Dittrick Museum

Berlin Medical Historical Museum

2011-11-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

In September, I visited Berlin to attend the Council meeting of the European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences at the Berlin Medical Historical Museum. It is a great institution, flourishing under the direction of Thomas Schnalke. We were there to join in a discussion of next year's EAMHMS Congress in Berlin with Thomas. I encourage one and all to attend the 2012 Congress, and in the meantime offer images taken during my visit to the BMHM. Go to Flickr and select my Berlin Medical Historical Museum set.

More pics soon of my visit to Copenhagen and the Medical Museion, after the Berlin trip.

Jim Edmonson

Sensuous object workshop at the Medical Museion

2011-09-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

Later this month I'll be heading to the Medical Museion in Copenhagen for the workshop, the Sensuous Object, in which I'll be examining early stethoscopes. As part of this, I am trying to figure out who first taught and established and codified the protocols of the physical exam. The irony is this: before 1800 doctors hardly touched their patients, instead relying upon the patient's "history" or story of their illness.

This portrait by Winthrop Chandler, of Dr. William Gleason of Connecticut, c.1780, captures the doctor's reticence of physically examining patients. (Image courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society)

Touching was left to surgeons, a more rough and ready lot.

By the end of the century this had all changed and the physical exam was a cornerstone of medical practice, as seen here in images of Sir William Osler examining, palpating, and auscultating a patient, and then contemplating what he had learned. (Images from the Osler Library at McGill University)

A great presentation on how to conduct the exam is given by John Hughes Bennett in Clinical Lecture on the Principles and Practice of Medicine (1844) and an abbreviated version of the same called An Introduction to Clinical Medicine. Bennett credits Leon Rostan, from whom he learned physical examination as a student in Paris, c.1837.

A little digging reveals that Rostan developed his course around 1818 at La Salpetriere and that it was later codified as Traite elementaire de diagnostique, de pronostic, d'indications therapeutiqes ou cours de medecine clinique (1826) and Cours de medecine clinique (1830). Rostan's description of how to conduct a physical exam makes for exceedingly interesting reading.

I'll report back on both what more I uncover, and what I will have learned from the workshop in Copenhagen.

Jim Edmonson

Hiding in plain view...

2011-07-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

While working on the revamp of our gallery of diagnostic instruments, prompted by the generous gift of Don Blaufox's incomparable collection, I went in search of early images of the stethoscope in use. I knew that one of the earliest images appeared in 1819 in the Dictionnaire des sciences medicales. I recalled that Jackie Duffin reproduced this image in her masterful biography of Laennec, To See With a Better Eye (p.212, fig. 9.1). She cited its source as an article on "pectoriloque" by F. V. Merat in the Dictionnaire des sciences medicales vol. 40 (1819).

I checked our online catalog and found we didn't have that dictionary. Struck out, or so I thought. That is, until I found myself in the office of Dzwinka Holian, our library associate director this week. There, on shelving in her office, sat the full 60 volume run of the Dictionnaire des sciences medicales. For some reason it has been uncatalogued, but we're remedying that.

In the meantime, I now have my hands on the original and it's a pretty funny little print. You don't get a sense of that from the image found in Duffin's book. She focused narrowly (understandably) on the scene of the stethoscope, and not the plate in its entirety. The whole plate is full page while the sketch is a very small afterthought, added to what looks like the plate of the stethoscope that appeared in Laennec's treatise on mediate auscultation of 1819. The thing I like best about this whole scenario is that we have a piece of the true cross, as it were. Something from the very dawn of the modern physical examination. And it's not an exact mechanical rendering, but kind of a whimsical take on the physician - patient encounter, with period charm and flavor.

We've got other later period images, lithographs, of percussion and auscultation that appeared in the Western Lancet (Cincinnati, 1850) and have been seldom seen, and we'll be using them in our exhibition, too.

As my friend and colleague Thomas Soderqvist says, exhibits should come from research on collections. When it does, we often more about the wonderful things in our collections than ever suspected...

Jim Edmonson

Juno comes to the Dittrick

2011-05-13T13:30:00.001-07:00

Just this past week the Dittrick became the new home to Juno, a transparent woman figure and exhibit mainstay of health museums worldwide. Our Juno lay entombed in her original packing crate, having been shipped to Cleveland from the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden in the early 1950s. Its destination was the Cleveland Health Education Museum (CHEM), which opened in 1940 under the direction of Bruno Gebhardt (formerly of the German Hygiene Museum, 1927-35) and featured state-of-the-art health exhibitry, including Juno.

Jim Edmonson and Linda Spurlock
take stock of the situation.

Franz Tschaikart of Cologne, Germany, crafted Juno upon commission by the German Hygiene Museum. In 1950, a friend of the Health Museum paid $15,000 to bring Juno to Cleveland. "She" first appeared in public on November 13, 1950.

In all, the CHEM housed three Juno-like figures. Over the years they became a Cleveland icon, greeting generations of school kids on field trips to the museum. Sadly, CHEM (later known as HealthSpace Cleveland) closed in 2006 and a vestige of its exhibits and staff came over to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in 2007. There, as the Department of Human Health headed by Linda Spurlock, they now now offer programming and exhibits to help understand the physiology and frailty of the human body, the sources of disease and the grounding of wellness. Another Juno welcomes museum visitors there.

Our Juno was a backup, but now will greet visitors to the Dittrick as they exit the elevator on the third floor of our home, the Allen Memorial Medical Library. We'll use our Juno to discuss Cleveland's museological heritage, and announce our continuing commitment to showcase issues surrounding women's health.

Jim Edmonson

p.s. - I refer those intrigued by Juno and her male counterparts to Klaus Vogel’s article, “The Transparent Man – Some comments on the history of a symbol,” in Robert Bud, et al, Manifesting Medicine: Bodies and Machines [Artefacts, Studies in the History of Science and Technology , Vol 1], Amsterdam, the Netherlands : Harwood Academic, 1999.

Le Livre Sans Titre, 1830

2011-05-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

At the recent 2011 meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine in Philadelphia I picked up a curious tract on the perils of self-abuse, or onanism. Merely speaking the word in polite company invited rebuke in the nineteenth century, so the author simply entitled his work "The Book without a Title," or Le Livre Sans Titre. It's dated 1830 and is distinguished by the charming (may I use that word in this context?) hand-colored depictions of the progressive physical (and moral) decline of the young man in question. A cautionary morality tale indeed! I've translated the captions from French to English, but words are hardly necessary to capture the flavor and tenor of this work...

He was young, handsome; his mother's fond hope

He corrupted himself!... soon he bore the grief of
his error, old before his time... his back hunches...

A devouring fire sears his gut;
he suffers horrible stomach pains...

See his eyes once so pure, so brilliant;
they are extinguished! a fiery band envelops them.

He can't walk any more... his legs give way

Hideous dreams disturb his slumber...
he cannot sleep...

His teeth rot and fall out...

His chest burns... he spits up blood...

His hair, once so lovely, falls as if from old age;
his scalp grows bald before his age....

He hungers; he wants to satiate his appetite;
food won't stay down in his stomach...

His chest collapses... he vomits blood...

Pustules cover his entire body... He is terrible to behold!

A slow fever consumes him, he declines;
all of his body burns up...

His entire body stiffens!... his limbs stop moving...

He is delirious; he stiffens against death;
death gains strength...

At the age of 17, he expires, and in horrible torment

The only library listing for this book in WorldCat is the British Museum. But then again, if you can't give a book a title, it might prove pretty hard to find! We're happy to have it as part of the library for the Percy Skuy Collection at the Dittrick.

Jim Edmonson

Obscura Day at the Dittrick, 2011

2011-04-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

Images from the dermatology clinic of William Thomas Corlett (1854-1948), Professor of Dermatology and Syphilology at Western Reserve University, presented by Dittrick's Assistant Curator, Laura Travis, in the Stecher Rare Book Room

We had great fun last Saturday hosting Obscura Day 2011. For a couple of hours we shared some seldom-seen treasures of the Dittrick, ranging from the earliest medical book with woodcut images (The Fasciculus Medicinae of Johannes de Ketham, 1495), to instruments that invoke a grimace and cringe (lithotrites, tonsillotomes, &c), to clinical photos from the 1890s depicting dread diseases like smallpox and syphilis. We're already thinking about Obscura Day 2012 -- how about a magic lantern show, including some medical slides? Sound like fun, eh? For now, here are some more pics from Obscura Day at the Dittrick. It is my understanding that there will be a Flickr page for Obscura Day.

Jim Edmonson

Photos from Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine, 1880-1930 by Warner and Edmonson.

Chief Curator Jim Edmonson presenting a sampler of gems from the rare book collection, on display in the Zverina Room, the Dittrick's seminar room and museum library of trade catalogues.

Jennifer Nieves, Dittrick archivist and museum registrar, showing Jim a selection of instruments from the Dittrick's extensive artifact collection.

Drinks among diaphragms: wine and cheese reception in the history of contraception gallery

Dirt: The filthy reality of everyday life (at the Wellcome Collection)

2011-04-05T06:33:00.000-07:00

The ravages of cholera, a disease of filth,
as seen in Dirt: the filthy reality of everyday life.

The folks at the Wellcome Collection have done it again. Take a totally banal, prosaic subject -- in this case, dirt -- and re-contextualize it by means of drawings, engravings, film, and artifacts. Though all around us in varying ways, dirt is also taboo, in that talking about it and acknowledging its presence is unsettling. Better off ignoring it, according to common wisdom. But Dirt: The filthy reality of everyday life takes all this head-on. The result is an evocative cultural and social history, driven by visually arresting images. Health and medicine are of course at the heart of this story, but often in surprising and intriguing ways. Can’t wait to see it in person this summer. For the meantime, one can get a better idea of the range and character of Dirt from a great sampler of images and objects on the Wellcome Collection website.

Curatorial credit for the exhibition goes to Kate Forde, James Peto, and Lucy Shanahan.

See mention and reviews of Dirt in the Washington Times, the Guardian, and the Montreal Gazette

Jim Edmonson

CIA students draw surgical artifacts for class

2011-03-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

Today we hosted another great group of students from the Biomedical Art program of the Cleveland Institute of Art. Prof. Tom Nowacki brought his medical illustration class to the Dittrick once again to draw surgical instruments from our collections. The sampling varied from O'Dwyer intubation sets to Tarnier's cephalotribe to Bigelow's lithotrite. The assignment revolved around the challenge of showing how these things worked, mechanically, and how they related to the body parts and tissue.

See some of the projects from last year. I'll post those from the 2011 class when they're done in a week or so.

Jim Edmonson

Sue Johanson from “Talk Sex” to present March 16 at Case

2011-03-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

Sue Johanson from Talk Sex with Sue Johanson is making one of her final debuts on Wednesday evening on the Case campus at Strosacker Auditorium!

Sue first appeared on the radio with a talk show about sex, and then branched out to community access television, and then, in 1996, her show became a national show on the Women's Television Network (WTN).

Sue’s show came to U.S. viewers in 2002 as Talk Sex with Sue Johanson, produced especially for American audiences and debuted in November 2002 on the Oxygen Media. It wrapped in May 2008, but Sue has been on the lecture circuit since, largely at colleges and universities.

Johanson’s interactive lecture begins at 7:00PM, to be followed by with a Q and A session. The event is sponsored by the University Program Board at Case. For more details, visit the UPB website or call 216.368.2438

Jim Edmonson

Joanna Ebenstein presents Anatomical Venuses at the Dittrick tonight

2011-03-01T11:06:00.000-08:00

March 1, 2011

In April 2007 Joanna Ebenstein created a fascinating blog, Morbid Anatomy, where she has since been "surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture." Medical museum and collections, like the Dittrick, provide much of the content for Morbid Anatomy. But Ebenstein has cast her net still further, exploring arcane museums and curious collections across Europe and the UK.

I've known Joanna for some time now (seen here in Paris in 2009) and followed Morbid Anatomy with constant interest and fascination. Join us tonight for her presentation at 6:00PM, in the Powell Room of the Allen Medical Library, followed by a reception at 7:00PM in the Dittrick Museum.

Jim Edmonson

James Ist touch piece

2011-02-19T20:12:00.001-08:00

Wonders never cease when working with the rich artifact collection of the Dittrick. For a class on the history of epidemic disease, I went looking for some votives to make a link between faith and healing. I knew we had an archival container with small stamped metal votives from the twentieth century, but was surprised when I opened a small jewelry box and found a solid gold coin.

Our accession records revealed that this artifact is a “touch piece” from the reign of James I of England. (He had originally been James VI of Scotland, succeeding his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots; under his reign the kingdoms of Scotland and England were united, hence the term United Kingdom, which he ruled from 1603 until his death in 1625.) So this coin was clearly quite old, and possibly had an intriguing history. There is also a very personal connection here, but I will save that to the end.

Henry IV of France touching King’s evil sufferers. From André Du Laurens, De mirabili strumas sanandi vi solis Galliae regibus.... Paris, 1609.

The Dittrick’s “touch piece,” comprised a token given to persons who experienced the “king’s touch,” a healing gesture practiced by kings of England from c.1275 to the end of the Stuart royalty, which concluded with Queen Anne in 1714. In France this practice lasted until 1789. Our British coin is an Angel, in circulation from 1465 to 1642; during the time of James I it was valued at eleven shillings (11s) or 132 pence.

On the obverse, or face, the coin bears the figure of the Archangel Michael slaying the dragon, and around the edge is the inscription Jacobus. D. G. Mag. Brit. Franc. & Hib. Rex. On the reverse, or back, one finds a ship on the waves, with its sail bearing royal heraldry, and inscribed on the edge Domino factum est istud.

A hole pierces the coin for insertion of a ribbon so that the supplicant might wear the coin after the being blessedly “cured.” Scrofula, or the “King’s evil” comprises the disease most closely associated with this healing ritual. It is a variant of tuberculosis that most commonly affected lymph nodes in the face and neck. In the English court, this practice ended with the succession of the Hanoverians, but in Scotland the Stuart “pretenders” continued it into the eighteenth century.

The royalist John Evelyn described the ceremony as performed by Charles II in a diary entry dated 16 July 1660:

His Majesty began first to touch for ye evil, according to custom, thus: ….the chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought or led up to the throne, where they kneeling, ye King stokes their faces and cheeks with both his hands at once,…. When they have all been totched [sic],… the other chapelaine kneeling and having an angel of gold strung on white ribbon on his arme., delivers them one by one to His Majestie, who puts them about the necks of the touched as they passe….

Now here’s the personal kicker: my daughter had scrofula when she was just 18 months old. Clinically speaking, she had atypical Mycobacterium avium complex, an infection usually seen in individuals with compromised immune systems. We were bewildered and scared, but had a great pediatrician who held our hands through the ordeal. Because of her age, anti TB drugs really were not an option; surgery was indicated and a wonderful (and perfectionist) pediatric surgeon dealt with the infection. It was like living in the nineteenth century, and believe me, you don’t want to be there with a sick child. “Living history” has its place, but not when it comes to illness and disease!

Jim Edmonson

For further reading see:

The Royal Cure for the King's Evil. British Medical Journal May 13, 1899: 1182-84.

Frank Barlow, The King's Evil. English Historical Review 95 (Jan, 1980): 3-27.

A touch pieces may be seen on display in the Science Museum (South Kensington, London, UK) in The Science and Art of Medicine gallery and on their website. And one surfaced in a dig at Jamestown, Virginia.

Condom Week 2011

2011-01-31T13:45:00.001-08:00

From its inception, the condom has been a morally ambiguous object. Does it serve to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted disease, or is its chief function birth control? Well, either or both, actually. Its meaning and significance are socially constructed.

For the Handerson Lecture by Alexandra Lord on January 27, we prepared an exhibit of WPA era anti VD posters, 1937-43, curated by CIA biomedical art student Stephen Beuhrer. Additionally, Dittrick staff mounted a display of condom containers from the Skuy Collection dating from this period and these artifacts document important changes in condom manufacture and marketing. The 1930s and 1940s witnessed the rise of latex condoms, the beginnings of FDA testing, and a consequent shake-up of the condom making trade, leaving Julius Schmid and Youngs Rubber as dominant in the American marketplace.

During World War I American soldiers and sailors were counseled to keep clean and abstinent on their furloughs. If and when they had sex, they were issued small “Dough-boy Prophylactic” kits containing mercurial ointment for post-coital cleanup.

More widespread use of the condom began with a landmark case involving Margaret Sanger and the first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. In 1918 Judge Frederick Crane of the court of appeals of New York affirmed the legality of contraceptives used for disease prevention. Before that time the Comstock Act had effectively criminalized birth control, including the condom, by banning the distribution of contraceptive information. The Crane decision neutralized the Comstock Act, at least with regard to condoms.

This gave condom makers their marketing slant in the 1920s and 30s: stress the disease preventive qualities of the condom, with only a wink at its contraceptive purpose. And make them available only through “ethical” druggists.

Julius Schmid, a German immigrant, first started making condoms (both skin sheaths and rubbers) during the black market era of Comstock. By 1930 he could openly register the trademark names Ramses and Sheik with the U.S. Patent Office, and the condom business made him a millionare.

The imagery of Egypt and Saudi Arabia might well have been inspired by the popularity of Rudolph Valentino and his dashing role in The Sheik (1921).

Youngs Rubber began condom manufacture in 1916, started selling Trojan condoms in 1920, and trademarked the brand in 1927. A tough battle in the courts to protect the Trojan brand effectively legitimized condoms for disease prevention.

Youngs marketed the Trojan line in pharmaceutical journals, guaranteeing the highest product quality among condom makers. In 1933 Youngs adopted machinery designed by Frederick Killian of Akron for mass production of latex condoms on a conveyor line. Latex (milky liquid tapped from rubber trees) condoms quickly emerged as viable rival to rubber products.

A real turning point, coincident with the WPA era anti-syphilis campaign by the U.S. Public Health Service and the American Social Hygiene Association, came with FDA testing of condoms. In 1937 FDA announced intent to begin inspections, which commenced in January 1938. Quickly, the leaders Schmid and Youngs rose above other brands, buoyed by their superior product and quality control. Arthur Youngs of the Trojan brand introduced a condom producing machine that did testing as an integral part of the manufacturing process.

Many condoms made by other companies, notably Texide and Dean, had an unacceptable failure rate, leading to the cessation of production by those companies between 1938 and 1941. That effectively left the field to industry giants Schmid and Youngs.

Celebrating Condom Week at the Dittrick.

Just around the corner we have a couple of events for Condom Week 2011. On Monday February 14 Science Cafe Cleveland wlll present Cloaking Cupid's Arrow: contraception and reproductive science at Great Lakes Brewing Co. I'll be talking about the history of contraception and my friend Tony Tizzano, M.D., will discuss contemporary reproductive science and technology. Join us! Drinks start at 6:30PM in the Tasting Room of GLBC at 2701 Carroll Avenue, off West 25th near the Westside Market. Program starts at 7:00PM

And earlier in the day on the 14th, tune into The Sound of Ideas on WCPN, Cleveland's NPR affiliate. Tony and I will discuss the history and science of contraception. Listen to the live audiostream on 90.3 FM beginning at 9:00AM.

Then, on Saturday February 19 Planned Parenthood of Northeast Ohio is hosting National Condom Week Party at the Dittrick, from 6 to 8 PM. See the PPNEO website for details.

Jim Edmonson

p.s. - there's plenty written on the condom, but not much good cultural history. Here are some exceptionally thoughtful and interesting offerings:

Joshua Gamson, "Rubber Wars: Struggles over the Condom in the United States," Journal of the History of Sexuality 1 (1990): 262-282.

Paul Jobling, "Playing Safe: The Politics of Pleasure and Gender in the Promotion of Condoms in Britain." Journal of Design History 10 (1997): 53-70.

Andrea Tone, Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America (2001), esp. Chap. 8: Condom Kings pp.183-202.

Sleeping with Uncle Sam

2011-01-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

Sex education. For most Americans, these two simple words conjure up diverse images: the gym, the inept health teacher, the snickers, the embarrassment, and, most important, the confusion. Alexandra Lord will explore this topic at the Dittrick on Thursday January 27. Her lecture, Sleeping With Uncle Sam: Federally Funded Sex Education and the American Public documents a century long struggle to create sex education programs balancing both cultural and public health concerns. In doing so, she will explore how and why sex education -- a teenage rite of passage in America -- became such an explosive topic.

Alexandra Lord (PhD, University of Wisconsin) taught medical history and served as historian of the United States Public Health Service through 2007. In January 2008, she became the Branch Chief of the National Historic Landmarks Program, and serves on the Board of the National Council on Public History. Her latest book, Condom Nation: The U. S. Government’s Sex Education Campaign from World War I to the Age of the Internet (Johns Hopkins, 2010) won awards from the British Medical Association as the best popular book on medicine and as the best book furthering public understanding of medicine and science.

Inspired by Alexandra Lord’s visit, the Dittrick staff, in association with CIA student Stephen Buehrer, has prepared a temporary exhibit, The Art of Prevention: Venereal Disease Posters, 1935-1950 in the Castele Gallery. The U. S. Public Health Service and the privately operated American Social Hygiene Association, commissioned artists working under the WPA (Works Progress Administration) to design posters for their campaign against venereal disease. The lithographed posters, mostly produced from 1936 to 1942, were distributed by state and local boards of health, and public health and safety programs. Digital copies of posters came from the Library of Congress, the Wellcome Library, and the American Social Hygiene Association archive at the University of Minnesota. The images seen here are from the Library of Congress.

A 10 year-old's take on hospital stay, c.1950

2010-12-27T06:25:00.000-08:00

In 1950, the sister of 10 year-old John Davidson was admitted to Lakewood Hospital for an appendectomy. John chronicled her stay in drawings, both real and imagined. On the front of a sheet of paper, entitled “My visitors today,” he depicted the daily routine of nurses, meals, recuperation, and visits by family and pastor. On the reverse John caricatured a far different nocturnal hospital experience, entitled “What goes on when your asleep.” In these drawings John envisioned multiple instrumental interventions, with tools more suited to workshop than hospital. John’s sister must have been amused by his imaginings, for she kept the sketches and almost a half century later they found their way into the archives at the Dittrick.

Dittrick 1993.42.2 obverse
Dittrick 1993.42.2 reverse

Hospital Handi-Notes c.1950

2010-12-18T20:40:00.000-08:00

For the coming holiday season I thought that something kid-oriented should be in order. One of the more charming items in the Dittrick archive is a c.1950 boxed set of Rust Craft greeting cards for hospital-bound children. We are normally inclined to think only of get-well cards sent to the infirm and ill. The cards depicted here turned the table, and were intended to let young hospital patients keep others apprised of their well-being, and hopefully improving health. Such cards provided family and friends with an update on their recuperation.

All this struck me as pretty remarkable, yet a tad surreal. What poor kid could/would provide family and friends with a meaningful report on their recuperation? And was this something “normal” in the sphere of greeting cards? The search to learn something about these cards resulted in a phone chat with Anne Stewart O’Donnell, a decorative arts scholar steeped in greeting card history. Anne cited The Romance of Greeting Cards (1956) by Earnest Dudley Chase as a key source, but it offered little illumination regarding this genre of cards. A bit more looking online confirmed that the cards could be credited to Marjorie Cooper of Three Little Kittens fame, as well as a full oeuvre of artwork for Rust Craft Greeting Card Company and other publishers of children’s books in the baby boomer era. Should I learn more, I’ll pass it along. For the moment, I will post these images and hope that you enjoy the charm of Cooper’s artwork.

Anatomica Aesthetica exhibition at the Cleveland Institute of Art: images from the opening on November 5.

2010-12-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

Images from the opening of Anatomica Aesthetica, November 5, Reinberger Galleries, Cleveland Institute of Art.

Anatomica Aesthetica showcases more than a decade of work by contemporary fine-art photographers from the Mütter Museum and the H. F. Aitken biomedical llustrations from the Dittrick Medical History Center. The exhibition includes images from the Mütter Museum’s renowned historical photography collection alongside contemporary images that extend the boundaries of traditional photographic subject matter. Guest curator Laura Lindgren brought together aesthetically diverse photographers including Shelby Lee Adams, Max Aguilera-Hellweg, Gwen Akin and Allan Ludwig, Candace diCarlo, Dale Gunnoe, Steven Katzman, Mark Kessell, Scott Lindgren, Olivia Parker, Rosamond Purcell, Richard Ross, Ariel Ruizi Altaba, Harvey Stein, Arne Svenson, William Wegman, and Joel-Peter Witkin. The H. F. Aitken collection comprises some 2000+ sketches, drawings, paintings, prints, and books from the estate of Hamlet Frederick Aitken (1872 - 1939), an artist and medical illustrator from Massachusetts. Maggie Pierce, a senior in the CIA biomedical art program, selected fifty works from the Aitken collection to be featured in this installation.

The exhibition runs from November 5 to December 18, 2010.

Related events include:

December 8

Amanda S. Almon, C.M.I. Associate Professor and Head of the Biomedical Art Department at The Cleveland Institute of Art and Adjunct Assistant Professor in anatomy at Case Western Reserve University, will provide a brief history of Biomedical Art, and the important role artists play in imaging medical science, in conjunction with Anatomica Aesthetica from 12:30-1:15pm. Meet near the entrance to the Reinberger Galleries.

December 15

James M. Edmonson, Chief Curator, Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum, College of Arts and Sciences, Case Western Reserve University and curator of Anatomica Aesthetica along with co-curator Maggie Pierce, senior in the Biomedical Art Program at The Cleveland Institute of Art, will give an informal gallery talk followed by a book signing for Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine, co-authored by John Harley Warner and James M. Edmonson. 12:30-1:15pm. Meet near the entrance to the Reinberger Galleries.

Photos courtesy of Robert Muller, Cleveland Institute of Art.

Anatomica Aesthetica: Mütter Museum Photographs and H. F. Aitken Illustrations from the Dittrick Medical History Center

2010-11-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

A joint exhibition by the Dittrick and Mütter museums to be held at the Reinberger Galleries of the Cleveland Institute of Art, November 5, 2010 – January 2, 2011

Opening and reception November 5. Anatomica Aesthetica brings together art and medicine, as found in the collections of the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia and the Dittrick Medical History Center in Cleveland.

From the Mütter comes an exhibit curated by Laura Lindgren (Blast Books) showcasing more than a decade of work by contemporary fine-art photographers. This exhibition includes images from the museum’s renowned historical photography collection alongside contemporary images that extend the boundaries of traditional photographic subject matter. Guest curator Laura Lindgren brings together aesthetically diverse photographers inclu ding Shelby Lee Adams, Max Aguilera-Hellweg, Gwen Akin andAllan Ludwig, Candace diCarlo, Dale Gunnoe, Steven Katzman, Mark Kessell, Scott Lindgren, Olivia Parker, Rosamond Purcell, Richard Ross, Ariel Ruizi Altaba, Harvey Stein, Arne Svenson, William Wegman, and Joel-Peter Witkin.

From the Dittrick comes a display of art from the H. F. Aitken collection comprising some 2000+ sketches, drawings, paintings, prints, and books from the estate of Hamlet Frederick Aitken (1872 - 1939), an artist and medical illustrator from Massachusetts. The Aitken collection reveals the professional emergence of biomedical illustration just as surgery and medicine were put on a new scientific basis around 1900 in medical centers such as Baltimore, Boston, and Cleveland. During his career, Aitken worked with leading figures of American surgery and anatomy, including Harvey Cushing, Frank H. Lahey, and John Collins Warren, as well as the leading medical illustrator Max Brödel at Johns Hopkins University.

Through the display of a selection of Aitken’s artwork, curated by CIA student Maggie Pierce, we are able to witness the career of a medical artist in unique detail, and to better understand the emergence of American medical illustration in this pivotal period.

Guest curator Laura Lindgren's lecture will be followed by a public opening and reception: Friday, Nov. 5 from 6 PM to 8 PM . Free and open to the public. Handicap access available.

Contact the gallery for more information on its public programs. http://www.cia.edu/reinberger_galleries/

For Dittrick coming events, visit our website and Facebook page.

All roads lead to Copenhagen. At least they do for medical museum folk in September.

2010-08-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Medical Museion originated in 1907 as the Medicinhistorisk Museum (Museum of the History of Medicine), to mark the 50th anniversary of the Danish Medical Association. In 1917, the University of Copenhagen assumed control of the collections, and today the museum is a part of the Institute of Public Health at the university''s Faculty of Health Sciences.

In 1946 the museum moved into the building complex at 60-62 Bredgade street, which housed the Royal Danish Surgical Academy (1787). King Christian VII founded the Academy in 1785 as an independent institution dedicated to the education of surgeons. Peter Meyn (1749-1808) designed the Academy building, which was inaugurated on 25 October 1787.

This scale model shows the layout of the 18th century hospital complex where the Medical Museion resides today. The square structure on the left is the original hospital, now a decorative arts museum (well worth visiting), while the Medical Museion sits at lower right, the second structure in.

In anticipation of the September meeting of the EAMHMS (European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences) in Copenhagen, I thought that I’d share my impressions and pictures of the Medical Museion, the hosting institution. Colleagues, friends, and readers of the Dittrick blog might only have learned about the Medical Museion in the past year or two. I know that I was pretty ignorant of the place until about six years ago, and only came to appreciated the scope of the Medical Museion endeavor after Thomas Söderqvist spoke here in 2005. Even with this information in hand, my visit there in 2006 brought still more surprises and new-found respect for the creative venture underway at the Medical Museion of the University of Copenhagen.

My first contact with anyone from the Medical Museion came in June 2004 at a meeting at Dartmouth University, “Scientific Instrument Collections in the University." That meeting, hosted by Rich Kremer (Dartmouth) and David Pantalony (Canada Science and Technology Museum), brought together curators and directors of university-based museums from across the North America and Europe. I knew perhaps less than one quarter of the attendees, so it was a great occasion for networking.

Among them I met Frank Allen Rasmussen, representing the Medical Museion and then responsible for the institution’s collections, archives, and library. Frank told me about ambitious plans for the Medical Museion that aimed to document biomedical technology developments in the period 1955-2005, with the generous support of Novo Nordisk Foundation, a research foundation. Frank spoke of a grand venture and I admit that I thought that he sounded a bit over-the-top and grandiose. Well, I was wrong.

Thomas Söderqvist, Ph.D., Director of the Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen

The University of Copenhagen engaged Thomas Söderqvist to lead this endeavor and he in turn assembled a team of bright young postdocs to tackle several spheres of modern biomedical technology, ranging from imaging to the foetus, and from endoscopy to the history of transplantation. The scope of this venture seemed pretty ambitious, so I made a note to follow their progress. That wasn’t very hard because Thomas had started a blog to document their doings, called Biomedicine on Display, and kept us informed about their developing efforts.

A quick read of his blog and I was hooked. Soderqvist clearly had a vision and a mandate to do something pathbreaking and I wanted to learn more. To that end, I invited him to give the Handerson Lecture at the Dittrick. His presentation, The Rise of Biomedicine and the End of the Modern Medical Museum, outlined the challenge of collecting and presenting medical innovations in an era of black-box technology, even disembodied computer-based instrumentation. Collecting itself is daunting and sometimes involves dumpster-diving in search of instruments on the verge of obsolescence and yet not considered “museum worthy”. Engagement with the arts comprised another exciting new avenue for making meaning of modern biotechnology, as did the encouragement of serious historical scholarship by the postdocs on Thomas’ team. Clearly, there was a lot going on in Copenhagen.

Wanting to learn more firsthand, I made it a point to swing by Copenhagen in 2006 after the EAMHMS Congress in Riga, Lativia. Specifically, I offered to present a seminar on our work with the Percy Skuy Collection on the History of Contraception [I had a pretty hard time explaining how Americans led in the bioscience of contraception, and yet the topic has also been a hot-button political and moral issue in our society].

Upon arrival at the Medical Museion, Thomas introduced me to his team of postdocs and staff, and then said he’d be busy for a while. Would I like to take a look around the place on my own, and we’d reconnect later? You bet! This sounded just great to me – to have a free rein to check out the place -- exhibits and collections behind-the-scenes -- on my own.

Boy, what a revelation. The Medical Museion is huge in terms of the artifact collection, with strong representation in 18^th and 19^th century material. Its home, originally a surgeons' academy or guild hall (not unlike the Josephinum in Vienna), housed a distinguished building incorporating a beautiful lecture amphitheater, flanked by an array of rooms turned into museum gallery space. As I wandered about the place it dawned upon me that this was a totally under-appreciated collection, far more important than I ever imagined. Yes, I knew they were doing important work collecting and interpreting contemporary medical technologies, but I had no clue how broad and extensive it is. Happily, I strolled through the period rooms and galleries usually visited on guided tours. With Thomas’ keys in hand, I headed into the recesses of storage above the main galleries. The collection storage (stores to the British) went on and on. I felt privileged and grateful for the experience. My images will convey the sense of discovery and wonder, I hope. Without doubt, the Medical Museion is one of the most important and comprehensive collections of medical technology – both retrospectively to the 18^th century and on through to today – that I have visited as a medical museum curator over three decades.

Ion Meyer, Head of Collections and main conservator of the Medical Museion

After my visit, I reflected on what Thomas et cie have achieved, and how it needed to be shared with my medical museum colleagues. Yes, Thomas’ blog showcases many aspects of their accomplishments, but an open dialogue remained to be enjoyed. To that end, I leaned hard on him to host the EAMHMS Congress in 2010 and he finally relented and acquiesced. So… It’s off to Copenhagen in September, and when back I will report on what more we saw and learned. Check out the Congress info here.

Jim Edmonson

(all photos taken by me in 2006)

and some more Copehangen images:

Danish Museum of Art & Design (Kunstindustrimuseet).

Nyhavn (New Harbor)

Amalienborg Palace

Rosenborg Castle (Rosenborg Slot)

An innocent abroad, or Howard Dittrick’s visit to the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, 1928

2010-06-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Frances Larson’s wonderful book about Henry Wellcome and his collection, An Infinity of Things: How Sir Henry Wellcome Collected the World (Oxford, 2009). Larson deftly recounts Wellcome’s remarkable saga, from poor kid from Minnestota to a rich, knighted businessman in Britain, amassing a great fortune in the pharmaceutical industry. Initially, Wellcome collected curios to convey the air of an established gentleman, an exercise made easy by having honed his skills of presentation in the drug trade. But over time Wellcome’s collecting morphed from hobby to obsession, and by the time of his death in 1936 his collection easily exceeded a million objects, packed in thousands of unopened crates in London warehouses. Larson’s telling of this story is sensitive and insightful, and situates Wellcome within the collecting mania of the wealthy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s a complex tale, and well worth the read.

Learning more about Wellcome’s story compelled a new look at his impact upon Howard Dittrick. In 1928, Dittrick travelled across the Continent, through Italy, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, and, finally, Britain. Along the way he saw the major medical history museums and chatted with their caretakers, including Dr. G. A. Wehrli of the Medizingeschichtliche Sammlung der Universitat Zurich in Switzerland and L. W. G. Malcolm at the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in London and C. J. S. Thompson, formerly of the Wellcome, but now at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. From these men he gained invaluable insights into purposes and functioning of medical history museums. Dittrick was later fond of recalling the admonition of Sir Arthur Keith, of the Royal College of Surgeons, "never to treat any donated historic material as junk."

I went back to Howard’s travel diaries to see what impression the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum (1913-32) made upon him. Dittrick had only been curator at the Cleveland museum for two years, and in that sense remained a neophyte. After arriving in London, Dr. and Mrs. Dittrick did some general sightseeing and then he called at the Wellcome Museum on May 25: “Met Mr. Malcolm & went over Museum. Many pictures & paintings used. Set up of pharmacy shops of periods are Turkish, Old time Barber Surgeon…”

Dittrick’s travel diary goes on for several pages, making note of a seemingly random litany of odd and offbeat things that attracted his attention and that he deemed worthy of note – a curious trephine, Leper’s clapper, copper cupping instruments from India, and so on. Dittrick returned the next day, May 26, again taking note of the curious and the remarkable. He carefully transcribed text from labels: “ ‘The Evolution of the Lancet. The fingernail was the earliest form of lancet… The medicine men of many countries savage races also use the nail as a lancet and the same custom exists even today among country practitioners in Europe.” On May 29, in the afternoon, Dittrick returned to the Wellcome, jotting down notes on a panoply of the curious and the strange, from rhinoceros horn cups thought to neutralize the effect of poisons, to the academic gown of Sir William Osler, and to medals and amulets for the plague.

On the morning of May 30 he met with Wellcome’s curator Macolm for a more substantive interaction. Dittrick recorded details of collection care and management in his diary: “In labeling instruments he uses ordinary tube paint & gold size painted on with a fine brush. See small notebook for complete scheme of classification. Had conference with Mr. Malcolm, & he asked me to write on my return for any requests. He wants model of Perkens Tractors and a quack treatment by Radium by Wireless.” So at this early juncture an exchange between Dittrick and Wellcome’s agents was in play, and correspondence in the Dittrick Museum accession files testifies to its continuance, even if only on occasion – Dittrck wrote chiefly soliciting help in identifying or documenting unusual items.

What Dittrick could not apprehend, but Larson’s book makes clear, is that Wellcome’s collection had already gotten far out of hand. What took almost forty years to collect would take another forty years to put in order – some by donation to the Science Museum where it can be seen in the Wellcome galleries, some remaining part of the Wellcome Trust and can today be seen in their gallery on Euston Road, and much dispersed to ethnographic collections or sold at auction.

Upon return to Cleveland Dittrick set about implementing the Wellcome’s classification system, became inspired to seek out new, exotic material for his museum, and aspired to create collections and galleries inspired by the visit to London. Like Wellcome, this process would not be finished in Dittrick’s lifetime. Perhaps this was their inescapable fate. For as Larson concludes, “… neither knowledge nor a collection can be finished. …There is always more to know, and there is always more to buy.”

Jim Edmonson

Dittrick's hotel bill

Celebrating the Pill: two offerings from across the spectrum of interest.

2010-05-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

With all the hoopla commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Pill, I’ve seen and read a lot of compelling commentaries. But for my money, the two best offerings come distant poles of competence and interest. One comes from a distinguished senior scientist in family planning residing in California, and the other is from a high school sophomore (!) in greater Cleveland.

The most compelling and well-reasoned celebration of the Pill that I’ve read so far comes from Malcolm Potts, the Bixby Professor of Population and Family Planning at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Potts is a Cambridge educated obstetrician who has devoted his career to women’s health and reproduction science, and for ten years he served as Medical Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. On Mother’s day he published an op-ed piece in the LA Times, and I commend it heartily to you: The pill — a modern philosopher's stone.

Another celebration of the Pill comes to us from Shaker High School sophomore Luken Zhang. For her National History Day project, Ms. Zhang decided to focus on the Pill, its social and culture origins and impact. To present her perspective she fashioned a super website entitled The Pill: Birth of a New Woman. The site is loaded with pictures, video clips, and archival sources, making the story of the Pill really come alive.

Ms. Zhang stopped by the Dittrick to capture some images in our gallery featuring the Percy Skuy Collection on the History of Contraception. She also interviewed me on the topic, after her website had made it to the regional finals of History Day. In our conversation, I asked her what she had learned in the process of studying the Pill. She said that she never appreciated how much one thing, one innovation, could influence our lives so profoundly. Seems like a pretty good lesson to have learned while still yet a high school sophomore! Ms. Zhang is off to the National History Day national finals in Washington, DC in June, and we’ll be rooting for her and wishing her much well-deserved success!

Jim Edmonson

p.s. -- by the way, National History Day originated at Case Western Reserve University in 1974, as the brainchild of history professor David van Tassel. Read about it in a remembrance of van Tassel by Cathy Gorn, director of National History Day.

Picturing the physician–patient encounter.

2010-05-13T19:05:00.001-07:00

L. M. Lawson, M.D., "Lectures on the Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Chest; … Mode of Auscultation -- Stethoscopes," The Western Lancet Vol XI, No.3 (March, 1850): fig 24 (opp p 137).

This summer at the Dittrick we are busy revamping our balcony display of diagnostic instruments first installed way back in 1976. As previously discussed in the Newsletter of the Cleveland Medical Library Associaton, this renovation has been precipitated by donations by Don Blaufox of drawings of stethoscopes (Fall 2008) and his extensive collection of historic stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers (Spring 2009).

A.B. Norton, M.D Ophthalmic Diseases and Therapeutics. 1898. p 30, fig 6

It’s an exciting and challenging prospect to make these instruments come alive, to show how they enhanced the process of diagnosis and altered the physician-patient encounter in the physical examination. We’re hot on the trail of images depicting doctors and their patients, using a variety of diagnostic instruments. Great help is to be found in the Cleveland Medical Library collection in the Allen, the first core library established in 1893. Museum volunteer Jim Vendeland, a retired ophthalmologist, is plowing his way through the monograph collection to ferret out such images. As Jim tracks them down, museum student assistant Gillian Seaman (history major at Case) is scanning the images and carefully documenting them. The result? A growing fund of images seldom seen before, as most are buried deeply in medical literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

H. C. Burnett, System of Diseases of the Ear, Nose, and Throat. 1893. p 116, fig 16.

In addition to providing a pool of images useful for the diagnostic instrument gallery, we are generating a visual library of arresting and fresh (though technically “old”) depictions of doctors examining patients. All too often, illustrated works on the history of medicine use hackneyed, clichéd images. We’re happy to break from that pattern, and will be sharing our finds as this project proceeds.

Bon courage.

Jim Edmonson

When a pill became The Pill, a half century ago

2010-05-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, Mother's Day, marks the fiftieth anniversary of FDA approval of oral contraception. The occasion is being observed in many news stories about the Pill, its advent and its social, cultural, and demographic impact. It's no small matter as over 100 milliion women use oral contraceptives in America today.

The Dittrick’s Skuy Gallery features a display devoted to the Pill, highlighting those responsible for its development, and how this new form of contraception was received by the medical community, and across the political spectrum from the Catholic church to proponents of the “sexual revolution”.

The forms of packaging used for the marketing and dosage comprise a particularly interesting aspect of the Skuy Gallery display. Early pill bottles, for Enovid distributed by G. D. Searle, & Co. resemble those customarily used for any form of oral medication. Soon, however, contraceptive makers introduced a range of packaging concealing the identity and function of oral contraceptives.

By placing them in containers that resembled cosmetic compacts or lipstick holders, pharmaceutical manufacturers promoted social discretion of those taking the Pill. In some states, contraceptives remained ostensibly illegal in 1960, so concealment was the order of the day.

To encourage compliance and ensure appropriate dosage, one concerned husband, an engineer named David Wagner, redesigned the oral contraceptive container, giving us the iconic dialpak dispenser (patented July 27, 1962). He first presented it to G. D. Searle, but they seemed preoccupied with other marketing issues. In the fall of 1962 Wagner showed it to Ortho Pharmaceutical, but they, too, showed little apparent interest. Six months later, in February 1963, Ortho introduced the Dialpak, which curiously resembled Wagner's design in every way! Long story short, Wagner defended his patent and the two parties settled. Wagner's dialpak design was here to stay. And there's no mistaking it for anything else!

The dialpak story is compellingly told by Pat Gossell in her essay, “Packaging the Pill,” which appeared in the collection of essays entitled Manifesting Medicine: Bodies and Machines (1999) edited by Robert Bud, Bernard Finn, Helmuth Trischler.

With all that is being written and posted online, I took a look around and can recommend these articles for further reading:

The Pill at 50: Sex, Freedom and Paradox. Time by Nancy Gibb, Apr. 22, 2010

It Started More Than One Revolution. NYT by Gardiner Harris May 3, 2010

The Pill at 50: Taking stock. Huffington Post by Christiane Northrup, MD April 22, 2010.

Why I hate the pill. The birth control revolution brought freedom to countless women. It brought misery to me. Salon.com by Geraldine Sealey May 3, 201

What Every Girl Should Know. NYT by Gail Collins May 8, 2010

50 Years of a sometimes bitter pill. BBC News by Claire Murphy May 7, 2010

The Creation Museum : museum or theme park?

2010-04-26T20:21:00.001-07:00

Pat Gerstner, trooper

entrance : only $21.95

you will behave...

In early April the Dittrick staff headed to Cincinnati for the annual meeting of the Ohio Academy of Medical History. We took advantage of the opportunity to head into Kentucky and check out the Creation Museum, which we had heard a lot about since its opening in 2007. We just wanted to see for ourselves and went there chiefly as a matter of professional curiosity. We anticipated an unusual, quirky museum-going experience and the place did not disappoint.

Now I don’t want to belabor the details because that would give the place more credence than it deserves. The bottom line for me is that it’s not a museum at all (at least, not in my perhaps traditional sense of that word). Admittedly, the term museum has about as much consistency of meaning and definition at the appellation curator, meaning : not much. But I still think of museums as having been created to warehouse things -- objects, artifacts, specimens – for purposes of wonder, study, analysis, interpretation, education, and enlightenment. In a broad sense, the American Association of Museums agrees. On its website the AAM addresses the definition of museum:

American museums are infinitely diverse. The AAM Code of Ethics for Museums notes that their common denominator is making a "unique contribution to the public by collecting, preserving, and interpreting the things of this world." http://www.aam-us.org/aboutmuseums/whatis.cfm

The only “things of this world” found in the Creation Museum are models, dioramas, animatronic figures, videos, and conventional exhibitry. There is just nothing real here. We saw a fake archeological dig, life size dioramas or tableaux of manikins, including Adam and Eve co-habiting the Garden of Eden with dinosaurs, and a panoply of biblical figures in animatronic form (my favorite was Noah, who sounded like an old Russian Jew). Again, just nothing real. I will let our pictures (mine and those by Laura Travis) tell the story.

welcome to the Grand Canyon, sort of

a faux dig

oh yeah, the white guy gets it right -- the world is only 6000 years old...

Lucy is here, too, much to the surprise of my curatorial colleagues at the CMNH, including Bruce Latimer, who was on the team that discovered this landmark fossil

could have photoshopped my baldspot!

faith vs. reason: more of a standoff than a dialogue

and now for the heavy religious schtick...

Adam hangs with the wild creatures

don't look now, but there's a serpent overhead...

vegan dino

got some 'splainin' to do...

dinos on the ark!

is this a gay dino couple? they sure resemble each other. perhaps passing as twins?

the waters are rising

sinners and infidels left behind

So, if the place is not a museum, what is it? I liken it to a theme park, perhaps a biblical Jurassic park. But instead of T-rex chasing after you, teeth flashing, you are hounded by evil and despair stemming from not accepting a literal interpretation of biblical truth. Forsaking God’s word, as found in Genesis, lies at the root of all ills and suffering in the world.

suffering and anguish for the unbeliever

blasphermer! infidel! heathen!

There’s a sinister, dark urban edge to all this, too.

the never-ending fight over abortion

evolution, the biggest challenge to the scripture

So as one leaves the final video, an appeal is made to accept Jesus as your savior. Indeed, I even came away with a pledge card (I think they surreptitiously slipped it into my bag at the “museum” store).

No "museum" is complete without its own store and merchandising program, and the Creation Museum is not to be outdone:

Curator emerita Patsy Gerstner checks out the offerings...

proclaim your belief (your faith, not your reason)

dinos for kids

dinos, again

An English colleague, Lisa O'Sullivan (Science Museum) upon hearing that we had visited the Creation Museum queried, “How many visitors are just curious, like you, and not true believers?” I would have to say not many. If you can judge a book (including the good book) by it’s cover, we were in the decided minority. This place is mecca (oops, bad metaphor!) for believers, who finally feel validated that their beliefs are now safely ensconced in a museum, that bulwark of veracity in our society.

Jim Edmonson

For those that want a couple of entertaining takes of the Creation Museum, I encourage you to see the articles by Edward Rothstein, Stephen Asma, and A. A. Gill (accompanied by the actor and photographer Paul Bettany, who plays Darwin in the film Creation).

A visit with Sara Shechner at Harvard

2010-04-20T21:07:00.000-07:00

While in Boston recently for our Dissection gig at the Warren Anatomical Museum (Countway Library, HMS), I managed to fit in a visit to see Sara Schechner, curator of Harvard’s Collection of Scientific Instruments. I’ve known Sara for several years and admired her work and energy from afar. Actually, we occupy parallel worlds, hers the history of science; mine the history of medicine. Our commonality resides in the curation of instrument collections, and the challenge and enjoyment of making sense of the artifacts in our care.

Sara Schechner

Sara’s effort to bring the Harvard collections into the classroom is most impressive. She has creatively integrated material culture (objects) into the conventional print and text-oriented culture across the Harvard curriculum. It’s a daunting endeavor, and requires no small measure of initiative and entrepreneurship. The History of Science Society recognized Sara’s accomplishments in this sphere by the prestigious Joseph H. Hazen Education Prize for innovative teaching both in and outside museums in 2008

In the past decade Sara presided over a relocation of the Harvard collection to a newly constructed (2003) home for the Department of the History of Science, with new storage facilities.

Collection compact storage

Microscopes in storage

What I really came to see was the permanent interpretive exhibition in the new Putnam Gallery, which opened in 2005. Sara's exhibition, Time, Life, and Matter: Science in Cambridge, on permanent display in the Putnam Gallery of Harvard's Science Center, took first place in the 2007 International Design Awards competition.

So, here are some pics of the Putnam Gallery. You can also look at images of artifacts on display via Waywiser, a new online database.

Colonial science: mathematical instruments, time finding, surveying, navigation

Time finding: sundials

Section: astronomer’s time

Natural philosophy: optical instruments

Orreries

Cyclotron control console

Cyclotron bulletin board : staff call list, &c

Takeout menus

Next time that you’re in Boston, seek out Harvard’s Putnam Gallery and if possible stop in to say hello to Sara. You’ll be glad you did.

Jim Edmonson

Simon Chaplin : Doctors and the Death of History

2010-04-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

This Friday the Cleveland Medical Library Association (original parent body of the Dittrick) will host Simon Chaplin, new Head of the Wellcome Library (Wellcome Trust) in London. Simon’s talk, Doctors and the Death of History, will explore the tricky balancing act confronting medical libraries with important historical collections:

Is medical history dying? As health libraries struggle to balance the needs of 'legacy' collections with the demand for modern information services, what role is there for historical research? How might historical collections become the medium for public engagement, as a resource that can inform, inspire and entertain those who have come to depend upon the benefits of modern medical science? Drawing on the example of the Wellcome Library, one of the world's greatest medical collections, Dr Simon Chaplin offers an insight in to the future of history in medical libraries.

Transforming collections, and the perception of these collections, as found at the Wellcome – and at the Dittrick – according to Chaplin, calls for “new strategies - to foster an awareness of the utility of a historical perspective among medical practitioners; to enthuse students by making history relevant to their curricula; to look beyond a traditional audience of retired clinicians at a wider academic community - of cultural, social and economic historians; historians of art and literature; of researchers in medical humanities, arts and social sciences.”

Dr. Simon Chaplin is Head of the Wellcome Library at the Wellcome Trust, one of the world's major resources for the study of medical history. Dr. Chaplin read Natural Sciences at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge (1988-1991), and subsequently worked at the Science Museum (1992-1998) in London. Most recently, he was Director of Museums and Special Collections at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Hunterian Museum (RCSE), reopened Feb 2005, finalist for the distinguished Gulbenkian Prize in 2006.

The lecture begins at 6:00PM on Friday in the Ford Auditorium of the Allen Memorial Medical Library (11000 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland), followed by a reception in the Cushing Reading Room. Open gratis to one and all. If attending, please RSVP to Dzwinka Holian at 368-3642 or dxk6@case.edu

Jim Edmonson

p.s. also, check out the Wellcome Library's great blog

left behind at the Creation Museum...

2010-04-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

Couldn’t resist sharing this detail from the Creation Museum…

As Noah’s Ark rode the waves of the Flood, with its precious cargo of critters and humankind, not all made the trip. In this diorama, sinners and infidels cling to the last remaining rock outcrop, shortly to be swamped by rising waters.

Guess I would have been among them....

Jim Edmonson

Coming posts: Harvard’s Scientific Instrument Collection, and the Creation Museum

2010-04-11T12:17:00.001-07:00

I’m back in Cleveland after visiting two very contrasting museums, with very different takes on the meaning of science in our life. While in Boston, for a book talk, I paid a call on Sara Schechner, curator of Harvard’s collection of scientific instruments, and designer of the award winning interpretive gallery Time, Life, and Matter: Science in Cambridge, in the Putnam Gallery of Harvard's Science Center. I am hard pressed to think of a better museum presentation of the beauty and meaning of scientific instruments – it is stunningly handsome, thoughtfully conceived, and artfully installed. Well worth a visit when in Boston. More on that later.

Sara Schechner

In contrast, my visit to the Creation Museum in Kentucky, outside Cincinnati, defied credulity. Having said that, it is a masterful piece of cultural interpretation (costing $27 million to build!). I hesitate to use the term “museum” as the place was devoid of “real” artifacts. But the dioramas, animatronic figures, and video presentation were slick and state of the art in quality, if not substance. Again, more on this later in the week. For now I will leave you with an image that sums up the peculiarity and absurdities of the place in a nutshell: dinos boarding Noah’s Ark.

Stay tuned for many more pics of both places, and my impressions and curatorial assessment of each in turn.

Jim Edmonson

Dissection at Harvard

2010-04-08T16:40:00.000-07:00

Just last night, April 7, John Warner and I gave a book talk at the Center for the History of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The topic: our book, Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage of American Medicine, 1880-1930. The event: opening of an exhibition of images featured in our book, on display at the Countway Library (5th floor) through June. We are greatful to Center Director Scott Podolsky for making this happen.

I traveled from Cleveland to Boston on Monday night, to get a fresh start on Tuesday hanging the show with Dominic Hall, curator of the Warren Anatomical Museum, which is today part of the Center for the History of Medicine. I brought the images, digital prints mounted with labels, and Dominic and I, ably assisted by his intern Alicia Guillama (from Harvard University Extension School’s Graduate Program in Museum Studies), spent Tuesday hanging the show. With everyone pitching in, we got the show up and running by the end of the day, with a few dangling details to be sorted the next morning.

Dominic Hall

Alicia Guillama

Dominic and Alicia

Having taken care of business on the first day, I was free to head over to see Sara Schechner, the David P. Wheatland Curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments over in Cambridge on Wendesday. More on that fascinating visit in a coming post…

By mid-afternoon, I headed back to the Countway and rendezvouz-ed with John Warner, who arrived around 4:30, in anticipation of our talk at 6:00, followed by a book signing and reception. We had about 50 persons in attendance (not bad for one of the warmest and sunniest days seen in Boston this Spring). Had a very sympathetic and attentive audience, and a lively question and answer period following our presentation. We then all adjourned for attendees to see the show.

Now back in Cleveland for a quick turnaround, I am off to Cincinnati tomorrow for the Saturday meeting of the Ohio Academy of Medical History. We’re taking off early so we can bake a beeline for the Creation Museum across the border in Kentucky. Can’t wait! Will be reporting our experience here shortly…

Jim Edmonson

Museum positions open at Medical Museion in Copenhagen.

2010-04-03T16:57:00.001-07:00

Thomas Söderqvist wrote me to announce that the Medical Museion (University of Copenhagen) is looking to fill two positions at their very creative and imaginative venture that comprises an amalgam of a conventional museum collection and a 21st century center for the study of medical science and technology innovation.

Söderqvist, as head of the Medical Museion, has just announced the opening of a search to fill two new positions as asst./assoc. professor in medical science communication and medical heritage production, respectively. His description of the Medical Museion and the positions follows:

oxygenator for open heart surgery

Medical Museion is an integrated research and museum unit for promoting medical science communication based on the material and visual medical heritage. The research profile is centered around the contemporary history of the biomedical sciences, medical science communication studies, and studies of the production of the material and visual medical scientific heritage. The museum has a world-class collection of historical medical artefacts and images, an active program for the acquisitioning and preservation of the contemporary biomedical and biotechnological heritage, a permanent medical-historical public gallery, and an innovative temporary exhibition program.

artificial kidney machine, 1963

The museum is looking for two new members of faculty to contribute to our integrated research, teaching, heritage and outreach programme focussing on late 20th century and contemporary medical and health sciences in a cultural, aesthetic and historical perspective. The aim of the programme is to develop new modes of research-based collecting, exhibition making and web-based outreach by combining scientific content, cultural interpretation and aesthetic expression in innovative ways.

On the outreach side, we are developing research-based science communication practices for a variety of audiences – spanning from health professionals to the general public – in the form of exhibitions and web products, and with special attention to the aesthetics of science communication.

On the acquisition side, we are in the process of developing research-based curatorial practices (heritage production) in close cooperation with research institutions, hospitals, pharma, biotech and medical device companies, and patient organisations in the region (‘museum 2.0’) .

The appointees are required to do research at an international level and research-based teaching; however most of the teaching obligations are substituted with museum work.

This is a summary only. The full announcement can be read here: http://tinyurl.com/ye8wtep, or here:http://www.corporeality.net/museion/2010/03/09/1-2-associate-assistant-professors-in-medical-science-communication-andor-medical-science-heritage-production. Application deadline is 25 May 2010.

Further info from professor Thomas Soderqvist, Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen, +45 2875 3801; thss@sund.ku.dk; www.corporeality.net/museion.

Harry Potter’s World comes to greater Cleveland.

2010-04-01T19:31:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter’s World exhibition is coming....

The Chardon Public Library, a branch of the Geauga County Public Library, will be hosting the traveling exhibition, Harry Potter’s World: Renaissance Science, Magic, and Medicine from April 27 to May 21. This exhibit was curated by the National Library of Medicine staff, in collaboration with medical history consultant Mark A. Waddell.

Harry Potter’s World features the NLM’s distinguished History of Medicine collections.*** The distribution of Harry Potter’s World is being coordinated by the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office, in alliance with the NLM, and the Chardon Public Library is one of twelve public libraries to host this exhibition nationwide, as noted in a local paper. Credit for this goes to Chardon Library Manager Judi Smith.

According to the ALA site :

Using materials from the NLM’s History of Medicine collections, the exhibition explores Harry Potter’s world, its roots in Renaissance science and the ethical questions that affected not only the wizards in J.K. Rowling’s books, but also the historical thinkers featured in the series. Exhibition panels feature the works of 15th- and 16th-century alchemists, naturalists and occultists and explore the intersection between the Harry Potter novels and Renaissance thinkers, lore and practices.

Books from the Nicolaus Pol collection at the Dittrick.

The Dittrick staff, along with colleagues of the Cleveland Health Sciences Library (CWRU), are supporting the Chardon showing of Harry Potter’s World by mounting a complementary display of rare books from our collections that touch upon themes and topics addressed in the exhibit.

Plate from L. Fuchs, De historia stirpium commentarii insignes (1542).

Because the NLM’s rare books featured in the Harry Potter World cannot travel, the exhibit is composed of graphic text labels and digitally reproduced images taken from the books. The Dittrick display will feature actual period books, medical and scientific works from c.1470 through the 17th century. The core display will highlight medical and scientific knowledge as embodied in the library of Renaissance doctor Nicolaus Pol (d.1532), physician to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian. To more closely complement Harry Potter World, the remainder of the rare books on display will focus on wonders of nature, freaks and oddities, alchemy and chemistry, and on medicinal plants and herbals.

Ambroise Paré. The Works of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey, translated out of Latine and compared with the French, by Th: Johnson. London, Printed by Th. Cotes and R. Young, 1634.

If you’re in the area, stop in to see the display, which will be presented in the Cushing Reading Room on the second floor of the Allen Medical Library, home to the Dittrick.

Jim Edmonson

*** Little known fact: the rare book collection of the National Library of Medicine (formerly the Library of the Surgeon General's Office, later called the Army Medical Library) resided in the Dittrick Museum’s main gallery from 1942 to c.1959 – a wartime expedient that dragged on longer than initially expected. The presence of the collection stimulated local interest in medical history, and led to the hiring of Genevieve Miller as the first historian (indeed the first woman PhD in medical history in the US) at the helm of the Dittrick in 1960.

Dissection makes the news (again!)

2010-03-27T20:14:00.000-07:00

Yet another news piece references our Dissection book. This most recent posting by reporter Kelly Heyboer, appeared in the online version of New Jersey’s Star Ledger on Friday March 26. Heyboer noted that “in recent months, medical schools around the nation have begun re-examining their ethics codes after a string of disturbing cases in which students photographed or videotaped cadavers and posted the images on Facebook and YouTube.” While acknowledging the troubling ethical impact of images conveyed by social networking tools, she also observed that “Taking photos with cadavers is nothing new. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, medical students regularly posed with cadavers. Some took darkly humorous shots with the dead bodies posed or dressed in costumes. Others took serious classroom photos mid-dissection.” To support this assertion, Heyboer featured an image from the Dittrick’s collection that appears in Dissection.

We will have another opportunity to promote Dissection in early April, when John Warner and I will make a presentation at the Countway Library of Harvard Medical School. On April 7 we will be mounting an exhibition of dissection images there and talking about the book. Those in the Boston area are welcome to attend and may find event details here.

Jim Edmonson

Aristotle’s Masterpiece : the most popular book on reproduction and birth before 1830.

2010-03-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

The Works of Aristotle… London, 1826, opp. p.18

How did people learn about reproduction and birth control in early America? Traditional folk knowledge predominated, shared chiefly among women, passed by word of mouth. By 1700 a new source supplemented this oral tradition: a curious little book entitled Aristotle’s Master Piece, Displaying the Secrets of Nature in the Generation of Man. First published in English in 1684, copies of the book went on sale in Boston the following year. In time, Aristotle’s Masterpiece became the most widely circulated guide to childbirth and sexual matters before 1830. It said little on the subject of birth control, and instead presented knowledge of the body and childbirth. (Aristotle did not write this book, but the author thought using the name of the Greek philosopher would lend the work authority and prestige.)

Aristotle’s Masterpiece presented a mix of classical medical writings, 17th century midwifery treatises, and popular folklore. It described sexual anatomy and the essentials of reproduction, as then understood, without the stigma of guilt, sin, or shame. Informative and not intended to be lewd, Aristotle’s Masterpiece celebrated God’s gift of procreative power and the bliss of the matrimonial bedchamber. The tone of the writing at times waxed reverent; at others it bordered on the bawdy side. But throughout it conveyed a sense of discovery and wonder. Since Aristotle’s Masterpiece presented a subject (sex) rarely discussed in polite society, it remained a source seldom openly acknowledged. Medical men did not credit it as a legitimate body of knowledge, while common folk hid their well-thumbed copies under the mattress. Nevertheless, Aristotle’s Masterpiece became a clandestine classic. Some 27 editions appeared in North America; 11 in the 18th century, and 16 between 1801 and 1831.

Here is a flavor of the language found in Aristotle's Masterpiece:

And thus those nobler parts we see

For such the parts of generation be :

And they who carefully survey will find

Each part is fitted for the use design’d :

The purest blood we find if well we heed

Is in the testicles turn’d into seed :

Which by most proper channels is transmitted

Into the place by nature for it fitted :

With highest sense of pleasure to excite

In amorous combatants the more delight.

For in this work nature doth design

Profit and pleasure in one act to join.

The Works of Aristotle, the famous philosopher, in four parts…

New England, February 1813, pp. 8-9.

Stay tuned for a second post on Aristotle's Masterpiece, with references to historical writings by Mary Fissell that make more sense of the meanings this work conveys to us today.

Jim Edmonson

Storks: symbols of fecundity or harbingers of unwanted pregnancy?

2010-03-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

Upon entering the exhibition Virtue, vice, and contraband: a history of contraception in America, you are greeted by imagery of storks, bearing infants, being beaten back or evaded by women who didn’t relish the prospect of motherhood. Such images are perhaps unexpected, but are indeed part and parcel of the iconography of both reproduction and contraception.

Storks atop a tower in Kayersberg, Haut Rhin (Alsace)

The stork, a symbol of fecundity, luck, and prosperity widely used across Europe, has for centuries been associated with childbirth. In Alsace (my favorite part of France) it is the symbol of that French region (more specifically the Haut Rhin département), and indeed storks perch atop spires and chimneys across the countryside. When confronted with the perennial question of where babies come from (awkward!!), a quick parental out is simply to say that “the stork brought them.”

This explanation found visual expression in postcards and announcements sent by prospective and new parents upon the occasion of childbirth. As the predominant icon of childbirth, the stork is closely followed by caggage-patch babies (how many of us recall the frantic parental search for “cabbage patch” dolls at Christmas in the 80s?). Both stork and cabbage patch images are found in abundance in a wonderful book entitled D'où viennent les bébés? by Laura Jaffe and Conce Codina. I came across this book at the Musée Flaubert in Rouen last September and bought a copy for the Dittrick.

Guest curator of Virtue, vice, and contraband Jimmy Meyer collected quite a few postcards with stork iconography, and added them to the Skuy collection last year. Along with the bouyant, cheerful stork images came some less cheery in character -- images of women (and their partners) frantically fending off or fleeing the stork. These postcards showed that not everyone desired a large family, and many eagerly sought some effective and safe way to achieve that goal.

Jim Edmonson

A walk through “Virtue, vice, and contraband.”

2010-03-22T19:55:00.001-07:00

For the next several posts, I am going to take you on a walk through the Dittrick’s interpretive exhibition, “Virtue, vice, and contraband: a history of contraception in America.” Along the way, we’ll linger to look closer at particular items -- rare books, images, and artifacts. It’s the largest and most comprehensive exhibit on this topic in North America, and show cases the Percy Skuy collection on the history of contraception that came to the Dittrick in late 2004.

I first saw the Skuy collection in Toronto, at the Janssen Ortho headquarters, and found it quirky, amusing, and informative. Never in my wildest imagination did I think that collection would come our way. Then, in the summer of 2003 Percy called and wanted to know if the Dittrick might wish to provide a home to his collection. It wasn’t a done deal; Percy was in conversation with at least two other museums. But I felt that we had much to offer and mounted a concerted pitch to set forth our cause. The happy outcome: the collection came to Cleveland.

Our next step? Work through the re-interpretation and installation of the Skuy collection in its own dedicated space. That finally came to pass last September when we opened “Virtue, vice, and contraband: a history of contraception in America.” In time, we will offer a virtual version of the exhibition on the Skuy collection website. For the moment, however, I will take you on a stroll through the display, highlighting the curious and the rare, as well as the banal and commonplace. It’s all grist for the mill in our museum, and I can guarantee you that you won’t see this stuff elsewhere. The Skuy collection is one of a kind.

Jim Edmonson

Shoo stork image courtesy of Deanna Dahlsad

Gilmore “Tilly” Tilbrook and the “Rythmeter"

2010-03-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

The “Rythmeter” ranks as one of the most intriguing devices for calculating the time of ovulation and hence the fertile and “safe” periods of the menstrual cycle. Gilmore “Tilly” Tilbrook, a graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology (1915), military aviator in World War I, and consulting engineer, took on the challenge of making such a calculator.

Tilbrook recalled its genesis years later:

While living in Europe, I had many opportunities to visit the best medical colleges and hospitals, with American doctor friends. It was in 1930, on such a visit at Graz, Austria, that Dr. Knaus explained his conclusions regarding the exact time of ovulation of a human female. [I was] convinced of the importance of this theory - - especially to those of the Catholic Faith. A doctor friend exclaimed: “Tilbrook, you are an engineer, and have devised aviation calculators to determine engine and plane performance, etc. - - Why can’t you work out a simple, foolproof calculator for the accurate application of the Rhythm?"

Tillbrook conferred with leading medical proponents of “Nature’s Rhythm Method,” including Leo J. Latz, Thurston S. Welton, C. G. Hartman, Robert Latou Dickinson, and many others in the field of reproductive health. Tilbrook ultimately patented two variants of the "rhythmeter," (mis-spelled to give it a catchy name suitable for snappy marketing, no doubt): US patent 2343592 March 7, 1944 and US patent 2418207 April 1, 1947, "Rythmeter for determining sterility and fertility." The “Rythmeter” comprised an ingenious calculator, but Tilbrook cautioned not to use his "Rythmeter" without a record of at least nine months past menstrual cycles.

Does this device look or seem user friendly? Decidedly not. But Gilmore nevertheless labored to sell it vigorously, even advertising it in his alma mater's literature in 1950:

I don't think the "Rythmeter" lasted much beyond its inventor's boosterism, however. It had the precision and complication only an engineer could love....

But I like to think that Gilmore developed the device out of altruistic sentiments, and hoped it would do good. In later life he shared the fruits of his successful engineering career by endowing the Gilmore and Charlotte Tilbrook fund for scolarships in engineering, science, or industrial management at his alma mater, today's Carnegie Mellon University. And on a yet more curious note, Gilmore's wife, Charlotte, was for a time personal secretary to aviation pioneer and reclusive entrepreneur Howard Hughes.

Jim Edmonson

I wish especially to thank Jennie Benford, University and Heinz Archivist, Carnegie Mellon University, for her help in finding material about Gilmore Tilbrook, and providing accompanying images.

Leo J. Latz and "The Rhythm"

2010-03-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

Leo J. Latz, a Chicago doctor, first championed the Ogino-Knaus approach in the United States. He contended that the “findings of modern science disclose a rational, natural, and ethical means to space births and to regulate intelligently the number of children.” In 1932 Latz published The Rhythm of Sterility and Fertility in Women, which sold over 200,000 copies by 1942, and thus "rhythm" made its way into modern parlance. Latz also shared his approach with the medical community via an article in JAMA in 1935.

Latz advised avoiding intercourse for eight days: for women with a regular menstrual cycle, this began five days before ovulation, with an extra three days tacked on for safety’s sake. As a devout Roman Catholic, Latz advanced this method of fertility control as more in line with Church teachings. He published pamphlets on rhythm for priests to distribute to couples, and parish bingo games gave out his book as a prize. Many shared Leo Latz’s faith in the science behind the Ogino-Knaus findings. But applying them to birth control proved not so simple, nor straightforward. Calculating the time of ovulation can still be tricky. It varies from woman to woman, and a woman can ovulate at a different time each month. Stress, illness, or interruptions in normal routine can also alter a woman’s cycle. Despite these uncertainties, the Ogino-Knaus method caught on, as evidenced by the proliferation of rhythm method calculators after 1930. Companies produced graphs, wheels, calendars, and slide rules, which cost from 10¢ to $5.

Despite Latz's enthusiasm, The Catholic Medical Guardian reported in 1935 that “the calculation of the ‘sterile period’ is never easy and in many cases appears to be impossible.” Interest yet remained, and in 1951 Pope Pius XII sanctioned the Rhythm Method as a “natural” method of regulating procreation. In 1955 over 65% of Catholic women surveyed said they used Rhythm.

Ironically, Leo Latz felt biting backlash for all his efforts to bring an acceptable form of contraception to Catholics. Some felt he went too far. When Latz published The Rhythm in 1932 he served on the medical faculty of Loyola University. According to Leslie Tentler, writing in Catholics and Contraception: An American History (2004), Latz "was abruptly fired from that position in August of 1934," and this action "was almost certainly a direct result of Latz's prominent association with the cause of rhythm." In 1935 Latz confessed to his friend Father Joseph Reiner, S.J., that no one "knew the anguish and dishonor I ...suffered, when people said: 'I heard you were thrown out of the University."

Jim Edmonson

rhythm calculator: gynodate

2010-03-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

“Gynodate” clock and calculator, c.1960

Last summer, when we were thick in the preparation of a new permanent gallery for the Percy Skuy collection, I learned about a later variant of rhythm calculator known as the “Gynodate.” Acquisition of this object was a matter of happenstance; one day, while shopping in the Coventry neighborhood of Cleveland Heights, I ran into Mitch Attenson, a local antiques dealer. Mitch said that he had something for the Dittrick that I would want to see: a calculator for determining fertile/infertile periods of a woman’s monthly cycle. He said that it came from the estate of a spinster teacher (but I didn’t pursue that…). Intrigued, I stopped by his shop, and sure enough, he had the real article.

Swiss clockmaker Jaquet introduced the “Gynodate” in 1958. It combined a regular alarm clock and a gauge to calculate the “safe period” as directed by Hermann Knaus. Jaquet claimed it “indispensable for every woman for natural birth control.”

Once back at the Dittrick, “gynodate” in hand, I did some preliminary google searching. Now if you put that word in google, the results are predictable: either porn, or something about making an appointment at the gynecologist’s office – equally uninformative for us, however. I did run across a true hit, mentioning the item in the New York Times in June, 1965. At that date, Hammacher Schlemmer, New York’s premier gift, gadget, and hardware store since 1848, offered the 'gynodate' for sale “to help married couples plan their families.” And the next day “one hundred ‘planned parenthood’ clocks were reported sold yesterday at Hammacher-Schlemmer…for $19.95.” Nothing more of substance, however.

As a last stab at finding out more about the "gynodate" I emailed colleagues at the Museum of contraception and abortion in Vienna, Austria. We’d been in touch before they opened and had hosted museum founder Christian Fiala and his associate Susanne Kresje in Cleveland in 2007. We stayed in touch and I’ve visited the museum in Vienna on two occasions. So I dropped an email to Susanne and Christian, inquiring if they had a "gynodate" clock. Paydirt, kinda. No, they didn’t have the item in question, but would love to get one should I happen to encounter another in my travels (slim chance of that). But they did have some associated ephemera that they freely shared and is posted here.

The thing that I like best about the "gynodate" is its stylish concealment of its function. Looks like a nice, if simple, alarm clock when the decorative bezel is closed. But lift the hinged cover and you reveal adjustable dials to set for the onset and end of the monthly period, and hence gauge the days of fertility. Reminds me of oral contraceptive dispensers in the form of lipstick containers or dialpak dispensers disguised as facial powder compacts.

Certainly not the first, nor the last, time that designers strived to camouflage the purpose of a medical device. Sometimes this was done to conceal an object's function from unwitting patients (as in the case of medical furniture in the 1880s), while at other times it was done to safeguard personal dignity, as in the concealment of contraceptive purpose of the object at hand, the "gynodate".

Jim Edmonson

Artifacts in focus : rhythm method calculators

2010-03-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

Advertisement for Thurston Scott Welton, The modern method of birth control. New York, W. J. Black [c1935]. Included "The calendar-wheel for finding fertile and sterile dates" in pocket on inside of front cover. Image courtesy of Paula Viterbo.

Learning through the artifact.

One of the great things about working with an important museum collection is that you’re always learning. And boy, with the Percy Skuy Collection on the history of contraception did we have a lot of learning to do! I’d like to share some of the fruits of that learning process by featuring a selection of objects, showcasing some of the more intriguing artifacts that are now on display in our thematic exhibition, Virtue, vice, and contraband: a history of contraception in America.

The Skuy collection is illustrative of several facets of medical artifact collections. First, most visitors are simply amazed at the variety of contraceptives, but this proves to be true of many medical technologies (viz: over 600 variants of OB forceps appeared from the 17th century through the 20th centuries). Contraceptives also provide evidence of significant scientific inquiry and innovation involved in medical technologies, although much of this is a 20th century phenomenon. And lastly, our work with the Skuy collection brought a fuller appreciation of a growing body of scholarship in this domain. These points are well illustrated by a curious set of objects: rhythm method calculators.

Frankly, when we started work on reinterpreting the Skuy collection, I didn’t expect to focus on the rhythm method, and its associated calculating devices. Oh, I knew about rhythm, thanks to my Irish-American mother-in-law, who saw to it that my wife and I got a packet from the Catholic Social Services agency where she worked in Wilmington, Delaware. The packet didn’t get read closely, and in time the packet ended up in the Dittrick’s collection around 1981.

So, as we mapped out the Skuy collection gallery, I expected to give only a passing nod to rhythm. But as we sorted through the collection quite a number of calculators surfaced, chiefly from the 1930s-1960s. This surprised me, and I looked into why so many such items existed and what they tell us about contraceptive technologies.

Conception is central to the human experience, yet for centuries the process remained misunderstood. Doctors giving contraceptive advice in the 19th century often recommended having sex only during the "safe period," when a woman was not ovulating. But before 1930 (and even after), most physicians misidentified the time of ovulation. By studying animal behavior, they thought women were "safe" from pregnancy at the midpoint of the menstrual cycle. This is in fact when women are most likely to conceive.

This changed markedly in the 1920s when Kyusaku Ogino in Japan and Hermann Knaus in Austria studied ovulation carefully. They concluded that it normally occurs from 12 to 16 days before the onset of the menstrual period. They also asserted that an unfertilized ovum had a brief life, probably less than a day. At last, it seemed, the “safe period” could be more accurately determined. And this precipitate a spate of inventive activity, with many calculators being designed, patented, copyrighted, and produced in the ensuing decades.

These developments are the subject of an important dissertation by Paula Viterbo, an editor on the Thomas Jefferson papers. Viterbo’s work is entitled "The Promise of Rhythm: The Determination of the Woman's Time of Ovulation and Its Social Impact in the United States, 1920-1940," State University of New York at Stony Brook, 2000; I also commend her article “I got rhythm: Gershwin and birth control in the 1930s,” that appeared in Endeavor in 2004. She kindly helped us by reviewing our exhibit section on rhythm, and attended the opening of the Skuy gallery last September.

In a coming post I will present some specific examples of these calculators that now appear in the Skuy gallery.

Jim Edmonson

Exhibit in Castele Gallery at Dittrick to accompany talk by Natasha McEnroe

2010-03-11T20:02:00.000-08:00

We recently refurbished our Castele Gallery to accommodate small temporary exhibitions, particularly to accompany lectures and programs at the Dittrick. For the occasion of Natasha McEnroe’s presentation on safe sex in 18th century London (on March 18@6:00PM), we have mounted an exhibition, as mentioned in our post of Feb 26. We’ve entitled this exhibit The wages of sin: temptation, indulgence, and disease in 18th century London, as seen in the art of William Hogarth. It features prints from William Hogarth’s “novel” series including The Rake’s Progress, The Harlot’s Progress, and Marriage a la Mode.

Hogarth's series all tell a tale of innocents seduced, appetites indulged, honor compromised, and carnal pleasures leading to a bad end. Curator emerita Patsy Gerstner did the lion’s share of work on this exhibit, and we thank her heartily for that. For further reading on Hogarth and related topics, she recommends From Hogarth to Rowlandson: medicine in art in eighteenth-century Britain by Fiona Haslam. Just today (March 11) Hogarth’s print series has been wonderfully presented by Lucy Inglis in her award-winning blog, Georgian London. Hear her audio on Hogarth as social commentator in the Harlot’s Progress series.

Dittrick staff crafted a companion display of rare books entitled John Hunter : (mis)understanding venereal disease. Hunter believed gonorrhea (“the clap”) and syphilis (“the pox,” or lues venerea) to be different stages of the same disease, as presented in his A Treatise on the Venereal Disease (1786). According to Hunter, gonorrhea comprised the preliminary and local manifestation of the disease, affecting only the genital parts, while syphilis constituted a more generalized, or in Hunter’s parlance, “constitutional” mode of infection. Hunter felt compelled to prove these distinctions via experiment -- on himself. In 1767 he dipped his lancet into the gonorrheal sore of a patient, and jabbed the lancet into his own penis in two places (that’s heroic by anyone’s measure!). Unfortunately, for the success of this experiment, and for Hunter’s own health, he drew the infectious “poison” from someone suffering from both gonorrhea and syphilis. The symptoms progressed from one disease to the other, confirming in Hunter’s mind that he proved the unity of the two diseases. This view held sway until 1838, when Philippe Ricord set the record straight in his Traité pratique des maladies vénériennes.

Jim Edmonson

Dittrick Museum

Berlin Medical Historical Museum

Sensuous object workshop at the Medical Museion

Hiding in plain view...

Juno comes to the Dittrick

Le Livre Sans Titre, 1830

Obscura Day at the Dittrick, 2011

Dirt: The filthy reality of everyday life (at the Wellcome Collection)

CIA students draw surgical artifacts for class

Sue Johanson from “Talk Sex” to present March 16 at Case

Joanna Ebenstein presents Anatomical Venuses at the Dittrick tonight

James Ist touch piece

Condom Week 2011

Sleeping with Uncle Sam

See also the online exhibit The Enemy in Your Pants. The military’s decades-long war against STDs. By Elizabeth Gettelman and Mark Murrmann.

A 10 year-old's take on hospital stay, c.1950

Hospital Handi-Notes c.1950

Anatomica Aesthetica exhibition at the Cleveland Institute of Art: images from the opening on November 5.

Anatomica Aesthetica: Mütter Museum Photographs and H. F. Aitken Illustrations from the Dittrick Medical History Center

All roads lead to Copenhagen. At least they do for medical museum folk in September.

An innocent abroad, or Howard Dittrick’s visit to the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, 1928

Celebrating the Pill: two offerings from across the spectrum of interest.

Picturing the physician–patient encounter.

When a pill became The Pill, a half century ago

The Creation Museum : museum or theme park?

A visit with Sara Shechner at Harvard

Simon Chaplin : Doctors and the Death of History

left behind at the Creation Museum...

Coming posts: Harvard’s Scientific Instrument Collection, and the Creation Museum

Dissection at Harvard

Museum positions open at Medical Museion in Copenhagen.

Harry Potter’s World comes to greater Cleveland.

Dissection makes the news (again!)

Aristotle’s Masterpiece : the most popular book on reproduction and birth before 1830.

Storks: symbols of fecundity or harbingers of unwanted pregnancy?

A walk through “Virtue, vice, and contraband.”

Gilmore “Tilly” Tilbrook and the “Rythmeter"

Leo J. Latz and "The Rhythm"

rhythm calculator: gynodate

Artifacts in focus : rhythm method calculators

Exhibit in Castele Gallery at Dittrick to accompany talk by Natasha McEnroe