New Lincoln exhibit at NMHM press release online

Medical Care During President Lincoln's Final Hours Commemorated in New Exhibit

http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/index.cfm?p=media.news.article.2015.03262015

NMHM reports new finding aids and updated guide to collections

The National Museum of Health and Medicine has recently posted over 100 new finding aids, as well as a new 254-page guide to its collections at www.medicalmuseum.mil/assets/documents/collections/archives/2014/Guide-to-Collections-2014.pdf. The breadth of medical subjects highlighted in these new finding aids extends to the history of forensic medicine, entomology, electron microscopy, medical illustrations, nursing, penicillin research, photo-micrography, physical therapy, pathology, and yellow fever. For those interested in the history of the Army Medical Museum, new finding aids also chronicle its early work. Some particularly rich collections related to these subjects, which may be of particular interest to archivists and librarians in the history of the health sciences, are described below.

Forensic Medicine:

The Stahl Collection (OHA 315.5) contains materials from the first formal resident in forensic pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), and the first Navy officer to enter that field, Dr. Charles J. Stahl. Appointed as an approved pathologist for the State of Maryland while completing his residency in the early 1960s, Stahl conducted autopsies in Montgomery County and Baltimore during off duty hours. After finishing his residency, Stahl then spent two years in Guam as the Chief of Laboratory Service and Deputy Medical Examiner from 1963-1964. In 1965, he began his assignment as the Chief of Forensic Pathology at the AFIP, where he remained for the next ten years. During this period, Stahl led the largest department at the Institute, helped develop an extensive educational program, and consulted on a number of high profile cases including the Vietnam War crimes that inspired the film Casualties of War, the deaths of three NASA astronauts at Cape Kennedy, and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. After stints at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, the Department of Veteran Affairs in Tennessee, and Wright State University

Stahl became the Deputy Medical Inspector for the Naval Medical Research Institute; he returned to the AFIP in October of 1992, as the Chief Armed Forces Medical Examiner, and remained in that position until his retirement. Subjects in the collection include anatomical and clinical pathology, forensic pathology, development of forensic pathology at AFIP, aerospace pathology, AFIP training, Vietnam, forensic military cases, Project Gemini, Robert Kennedy, pathology at the Naval Medical Center, and the AFIP's Medical Examiner's Office.

Material in this collection is complemented by the Wright Collection (OHA 375.2), which chronicles the work of Dr. Donald Gene Wright who served as a medical technician and pilot in the Air Force, logging over 3,300 hours of B-52 time from 1958- 1965. Wright went on to earn his medical degree from the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1969 where he began his internship and residency, finishing at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas. He completed his forensic residency at AFIP in 1984, received his training at the medical examiner's offices in Baltimore and Washington, DC, and became well-known as a specialist in the investigation of aircraft accidents and mass disasters. After retiring in 1990, he served for several years as Deputy Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland. The bulk of the collection consists of over 15,000 slides from Wright's collection of forensic pathology cases. Manuscripts in the collection include military and professional service records, administrative material, lectures, articles, and material related to Wright's investigations and research, including some photographs.

Medical Illustrations:

The Civil War Medical Illustrations Collection (OHA 135.05) offers graphic depictions of the work captured by trained artists who were recruited by Army Medical Museum Curator John Brinton in the early years of the Civil War. Brinton had illustrators enlist as hospital stewards who were then assigned to duty in the Surgeon General's office. Given the number of casualties during the war, both the Confederacy and the Union needed to educate as many doctors as possible in the skills of military medicine. Medical illustrations were used to depict wounds commonly encountered but rarely seen by civilian practitioners, and were used to demonstrate surgical procedures and the reasons for those procedures. Many of the illustrations in this collection also subsequently appeared in the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, a six-volume set of books that played a critically important role in illustrating the lessons learned on battlefields.

The Medical Illustrations Collection (OHA 229) is an artificial collection of medical art (completed primarily by Museum staff), and includes illustrations from the nineteenth century, World War I era, the interwar period, and World War II through the 1960s. This collection is organized into three series based on chronology. Within each series the illustrations are organized by the individual artists represented. The collection includes a wide range of military medicine subjects such as battlefield wounds, anatomical and pathological studies, hygiene and preventive medicine measures, and innovative surgical techniques.

Medical Research:

A number of collections with new finding aids also relate to medical research, primarily covering the period from the Spanish-American War to the Vietnam War. The Osborn Collection (OHA 258.05) includes material related to the service, medical career, and personal life of Dr. William S. Osborn, who joined the U.S. Army in 1899 at age 22 as a hospital corpsman. Osborn spent at least a year stationed in California before serving in the Philippines until 1902. He then graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of Illinois in Chicago in 1904 and went on to work as superintendent at the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane and the State Hospital for the Insane in Knoxville, TN during the 1920s. Items of note in the collection include notebooks from the Army Pathological Laboratory and Santa Mesa Hospital in the Philippines (1900-1901); letters written by Osborn to his colleagues and friends describing life in the Philippines; and three personal scrapbooks made by Osborn and continued by his daughter after his death. Additional items include material on his daughter Clare Osborn, a nutritionist, reprints on the subject of fevers in the Philippines, and photographs of the Army Pathological Laboratory and life in Manila.

The Elton Collection (OHA 153) includes papers and research material gathered by pathologist Norman W. Elton, primarily for his studies of yellow fever in Central America in the 1940s and 1950s, when he served on the Canal Zone Board of Health. Elton served in the Panama Canal Zone and Philippines during World War II and was appointed a Colonel in the Medical Corps and Director of the Board of Health Laboratory at Gorgas Hospital in the Canal Zone in 1948. Elton published widely on various subjects in several medical journals throughout his career and became one of the foremost experts on yellow fever in the 1950s. Additional background material on the Board of Health Laboratory and yellow fever research dates to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Materials include Panama Canal Zone government documents, correspondence, patient records, reprints, notes, photographs, newsclippings, maps, X-rays, and slides.

The finding aids for these and other collections are available by contacting the Museum at: http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/index.cfm?p=collections.archives.collections.index

History of Naval Medical Dept in WWII vol 3 NOW ONLINE

THE HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY IN WORLD WAR II Volume 3: The Statistics of Diseases and Injuries (1950)

https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfTheMedicalDeptInWWIIV3

Volume 2 was previously available:

THE HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY IN WORLD WAR II Volume 2: A COMPILATION OF THE KILLED, WOUNDED AND DECORATED PERSONNEL (1953)

https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfNavyMedicalDeptInWW2Vol.2

NMHM public affairs position open

Job Title: Public Affairs Specialist

SALARY RANGE:	$107,325.00 to $139,523.00 / Per Year
OPEN PERIOD:	Tuesday, March 17, 2015 to Tuesday, March 24, 2015
SERIES & GRADE:	GS-1035-14
POSITION INFORMATION:	Full Time - Permanent

About the Position:
The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) 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 since 1862, 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.

https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/397791500 - existing Federal employees

https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/397601600 - non-Federal employees

2015 Spurgeon Neel Award competition open

 The Army Medical Department Museum Foundation is pleased to announce the 2015 Spurgeon Neel Annual Award competition for a paper of 5,000 words or less that best exemplifies the history, legacy, and traditions of the Army Medical Department.

Named in honor of Major General (Retired) Spurgeon H. Neel, first Commanding General of Health Services Command (now U.S. Army Medical Command), the award competition is open to all federal employees, military and civilian, as well as nongovernmental civilian authors. More information about MG (Ret) Neel can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spurgeon_Neel.

The AMEDD Museum Foundation will present a special medallion award and a $500 monetary prize to the winner at a Foundation-sponsored event early in 2016. The winning submission will be published in the AMEDD Journal during 2016.

All manuscripts must be submitted to the AMEDD Museum Foundation by September 30, 2015. At the time of submission, a manuscript must be original work and not pending publication in any other periodical. It must conform to the Writing and Submission Guidance of the AMEDD Journal, and must relate to the history, legacy, and/or traditions of the Army Medical Department. Manuscripts will be reviewed and evaluated by a six-member board with representatives from the AMEDD Museum Foundation, the AMEDD Center of History and Heritage, and the AMEDD Journal. The winning manuscript will be selected and announced in December 2015.

Submit manuscripts to amedd.foundation@att.net.  Additional details concerning the Spurgeon Neel Annual Award may be obtained by contacting Mrs. Sue McMasters at the AMEDD Museum Foundation, 210-226-0265.

JJ Woodward and George Otis obituaries now digitized

[Death announcement of Joseph Janvier Woodward] (1884)

[Death announcement of George Alexander Otis] (1881)

Two mainstays of the Army Medical Museum in the 19th century.

Now Available! Recommended Practices for Enabling Access to Manuscript and Archival Collections Containing Health Information about Individuals

Medical Heritage Library collaborators the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions [http://www.medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/] and the Center for the History of Medicine at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine [http://www.countway.harvard.edu/index.html] are pleased to announce the distribution of their jointly authored recommended practices to enable access to manuscript and archival collections containing health information about individuals [available here http://www.medicalheritage.org/announcements-and-articles/ under "Documentation."] These recommendations are intended to alleviate many of the concerns repositories have related to collecting and preserving health services records, especially those repositories that are not affiliated with hospitals or medical schools.

The recommendations are presented in four categories: 1) Determining an Institution’s Status and Policy Needs; 2) Implementing Policy and Fostering Process Transparency; 3) Communicating the Nature of Restrictions; and 4) Describing Records to Best Enable Discovery and Access. Those who care for and provide access to records containing health information about individuals are invited to test the recommendations and provide feedback on their utility; those who use such records in their research are equally invited to comment on their scope.

Researchers who have used or are seeking access to primary sources containing health information about individuals are encouraged to share their experiences and difficulties accessing health services records. Visit the MHL’s researcher access survey site [https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/M38FD39] and contribute to our efforts to improve access to these important records.

For more information, please contact the Medical Heritage Library at MedicalHeritage@gmail.com

This work was made possible through the generous funding of the Mellon Foundation through the Council for Library and Information Resources’ Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives [http://www.clir.org/hiddencollections] program (2012: Private Practices, Public Health: Privacy-Aware Processing to Maximize Access to Health Collections [https://wiki.med.harvard.edu/Countway/ArchivalCollaboratives/PrivatePractices]).

Thank you!
-Hanna Clutterbuck-Cook (on behalf of Emily Gustainis and Phoebe Evans Letocha)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Processing Assistant, Center for the History of Medicine and
Project Coordinator, Medical Heritage Library (http://www.medicalheritage.org/)

NLM History of Medicine Lecture - African American History Month

 

You are cordially invited to the next NLM History of Medicine lecture, to be held on Wednesday February 18, from 2pm to 3pm in the NLM Lister Hill Auditorium, Building 38A, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD.  In recognition of African-American History Month, Laura Bothwell, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in Pharmaceutical Law and Health Services Research, Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Harvard Medical School, will speak on "The History of Race in Randomized Controlled Trials: Ethical and Policy Considerations"

 

This lecture will examine how race has been embedded in the history of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Clinical trial research policies and norms have grown increasingly attentive to the inclusion of racial minorities in RCT subject populations. This lecture will consider when race has been measured in RCTs and why, exploring the question of whether racial groups have been fairly represented in RCTs. Relying on broad collections of historical trials and archival materials in the collections of the NLM's History of Medicine Division, it will include a timeline of racial trends in RCT research subject populations, accompanied by discussion of the role of the NIH in key historic developments related racial diversity in clinical trials

 

All are welcome.

 

Sign language interpretation is provided. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate may contact Stephen Greenberg at 301-435-4995, e-mail greenbes@mail.nih.gov, or the Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).

 

Due to current security measures at NIH, off-campus visitors are advised to consult the NLM Visitors and Security website:

 

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/about/visitor.html

 

Sponsored by:

NLM's History of Medicine Division

Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, Chief

 

Event contact:

Stephen J. Greenberg, MSLS, PhD

Coordinator of Public Services

History of Medicine Division

National Library of Medicine, NIH

301-435-4995

greenbes@mail.nih.gov

 

 

3000th BUMED item uploaded to online Medical Heritage Library

Survey Of U.S. Navy Medical Personnel In Operation Desert Shield / Storm (May 1993) at
https://archive.org/details/SurveyOfU.S.NavyMedicalPersonnelInOperationDesertShieldStorm
is the 3000th item BUMED's medical history office has uploaded to the Medical Heritage Library at
https://archive.org/details/medicalheritagelibrary

All of our items can be seen at https://archive.org/details/usnavybumedhistoryoffice and range from  an 1862 Surgeon's diary from the American Civil War through a 2015  video on the mechanics of blood donation at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth.

The items uploaded by BUMED have had over 130,000 downloads in the three years that we have been adding material to the project.

Michael Rhode
Archivist / Curator
US Navy BUMED Communications Directorate (M09B7)
Office of Medical History
703-681-2539
michael.g.rhode2.civ@mail.mil
Photographs - https://www.flickr.com/photos/navymedicine/
Documents - https://archive.org/details/usnavybumedhistoryoffice

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

Jan 28: NLM History of Medicine Lecture

 

You are cordially invited to the next NLM History of Medicine lecture, to be held on Wednesday January 28, from 2pm to 3pm in the NLM Lister Hill Auditorium, Building 38A, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD.  Michael Sappol, PhD, Historian with the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine will speak on "The Apotheosis of the Dissected Plate: Spectacles of Layering and Transparency in 19th- and 20th-Century Anatomy."

 

This is a story about "topographical anatomy — a tradition of slicing and sawing rather than cutting and carving — and its procedures for converting bodies from three dimensions to two dimensions and back again. In topographical cross-section anatomy, the frozen or mummified body is cut into successive layers that are then transcribed and reproduced as pages of a book or a sequence of prints or slides (sometimes with the original slices preserved as a sequence of specimens for the anatomical museum). The talk also confronts our ambivalent relation to anatomical images, which can serve as an effigy of self and other that we all inhabit. This talk features photographs of materials in the NLM collection by artist Mark Kessell.

 

All are welcome.

 

Sign language interpretation is provided. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate may contact Stephen Greenberg at 301-435-4995, e-mail greenbes@mail.nih.gov, or the Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).

 

Due to current security measures at NIH, off-campus visitors are advised to consult the NLM Visitors and Security website:

 

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/about/visitor.html

 

Sponsored by:

NLM's History of Medicine Division

Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, Chief

 

Event contact:

Stephen J. Greenberg, MSLS, PhD

Coordinator of Public Services

History of Medicine Division

National Library of Medicine, NIH

301-435-4995

greenbes@mail.nih.gov

 

 

 

Interesting atlas of wax models on Medical Heritage Library

Iconograms ; a collection of colored plates illustrating interesting surgical conditions (1913)

https://archive.org/details/iconogramscollec00gard

Mutter Museum claims another fan

Mutter Museum: More than just a freak show

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER The Mutter Museum is home to the Hyrtl Skull Collection, which displays 139 human skulls.

By Helen Ubinas, Daily News Columnist

Posted: December 24, 2014
http://articles.philly.com/2014-12-24/news/57353628_1_j-nathan-bazzel-mutter-museum-freak-show

BUMED history office uploads 2500th item to Medical Heritage Library

Today we interrupted our uploading of The Examiner, Naval Hospital Twentynine Palm's base newspaper, to upload our 2500th item.  Upon requests from researchers using the physical collection today, we scanned two items for them, and thus also for the MHL.

#2499 is MEMOIR OF THE FOUNDING AND PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL OBSERVATORY (1873)
https://archive.org/details/MEMOIROFTHEFOUNDINGANDPROGRESSOFTHEUNITEDSTATESN
AVALOBSERVATORY1873

#2500 is Welcome Aboard - A Handbook For Naval Medical Personnel, National
Naval Medical Center (1960)
https://archive.org/details/WelcomeAboardAHandbookForNavalMedicalPersonnelNN
MC

All of BUMED's contributions to the Medical Heritage Library can be seen at
https://archive.org/details/usnavybumedhistoryoffice


Michael Rhode
Archivist / Curator
US Navy BUMED Communications Directorate (M09B7)
Office of Medical History

Kennedy assassination records at the National Museum of Health and Medicine

	Reclaiming history from the conspiracy theories Lodi News-Sentinel The writings were released by the National Museum of Health and Medicine in the 1990s. In these papers, Finck concluded that both shots had come ...

Woodward's 1870 histology online now

Report to the Surgeon General, of the United States Army, on certain points connected with the histology of minute bloodvessels (1870) by JJ Woodward

- this rare report with tipped-in photographs has been scanned and placed online by the National Library of Medicine. Woodward did his photomicroscopy work on weekends at the Army Medical Museum.

Nov 5: NLM History of Medicine Lecture on antibiotics

 

You are cordially invited to the next NLM History of Medicine lecture, to be held on Wednesday, November 5, from 2pm to 3pm in the NLM Visitor Center in the Lister Hill Center, Building 38A, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. Scott Podolsky, MD, Director of the Center for the History of Medicine, Countway Library, Harvard University, will speak on "Antibiotic Pasts and Futures: Seven Decades of Reform and Resistance."

 

Antibiotics served as the leading edge of the post-World War II wonder drug revolution. But from the beginning, they also served as the leading edge of concerns regarding the irrational development and use of the wonder drugs. Rising apprehension over antibiotic resistance and the prospect of a post-antibiotic era have drawn attention to the possible means of preventing such an "apocalypse." Making extensive use the Archives & Modern Manuscripts Collections at NLM, including the papers of James Goddard, Herbert Ley, and John Barlow Youman, this talk narrates the history of antibiotic reform from the 1940s onward, and it explores the evolving relationships between industry and academia, town and gown, and education and regulation, as reformers have attempted to promote a rational and enduring antimicrobial therapeutics.

 

All are welcome.

 

Sign language interpretation is provided. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate may contact Stephen Greenberg at 301-435-4995, e-mail greenbes@mail.nih.gov, or the Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).

 

Due to current security measures at NIH, off-campus visitors are advised to consult the NLM Visitors and Security website:

 

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/about/visitor.html

 

Sponsored by:

NLM's History of Medicine Division

Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, Chief

 

Event contact:

Stephen J. Greenberg, MSLS, PhD

Coordinator of Public Services

History of Medicine Division

National Library of Medicine, NIH

301-435-4995

greenbes@mail.nih.gov

 

 

 

Civil War images on Flickr

Before I left the Museum, I got a few hundred of the Civil War photographs online. An article featuring them went online today.

	Hyperallergic Civil War Portraits of the Broken Bodies Sent Home Hyperallergic On the National Museum of Health and Medicine's Flickr Commons, portraits of these wounded soldiers show the grim resilience, military pride, and ...

Battlefield Surgery 101 catalog available electronically for the first time

Battlefield Surgery 101: From The Civil War To Vietnam

Part 1

Patient Flow in a Theater of Operations

Dave Ed. Lounsbury, MD, FACP

Colonel, Medical Corps, US Army

Director, Borden Institute (Office of The Surgeon General, US Army)

Part 2

Twentieth Century Warfare and the Evolution of American Battlefield Surgery

Ronald F. Bellamy, MD , FACS

Colonel, US Army, Retired

Military Medical Editor, Borden Institute (Office of The Surgeon General, US Army)

Part 3

Selected Photographs From BATTLEFIELD SURGERY 101: From the Civil War to Vietnam based on the Exhibit by J. T. H. Connor, Michael G. Rhode, and J. Carey Crane

This catalogue was prepared by the Borden Institute (Office of The Surgeon General, US Army) in support of the exhibit BATTLEFIELD SURGERY 101: FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO VIETNAM at the National Museum of Health and Medicine of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology

World War I lecture by Army medical historian online

The audio and slides from W. Sanders Marble's lecture, "Mending The Casualties of WWI: The Army Rehabilitates The Wounded, 1918-1920," has been posted to the Bullitt History of Medicine Club website: http://www.med.unc.edu/bhomc/schedule-of-speakers/sched

Michael North of NLM interviewed

Early Latin American Medicine in the NLM Collections by Circulating Now http://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2014/10/08/early-latin-american-medicine-in-the-nlm-collections/

Michael J. North spoke today at the National Library of Medicine in recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month on "Early Latin American Medicine in the NLM Collections." Mr. North is Head of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts in the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine. Circulating Now interviewed him about his work.