Spine-tingling artefacts
February 2, 2011
http://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/spinetingling-artefacts-20110201-1abkk.html
An unofficial blog about the National Museum of Health and Medicine (nee the Army Medical Museum) in Silver Spring, MD. Visit for news about the museum, new projects, musing on the history of medicine and neat pictures.
February 2, 2011
http://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/spinetingling-artefacts-20110201-1abkk.html
Ship wreck reveals ancient secrets of medicine
By Adrian Higgins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 1, 2011; E06 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/01/AR2011020100169.html
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/jan/28/David-Bernstein-Roger-Scott-medical-museum-Edison/
Off. P. MG of E. Tenn
Knoxville Tenn.
Jan. 26/64
Respectfully referred to Dr. Jackson Medical Director of E. Tenn.
By order of Brig Genl Carter
Illegible
Illegible
(over)
~
Med. Dir. D. E. Tenn.
Knoxville Jan’y 26th 1864
Respectfully referred to Capt. Huntington A.G.M. Act. Chief Q.M. Dept. of the Ohio.
RMS Jackson
Surgeon USA.
Med. Director
E. Tenn.
~
Knoxville. Jany. 25th 64
Brig. Genl. Carter,
Sir
The following is the cost of my house that the U. States government has taken possession of on last Saturday, for an hospital
Via original cost $ 750.00
My improvements 1650.00
$2400.00
Dr. Genl.
My family is large + now houseless consisting of 6 persons. I am anxious for the Government to purchase it, and am willing to sell it for the above Amt. as my family will not live in it hereafter, when once occupied as a Small Pox hospital.
I think I have been handled very roughly, for a true union man. I was ordered out, with short notice, without making any provision for my family, whatever.
My loyalty, I have and can prove by Messrs A. G. Jackson Col., Jno. Williams, S. Morrow, J. Baxter, +c. +c.
Genl. I appeal to you , to do something for me, as my self + family will have to suffer, unless there is something done for me very soon.
Resptly
Geo. W. Fagan.
Brig. Genl. S.P. Carter
K.ville
Today the department of radiologic pathology shut down with doctors who had been assigned from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) returning there, and other staff being hired by the American College of Radiology which will continue the courses formerly done at AFIP.
This is a list of what’s in AFIP’s cornerstone, which is now buried under the steps installed in the 1971 addition.
HRG/crm
20 January 1956
Dr. William H. Feldman
Mayo Foundation
University of Minnesota Graduate School
Rochester, Minnesota
Dear Doctor Feldman:
Dr. Messimy sent us a photograph of Professor Cornil and also one of the base of a monument to Cornil. He states that the statues which was on the base was destroyed during the war. This monument was near Vichy. We are enclosing copies of these two photographs, if you wish additional copies to add to your report, please let us know.
We also enclose the other photographs which you need for extra copies of the report.
A copy of the letter sent Dr. Delarue is enclosed. I hope the slides reach us safely.
With best regards
Sincerely yours,
Hugh R. Gilmore, Jr.
Colonel, MC, USA
Curator
Medical Museum, AFIP
Encl: Photographs
Cc letter to Dr. Delarue
Overall this probably refers to OHA 140 Cornil Sketchbooks - Two volumes of pencil and watercolor sketches of syphilitic lesions and pathological histology by Dr. Victor Cornil (1837-1908), a Paris pathologist who participated in the autopsy of John Paul Jones in 1905. In the 1950s the AFIP obtained some of the materials from the autopsy. The collection also includes a report of this recovery effort. Related material in Historical Collections (acc. #517,588).
At least 2 Museum pictures appeared in Health in America 2011 Calendar by CUNY / New York Times in College, copies of which arrived today. Reeve 63082 and SC 178198, but I’m still looking.
And speaking of moving problems…
Medical Purveying Depot U.S. Army.
No. 126 Wooster Street
P.O. Box 108.
Station A
New York, January 19th 1881
Surgeon George A. Otis, U.S. Army.
Army Medical Museum
Washington D.C.
Sir;
I have the honor to inform you, in reply to your letter of the 18th inst., that the 40 gallons of Benzine invoiced to you December 29th 1880, were shipped by steamer which sailed from this Port for Georgetown January 1st. The Quartermaster informs me that he was compelled to ship the benzene by water, as the Rail Road company declined to transport it.
Very respectfully
Your ob’t servant
F. O’Donnaghue
Captain + Med Storekeeper U.S. Army.
Today marks the beginning of a new year of ‘Letters of the Day’ – we started on January 19, 2010 and only missed July 4th when we couldn’t find a letter for it. Would you like to see us continue, although service will grow spottier due to the impending move of the Museum? Let us know.
Washington D.C. Jan 19th 1887
Dr Yarrow assistant Surgeon U.S.A.
Sir
This is the list of things I can furnish for the lunch room in case no cooking is allowed in the Building
Cold ham
Bread & Butter
Tongue
Pies & cakes
Turkey
Puddings & milk
Corned Beef
Fruit
If I am allowed to have a gas stove I will have hot tea coffee & chocolate and hot soup and oysters.
And if I am allowed to cook in the Building I can furnish Beef steak, mutton chops, hot bread & cakes & omelets and vegetables if needed. And I wish to say that all the heaviest cooking will be done at my residence such as soup & pies, or other things that would be offensive. I can have a variety of other thins if I find that I can sell them.
Yours respct.
C.W. Procter
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 461
Portland Jan 18th /95
Surgeon General .U.S
Dear Sir
if it is possible I would like to have the Bones that was taken out of my leg. I was wounded at the Battle of White Hall North Carolina in 1862 and had 6 ½ inches of the fibular bone taken out, and the surgeon told me he was going to send them to Washington. I would like to have them. I was in Co H. 23rd regiment Mass vols.
Address Michael .H. Curlin
538 Congress St Portland
Maine
1326 Path Sect.
From brain tissue to gallstones, doctors have long preserved specimens from their patients — sometimes as trophies, sometimes as teaching tools, sometimes as curiosities or even art. But Dr. Chevalier Jackson went much further than most.
A laryngologist who worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he preserved more than 2,000 objects that people had swallowed or inhaled: nails and bolts, miniature binoculars, a radiator key, a child's perfect-attendance pin, a medallion that says "Carry me for good luck."
"He had his heart set on pate de foie gras. Navy chow is the best!
Take all you can eat, eat all you can take! Don't be finicky!"
[Nutrition.] [Propaganda.] [World War 2.] [Illustration by: "Hotchkiss
USNR".] World War II. Cartoon.
1944; Bureau of Supplies and Accounts: Navy; U.S. Government Printing
Office; U.S. Navy BUMED Library and Archives
[Historian of medicine Bert Hansen has written on the early days of vaccination in NYC, and tells me this is probably a cowpox cultivated in calves and used to immunize people against smallpox. Reed had written to the Health Department a week earlier asking about the failure after several months of two samples of bovine vaccine he had made himself. Here’s two relevant photographs - http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cowpox&w=99129398%40N00 One further note – by the end of the nineteenth century, it was known that something smaller than bacteria could cause disease, but the first actual virus was isolated by Martinus Willem Beijerinck in 1898; hence the terminology used in this letter is imprecise to modern readers.]
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1903
Health Department,
Centre, Elm, White & Franklin Streets,.
(Criminal Court Building)
Office of the Pathologist, and Director of the Bacteriological Laboratory.
New York, Jan 4th, 1897
Walter Reed, M.D.,
Curator U.S. Army Museum,
7th and B. Streets S.W.,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Doctor:-
Your communication of the 28th ult. To Dr. H.M. Biggs has been received, and he has requested me to reply to the same. With reference to the statement made on the printed directions accompanying the package of vaccine virus sent you on Dec. 24th, I would say that this label was prepared at a time when the keeping quality of the vaccine virus produced by this Department had not yet been fully ascertained. As a matter of fact, we find that the virus preserves its potency unchanged for fully six months; not only does it not deteriorate in strength during this period, but its quality with regard to the number of bacteria present is improved. We have found it impossible to produce a virus absolutely free from bacteria, although we are able to assure the absence of pathogenic organisms. The bacteria originally present in the virus diminish as time goes on, and the age of the virus is, therefore, an important factor with relation to the number of bacteria contained.
Respectfully,
Alfred L. Beebe
Asst. Director, Diagnosis Bacteriological Laboratory
Flickr daily view statistics for roughly ~250 images*.
December 27, 2010: 327,779
December 28: 245,041
December 29: 83,579
December 30: 30,834
December 31: 14,260
January 1: 8,268
January 2: 10,569
7 day total: 720,330 views
*images were added on a daily basis and some previous uploads not identified as Civil War were moved into the set.
Dr. Stanley Burns is one of the most prolific collectors of history of medicine photographs, and he’s got a blog at http://www.theburnsarchive.blogspot.com/ which has some very neat images.
Dr. Burns is about to wrap up a book on Dr. Reed Bontecou, a Civil War doctor, based in Harewood Hospital in DC, who was a strong supporter of the Museum and donated many photographs here, some of which have been appearing on our Flickr site recently. Dr. Burns has albums of the pictures that were returned to Dr. Bontecou’s son in 1915 and will be drawing on them for the book.