A Repository for Bottled Monsters: hairballs

Showing posts with label hairballs. Show all posts

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Hairball awareness

So now you're aware

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Letter of the Day: November 20

Smithsonian Institution.
U.S. National Museum,
Washington City, Nov. 20, 1878

Sir:

In accordance with the arrangement between the Smithsonian Institution and the Army Medical Museum, I have the honor to transmit the collections mentioned below, the receipt of which please acknowledge.

Very respectfully, yours,

Spencer F Baird
Secretary S.I.

Ball of hair taken from stomach of cow. Received from E. P. Armistead, Newton, Newton Co., Mississippi

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Letter of the Day - June 16 (3 of 3) - hairballs

[Andrea of our public programs staff is fascinated by hairballs and selected this letter.]

Smithsonian Institution,

Washington, D.C., June 16, 1880

Dr. Geo. A. Otis,

Curator, Army Medical Museum,

Washington, D.C.

Sir:

In accordance with the agreement between the Smithsonian Institution and the Army Medical Museum, I take pleasure in sending you a ball of hair from a cow’s stomach, presented to the Institution by Thomas T. Crosson of Livingston, Texas.

Very respectfully,

Spencer Baird

Secretary

A copy of the above given to Dr. Schafhirt with the spec. June 18, 1880.

Specimen Received June 17, and ack. June 18, 1880. Letter 5616.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Hairballs, hairballs

This happened this afternoon, but some of it still lingers:

What: National Hairball Awareness Day! NMHM is preparing a temporary exhibition of hairballs for display. Plan now to visit the Museum at 12 p.m. on Monday, April 27 to learn how hairballs form in the stomach, see a selection of human and animal hairballs on display, and get a chance to hold an animal hairball! Hairballs, also known as bezoars, form in the stomach of humans and some animals, and are made of indigestible matter such as hair, food and some medicines.

Want to learn more about hairballs? Check out the Museum's virtual exhibit here http://nmhm.washingtondc.museum/exhibits/virtual/hairball.html.

Who are we?

Mike Rhode was the chief archivist of the Museum from 1989-2011, and is the founder of this blog. I maintain an interest in the course of the museum, and will be posting relevant information.

The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 during the American Civil War. After World War II, a parent-child relationship was inverted and the Museum became part of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Since then, the Museum has moved around Washington, stopping for years in Ford's Theatre, and on the National Mall where the building it shared with the National Library of Medicine once stood, until it was demolished in 1968 for the Hirshhorn Museum. For 35 years it was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and now is in Silver Spring, MD.

So what about that blog name?

It's historical. I found it in a quote from one of the former curators. World War II confirmed the Army Medical Museum's primary role in pathology consultation. James Ash, the curator during the war and a pathologist, noted, "Shortly after the last war, more concerted efforts were instituted to concentrate in the Army Medical Museum the significant pathologic material occurring in Army installations." He closed with the complaint, "We still suffer under the connotation museum, an institution still thought of by many as a repository for bottled monsters and medical curiosities. To be sure, we have such specimens. As is required by law, we maintain an exhibit open to the public, but in war time, at least, the museum per se is the least of our functions, and we like to be thought of as the Army Institute of Pathology, a designation recently authorized by the Surgeon General."

After the war, it evolved into the tri-service Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

A Repository for Bottled Monsters

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