Behind the Scenes: an Archivist Draws on Myriad Experiences
Below is an interview with Kristen Sosinski, Archivist in the Prints & Photographs Division at the Library of Congress.
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Wednesday, July 8, 2020
Melvin Shaffer interviewed on his WWII Army Medical Museum experience by local paper
Through his eyes: Green Valley man saw WWII as few did
Tuberculosis in the African-American community photos at Library of Congress
Honoring African American Contributions in Medicine: The Black Angels
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
From Anderson’s Holler – A World War II medical photographer’s story- available now
From Anderson’s Holler – A World War II
medical photographer’s story- available now
A memoir of growing up in the hills of West
Virginia and suddenly becoming a World War II medical photographer, with a
clearance to go where others could not.
By
Melvin C. Shaffer
Dallas:
DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Price $30
ISBN
978-1-878516-16-9 (paper)
978-1-878516-17-6 (cloth)
June
25, 2020 – Green Valley, Arizona
In
his first memoir, pioneering medical educator and Army Sergeant (ret.) Melvin
C. Shaffer recalls his upbringing in rural West Virginia, his efforts to escape
the narrow life of his peers, and his service in World War II. Foreshadowing
his global wanderings, Shaffer’s first memory is of his father receiving a
telephone call on his family’s wall-mounted crank telephone, announcing
Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight arriving in Paris. As a boy, he developed a
dual love of travel and photography. When World War II called, these passions
fueled his success as a photographer in the Army’s 3rd Medical Museum and Arts
Detachment (MAMAS). Trained and equipped as a medic, he also carried a full
photography kit on assignments given him by the Army Medical Museum in
Washington to document medicine and surgery – both advances and problems. First
sent to North Africa, his own resourcefulness got him to wide-flung duty
stations: Sicily, Salerno, Naples, Anzio, Rome, Florence, Poltava, Southern
France, Dachau, and Berlin. Shaffer finds himself pulling soldiers off the
battlefield while under fire, as well as documenting the new wonder drug,
penicillin. His post-war civilian duties took him to Nuremberg and Tokyo on
assignments related to Hitler’s bunker suicide and the atomic bombing of Japan.
Shaffer,
retired after long careers at the Medical College of Virginia (now Virginia
Commonwealth University) and the World Health Organization, has a folksy way of
telling his story. Readers of Shaffer’s book will feel as though they are
sitting across from him at the dinner table, but his tales are true and not tall
ones. He says, “I tried to write the book in such a way that readers could
experience the war as I did, that they could see and feel the power of things
as they came to me and, occasionally, find the humor of it all.”
Now
in his 90s, Melvin Shaffer still travels as much as he can and has never
satisfied his wanderlust. He is writing a sequel to From Anderson’s Holler,
covering his post-war experiences in medical education.
The
book may be purchased from Southern Methodist University (SMU) at https://bit.ly/3eqaSSW
Shaffer’s
personal photos taken during the war have been donated to SMU and can be found
at https://bit.ly/3etfBDd
Thursday, June 18, 2020
1st piece on COVID-19 by Navy's medical historian online
The Nay's medical department historian has been conducting oral histories for weeks to document the coronavirus response. This is the first piece to come out of that effort.
Presence and Partnerships: NEPMU-5's Fight Against COVID-19
VA, UNITED STATES
06.18.2020
Story by André Sobocinski
U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
it's also at
Preventive Medicine Unit Partners With Commanders, Sailors to Fight COVID-19
Story Number: NNS200618-15Release Date: 6/18/2020 1:44:00 PM
From Andre B. Sobocinski, Historian, BUMED Public Affairs
Friday, March 13, 2020
Digitization proposed for former Armed Forces Institute of Pathology collection
Pentagon plans to digitize the largest repository of disease-related medical data in the world
The Department of Defense wants a digital repository of its 55 million tissue samples going back over 100 years
That's the former Armed Forces Institute of Pathology collection with many pre-World War II Army Medical Museum specimens.
As of 2011, they were scanning patient records and creating metadata, but then the AFIP was BRAC'd and recreated as the JPC. How does one digitize wax tissue blocks? Or wet tissue?
Monday, January 27, 2020
RIP Ron Wallace, a mainstay of the Borden Institute
The history of military medicine lost a member of the community this past week. Ron Wallace will not be known to most of you, but he was a mainstay of the US Army's Borden Institute's publishing, including many history of military medicine titles. The friends and coworkers of Ronald Eugene Wallace mourn his passing last week. Ron, a former US Air Force master sergeant (and then long-time first sergeant), died in a fire in his home in Maryland. During the same week, the US Government Printing Office was praising the Borden's books in two blog posts - here and here.
I personally knew Ron when I worked at the National Museum of Health and Medicine and they published one of our exhibit catalogs, a history of the Walter Reed Medical Center, and a book on the last days of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. At the same time, they were doing the Textbooks of Military Medicine, books with current information on how to treat the injuries the military was suffering from in our ongoing wars. Ron always stood ramrod straight, was generous to a fault, and was garrulous. It was always a pleasure to walk down the hill and into the old building and run into him. In my head, although it hasn't been true for 9 years, he's still standing in the former nursing school, waiting to hand out the latest book.
Senior Layout Editor Douglas Wise remembers Ron:
Before his retirement last July, Ron spent 27 years working at Borden Institute, joining in 1992 as the administrator and office manager. His name rarely made it into the books, but almost 70 books on military medicine stand as tribute to his efforts making sure those whose names do appear could do their jobs with as little difficulty or obstacle as he could prevent. He helped build a library of books that resides in the Pentagon, the White House, and in the pocket of every soldier who goes through training today.
If you met Ron even once, then you know you met him and you've heard his stories. If you met Ron a second or third time then you heard those stories again, as well as some new ones. You could work with him for eighteen years and still get new stories out of him in addition to those stories you heard retold... weekly.
Ron's friendly and outgoing nature made him the face of Borden Institute. He was the first person you saw when you came to the office, he was out making friends with everyone who came to our exhibits, personally coaxing paperwork through the military bureaucracy faster than anyone else, and making sure that the brass, all the way up to the Surgeon General of the Army, knew who we were. One could (and did) find themselves on jury duty, on the subway, in a gathering of complete strangers, and find someone there who knew Ron Wallace.
And he took each person he met as their own person. There was no prejudging someone based on their accent, how much melanin they have in their skin, their views on the afterlife, or office gossip. If Ron took a disliking to you then you can be sure it was because of something you actually said or did.
It was a loss to Borden and the US military as a whole when Ron retired and a greater loss to our hearts and lives to learn of his passing.
Dr. Dave Lounsbury, COL, USA (ret.) recalls:
He and Lorraine Davis were the glue that held the Borden Institute together. Lorraine as Managing Editor kept track of books developing in the pipeline. Ron as Administrative Chief (I swear I don't think I ever learned what his title actually was) was absolutely superb at managing our budget. He seemed to know just about everyone at the budget offices of OTSG (US Army Office of the Surgeon General) and WRAMC (Walter Reed Army Medical Center). He protected the budget like it was his child. Borden was always something of a bastard child in the AMEDD (US Army Medical Department). The budget was forever at or near the chopping block. But time & time again, with his enormously reassuring (to me) "Don't worry. Let me handle this," Ron would salvage our financial survival. Not a few times, instead of a cut we got an increase! He was instrumental at increasing our staff. He finessed this entirely on his own. Lorraine and I might kibitz but he did it alone -- kept our books straight, excelled at every budget review, justified our purpose ... I marveled at his style.
He listened to most of the relentless gossip of the BI but I can't say I ever knew him to join it. Not his thing. Ron didn't speak ill of his colleagues. Now & then he'd grumble -- appropriately -- about one or another, but he never slammed them. Not a few times, I can confess, I was not so temperate or charitable --
furious at one or another staff member. Ron would listen, but he didn't join in. That reserve of his often gave me a bit of pause in my judgements once I calmed down. I valued him. Goodness knows he could talk your ear off, for hours at a time. But it was never vindictive stuff, always harmless, just tales of yore ...
himself usually the hero. He was very slow to anger. But when he did boil over -- a truly rare occurrence -- the occasion invariably warranted it. I can only recall two of these.
He was thoroughly honest. He was thoroughly respectful. He came to work convinced that the what the Borden Inst produced was sui generis and absolutely worth preserving. No visitor could come by and then get away without being showered with books & info regarding what we published.
He had a finely tuned and curious ability to transfer allegiance such as I had never encountered before or since. One day my predecessor was the Director and Ron directed his attention solely toward that individual --even though he was totally aware that the fellow had been sacked. The next day I was in charge and,
snap-of-a-finger, Ron was fully on board. I couldn't help notice this. Normally it might take a week or a month to make these transitions. Ron did so instantaneously. Impossible not to notice. I pointed it out to him one day long after I had settled in. It was a compliment to him. He simply shrugged.Of course, four or so years later it was my turn to transition out. Sure enough: though I stayed on to complete a couple of works in progress, there was no mistaking his redirection of attention and duties. I wasn't the boss anymore.My ego survived and we stayed close friends.
Ron, and Lorraine, did most of the work. I got all the credit.
He was a good man -- to Nancy, to his daughter, to his job, to his country.
The Homegoing Service for Ron will be held at Vaughn Green Funeral Services, 8728 Liberty Road, Randallstown MD 21133. You may visit their website for details. On Monday, February 3rd from 4pm to 8pm there will be a Public Viewing and Tuesday February 4th, the wake begins at 10am, the funeral begins at 10:30 am.
He was a good man -- to Nancy, to his daughter, to his job, to his country.
The Homegoing Service for Ron will be held at Vaughn Green Funeral Services, 8728 Liberty Road, Randallstown MD 21133. You may visit their website for details. On Monday, February 3rd from 4pm to 8pm there will be a Public Viewing and Tuesday February 4th, the wake begins at 10am, the funeral begins at 10:30 am.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Friday, January 10, 2020
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
NMHM and research on Einstein's brain
Expert Interest in Albert Einstein's Brain
SEPTEMBER 03, 2019
MD Magazine
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
NMHM digitizing bones
Modernizing Medical Museums through the 3D Digitization of Pathological Specimens
Kristen Pearlstein, Anatomical Collections Manager and Brian Spatola, Anatomical Curator | June 6, 2019
Thursday, August 1, 2019
NMHM 'vampire' skeleton featured in Washington Post
A 'vampire's' remains were found about 30 years ago. Now DNA is giving him new life.
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
AFIP and NMHM mentioned in memo as having aliens from Roswell
'Fake' Roswell alien autopsy video was REAL and CIA scientist saw
proof at Pentagon briefing ...
The Sun
... reveals alien forensic tissue and organs were being stored at
Walter Reed-Armed Forces Institute for Pathology Medical Museum in
Washington DC ...
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9382232/leaked-memo-suggests-fake-roswell-alien-autopsy-video-real-cia-scientist-pentagon-briefing/
proof at Pentagon briefing ...
The Sun
... reveals alien forensic tissue and organs were being stored at
Walter Reed-Armed Forces Institute for Pathology Medical Museum in
Washington DC ...
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9382232/leaked-memo-suggests-fake-roswell-alien-autopsy-video-real-cia-scientist-pentagon-briefing/
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Indiana Medical History Museum profiled
Former mental hospital houses medical museum https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/former-mental-hospital-houses-medical-museum/article_37504499-04f9-5a9d-bde9-b14b5560fdf8.html
INDIANAPOLIS — In the shadows of old wooden bookcases sit jars filled with embalming fluid preserving decades-old brains that have signs of ...
Sunday, March 24, 2019
NMHM and Dittrick curators on medical equipment
Left to their own devices
A look at the evolution of five now-essential medical tools.
Friday, February 22, 2019
McGill honors Maude Abbott with a plaque
After honouring 99 men, McGill medical building recognizes pioneer Maude Abbott
Refused entry to McGill medical school because she was a woman, Abbott went on to work for the university
NMHM sued for access to collection
Innocence Project sues museum for access to archives on 'tragically flawed' bite-mark evidence
ABA Journal February 21, 2019,
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/innocence-project-files-first-amendment-suit-over-denied-access-to-museums-bite-mark-archivesThe Innocence Project has sued the federal government's National Museum of Health and Medicine for denying it access to archival information on the history of bite-mark analysis.....
Friday, February 8, 2019
The Washington Post's Express paper reviews the National Museum of Health and Medicine
The National Museum of Health and Medicine is a fascinating nightmare
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
McGill's Medical Museum opens to public
| McGill's Maude Abbott Medical Museum opens its collection to the public The "Holmes heart" has a special place among the 2,000 specimens in the collection of McGill's Maude Abbott Medical Museum, which opened its ... |
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Excellent article on WW1 Chemical Corps experiments in DC
The Chemists' War
One hundred years after the end of World War I, the Army Corps of Engineers is still cleaning up the relics of experiments that helped develop chemical weapons to counter the Germans' gas attacks.
By Theo Emery
Nov. 10, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/10/science/chemical-weapons-world-war-1-armistice.html
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