letting me keep it. This internship has been great and I learned a lot more about embryology than I ever thought I would in my entire lifetime.

On a happier note, the exciting intern project is almost finished – for real this time! We are still waiting on permission for one photo and need to edit the credits and such, but all the info is there and it looks good. We’ve been looking through the teratology collection at HDAC and found some great images to put up as well. I’m glad I won’t have to leave Sarah with tons of clean-up work to get the website working.

Today Liz is having a lunchtime class on medical drawing, which I plan to grace with my terrible artistic skills. She showed me some of the specimens we will be sketching and it looks like it will be interesting. Maybe Sarah and I can post some of our sketches after the class. We will probably also have to explain what the sketches are supposed to depict, since my drawing of a gangrenous foot will likely be confused with the skull with an arrow through its eye.

So goodbye to everyone at the museum and whomever may be reading this blog (I suspect just Mike and my parents)! I hope to read about more exciting things to come from the museum in the future.

**Update**

Sarah and I completed the sketching class and came back with two masterpieces. Sarah drew a 1959 Army medical model of a broken femur that could be strapped to a leg in a mock trauma situation. In her defense, the model itself was very amorphous and if you saw it in person the sketch would make sense. Maybe. I drew a gangrenous, frostbitten plastinated foot. I am thinking about framing it and giving it to my parents as an anniversary gift. I will judge where it is placed in the house as how much they love me.

Overall, the class was very successful and informative. Some of the students left with incredible (but extremely disgusting) drawings. Others, like myself, left with indistinguishable sketches, but this was certainly no fault of the instructor. Liz gave all the help she possibly could to salvage our sketches, but they were doomed like the Titanic the second Sarah and I held pencils.

Letter of the Day: July 21

COPY

 

3200 A.G.O. 1884.

 

War Department,

Adjutant General’s Office,

Washington, July 21^st, 1884.

 

The Surgeon General

 

Sir:

 

Referring to your endorsement of the 17^th instant, forwarding a communication from Acting Assistant Surgeon H.C. Yarrow submitting suggestions for an  expedition having for its object the collection of Indian skeletons, crania and other material for the Army Medical Museum; I have the honor to inform you that the proposed expedition is approved by the Secretary of War.

 

A copy of Dr. Yarrow’s letter will be furnished the Commanding General of the Division of the Missouri, with instructions to cause the requisite orders to be given for the necessary escort, transportation and outfit from Fort Douglas, as indicated therein.

 

I am Sir,

Very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

(Signed) C. McKeeever

Acting Adjutant General

 

(over)

 

Official copy respectfully furnished for file in the Army Medical Museum.

By order of the Surgeon General:

D.L. Huntington

Surgeon, U.S. Army.

 

Surgeon General’s Office,

July 23^rd, 1884

Intern John's Post

Hello. This is my second to last week working as an intern at HDAC. Today our mentor Ms. Lockett and assistant Emily treated us out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant which I very much appreciated. Over the course of this week I have been working on a project to create games and activities that relate to embryology. In entirety I have made 5 games; a word search, crossword puzzle, sliding puzzle, hangman, and word scramble using www.proprofs.com. I have also continued to improve and modify the flashcards that were mentioned in my last post. After finalizing the games and flashcards, I placed them on the HDAC website with the help of Rebecca (another intern working here). So far I’ve enjoyed working here over the summer and have learned a great deal about embryology.

Letter of the Day: July 20 (2 of 2)

Office of Geo. W. Knox

Storage Passenger, Freight, and Baggage Express.

Cor. 2d. & B Sts NW

Washington, D.C. July 20^th 1887

 

Dr. J. S. Billings USA

Army Med: Museum

City

 

Dear Sir,

 

I have been informed by Capt C. H. Hoyt, USA in charge Supply Division &c War Dept. of the acceptance of my proposal for removal of Army Med: Museum from its present quarters to the new Building and that you have been addressed as to the conditions of contract, and will call on me for the transportation as required.

 

As my teams are often engaged three or four days ahead of the time the work is to be done, I respectfully ask that you give me as much notice of time you will require the wagons, as possible, so that I can arrange for prompt attention to your orders.

 

Respectfully +c

Geo. W. Knox

Letter of the Day: July 20 (1 of 2)

U.S. Army General Hospital,

McKim’s Mansion,

Baltimore, MD., July 20^th 1863

 

J.H. Brinton

Surgeon U.S. Vol.

Curator Medical Museum.

 

Sir

 

I have the honor to request that you send me one half barrel spirits for the preservation of morbid specimens.

 

Very respectfully

Your obt Servant

Lanvington Quick

Surgeon U.S. Vol.

 In charge of Hosp

The restoration of Eakins' Gross Clinic

Shedding Darkness on an Eakins Painting

By RANDY KENNEDY

Published: July 18, 2010

After a revealing restoration, Thomas Eakins's masterpiece "The Gross Clinic" will go on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

While it's not as exciting a painting, the National Gallery of Art has had the Museum's "John Hill Brinton" on loan for almost 50 years and has cleaned it recently. Interesting details showed up and I think there will be an academic article or two on it, if not a NY Times piece.