RIP Norman Rich

 He wasn't a historian of medicine, but his long-term longitudinal followups become a history of some sort. Of interest to us is his preservation of military medical material from the Vietnam War, including booby traps, which are now in the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

https://news.usuhs.edu/2026/06/usu-mourns-passing-of-military-medicine.html

Fragility of Man photographs

https://www.instagram.com/fragility_of_man

My neighbor Roger, as well as being a firefighter, is an artist. He's more in the momento mori tradition than a medical museum one, but I think readers here will enjoy these. It's a plastic skeleton of course.

Beneath the Sheets: Anatomy, Art and Power exhibit at Thackray Museum of Medicine

The shocking truth behind historic anatomical art

Deborah Nicholls-Lee

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260203-the-shocking-truth-behind-historic-anatomical-art

The Maude Abbott Medical Museum's website

I got a very kind note from a staff member today, so for the first time in years, I popped over to their website. It's a nice, sleek guide, and I'm looking forward to checking out their newsletters. It's so nice to see photos of the museum; when I tried to find it about 35 years ago (sigh), I had no luck at all. Dr. Richard Fraser really revitalized the collection.

If anyone can recommend a good paper on Abbott, her role in the International Association of Medical Museums, and her work with the Army Medical Museum, I'd be grateful. I was starting to look into that via the IAMM's journal but never finished that research. I literally just moved cubicles again at my current job and was able to put my books on a bookshelf for the first time since COVID so I got to see all the medical museum histories again.

A history of The Medical & Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion is online

Over 20 years ago, I wrote a couple of papers -  ""An enduring monument" : Philadelphia's contributions to The Medical & Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (1870-1888)" lecture for "Philadelphia, the 'Mecca' of North American Medical Publishing" session, Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, London, 10-13 July 2002 and "'The Extent of These Materials is Simply Enormous': The Creation and Publication of The Medical & Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion from 1862 to 1888," lecture for the American Association for the History of Medicine, 2 May 2004. These evolved into a version prepared for print that was never accepted for publication. This fall I was surprised to see that a good version isn't online anywhere, so I attached the slides from the original talk, and uploaded it to the Medical Heritage Library at

'The Extent of These Materials is Simply Enormous': The Creation and Publication of The Medical & Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion from 1862 to 1888

https://archive.org/details/mshwr-final

Mutter Museum launches massive expansion

I'm somewhat surprised by this (ok, very surprised as the director was forced out this year) and hope it works out well for them. 

College of Physicians and Mütter Museum will undergo a $27 million expansion and renovation

Story by Rosa Cartagena, The Philadelphia Inquirer

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/college-of-physicians-and-m%C3%BCtter-museum-and-will-undergo-a-27-million-expansion-and-renovation/ar-AA1QC8aY

Family Destinations Guide recommends the NMHM

It's closed at the moment due to the government shutdown though.

The Bizarre Museum In Maryland You've Probably Never Heard Of

By: Author Joshua Campbell

Posted on July 2, 2025

https://familydestinationsguide.com/heard-bizarre-museum-maryland/