Update: Wax Anatomical Hearts no longer at Paxton Gate, San Francisco!

My wax anatomical heart models are no longer available to view and, of course, purchase at San Francisco's incomparable purveyor of natural curiosities, Paxton Gate. If you want to see more about my various projects, please hop over to my other blog, FinderMaker and then check out my FinderMaker Facebook page! Wax anatomical heart models may now be purchased for $300.00 each by contacting me directly.

Inspired by Louise Bourgeois

Getting ready to move is really stressful; I've done it alot over the past several years and I can't say it gets any easier over time. Occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised while I'm sorting through stuff and packing; finding this stack of screenprints I did in 2002 was one of those pleasant surprises. I just posted this on my other blog, FinderMaker, but figured since it features surgical instruments, and was created during the heyday of my National Museum of Hospital and Pharmaceutical History, I might just go ahead and post it on this blog as well.

I really like Louise Bourgeois' artwork, and find her large-scale installations (the "Cells") to be especially compelling. Her passing on May 31st at the age of 98 was a great loss to the art world, but my what a wonderful and inspiring body of work she created during her lifetime! 12 years ago or thereabouts I came across an image of this watercolor she had done depicting various clippers she found around her home and studio:



I was immediately inspired to try my own version using images of surgical instruments taken from a turn-of-the-century surgical supply catalog. I did several hand-drawn and colored versions before I had access to screenprinting equipment; I was excited to finally do a run of screenprints based on one of my favorite layouts during a screenprinting course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. These are 3-color prints: 2 shades of red, and black, printed on a cream colored acid-free paper.





I always just called them my "Tribute to Louise Bourgeois" --not a very original title, and certainly not a worthy tribute to such a grand artist, but these images occupied my mind and time considerably for a period, and I'm glad to have been given the opportunity to revisit and share them. Thank you, Louise Bourgeois!!!

BBC Series: Victorian Pharmacy

I've lost track of how many times my pulse has quickened at the mention of a new BBC series devoted to some aspect of the history of medicine. Then comes the crushing disappointment when I remember that the British programs aren't available for viewing in the US. The latest trigger for my TV excitement/disappointment cycle: Victorian Pharmacy. I do so badly wish that Americans were interested enough in history to merit the production of a mini series based on the history of Pharmacy!

Trephine and Bone Wax

Occasionally a surgeon will find it necessary to get into a patients head; I mean actually get all up in there with instruments and such. The procedure used to cut away the skull to access the brain is called trephination. Some 7000 years ago, in neolithic times, the skull may have been cut into with a sharp flint or obsidian blade... there are many examples of skulls that have been discovered that bear signs of the procedure having been successful, as evidenced by new bone growth forming around the cut area. The procedure has endured throughout the ages, whether for medical purposes (relief of excess pressure on the brain due to injury) or supernatural ones (it is believed that the earlier instances of trephination may have been undertaken with the aim of releasing demons trapped in the skull). Eventually, metal cutting instruments replaced stone, and the use of a circular, serrated bit became standard for drilling through the skull. The images above present a nickle plated steel trephine in the museum's collection dating from around 1900. It was hand operated; a flap of the patients scalp would be pulled away to expose the skull, and the spike in the center of the bit was applied to allow the sharp steel teeth to get a start into the skull. After the drilling was established by way of twisting the instrument round and round, the spike was retracted by loosening the thumbscrew on the shaft so that it would not puncture the dura surrounding the brain, or the brain itself. The cutting teeth, while effective at cutting bone, were incapable of inflicting much damage on the dural membrane that protects the brain. Our trephine was produced by the renouned Philadelphia firm of silversmith-turned-instrument maker George P. Pilling. The third image shows a trephine as advertised in a 1912 surgical supply catalog.

Most of us only see bones in their dried up, dead state; it is easy to forget that in life they are full of blood and marrow, and that cutting into them can be very messy business, indeed. In order to staunch bleeding from cut bones it is sometimes necessary to apply bone wax to the cut surface. Bone wax is typically a sterilized mixture of beeswax and a softening agent that stops bleeding from bones by plugging the cavities from which blood flows. Sir Victor Horsley, regarded by many as one of the fathers of British neurosurgery, is credited with the introduction of the most widely used sterile form of bone wax in 1892. The application of bone wax must be judicious, as bone surfaces treated with the material will not grow back together, and its use does carry the risk of infection from bacteria becoming trapped in the plugged bone, or of inflammation caused by the introduction of the foreign material. Below is an image of a box of bone wax packets in the museum's collection produced by Ethicon around 1998, and an image of Horsley's bone wax as advertised in the surgical supply catalog mentioned earlier.





There are some modern-day proponents of trephination who assert that the removal of a disk of bone in the skull may act as a "pressure relief" allowing more blood to flow to the brain thus affecting all manner of positive changes in mood and perception. More information may be gleaned by accessing the website of the International Trepanation Advocacy Group.

Trephine. George P. Pilling, Philadelphia. Circa 1900. Nickel plated steel. HM4109.5. Copyrighted images.

Bone Wax. Ethicon. 1998. Cardboard box containing 12 sealed bone wax packets. HM4209.5. Copyrighted image.

Selections from HospitalMuseum Exhibit "Uncaged: Psychiatric Medicine and the Demise of the State Hospital"

Straitjacket by Humane Restraint from the 1930's used to restrain violent patients. The straitjacket is on a slowly rotating form that allows museum visitors to view it from all angles.

As recently as the 1950's, sights and sounds in even the best mental hospital or psychiatric ward could be harrowing: violent patients kept restrained by straps or straitjackets, seriously disturbed patients yelling out in mental torment, others still huddled in frozen, terrified silence.

By the mid 1950's, however, these wards began to experience a remarkable transformation brought about by the introduction of new drugs that helped to ease disturbed minds. The first of these, Chlorpromazine hydrochloride, which was marketed in the US as Thorazine, is sometimes referred to as "the drug that cleared out the state hospitals" for its dramatic beneficial effects on patients afflicted with debilitating schizophrenia and the manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder. First synthesized in 1950 by french chemist Paul Charpentier, Chlorpromazine underwent clinical testing two years later at a Paris hospital; the results were so promising that trials were initiated in the US soon thereafter, and by 1954 the US drug company Smith Kline and French was distributing the drug to psychiatric institutions throught America.

The second drug, Reserpine, is a chemical that was isolated from the root of Rauwolfia serpentina, a plant that already had a long history of medicinal use in India. The drug has a powerful sedating effect and causes favorable brain chemistry alterations in psychotic patients. It was first released in 1954 but, despite its value, fell out of favor for the treatment of psychosis due to the number of side effects it tended to produce.

The third drug, Meprobamate, was first distributed in 1955 under the name Milltown, and quickly rose to fame as the best selling sedative drug in US history. It was widely used across all segments of society, from patients in psych wards to harried suburban mothers as a miraculous "cure" for the stress and anxiety caused by life in the modern age.

Alas, while none of these three drugs had the ability to fully cure sick minds, each played a critical role in calming violence and relieving anxiety, thus enabling patients to benefit more completely from psychotherapy, often to the extent that they could emerge from the state institution ready to rejoin family and resume productive jobs. By the 1960's, these and other newer psychiatric medications had played such a favorable role in the lives of patients that state-run mental hospitals across America
began to empty and close down.

Today, many such institutions, boarded up and moldering, succumb to vandalization and the elements, or are razed for redevelopment. While it is dangerous and generally illegal to gain access to abandoned asylums, there are many so-called "urban exploration" groups that find the old structures irresistible; by accessing and photographing the sites they preserve what little is left of an important part of medical history. The website Opacity is full of beautiful photos taken in and around abandoned hospitals and mental institutions; it also shows historic photos of many of the sites and gives excellent historical information when possible.

Below are three screenprint posters I produced for the exhibit depicting labels for the three psychiatric medicines discussed above. Portfolios of the three screenprinted label posters plus an informational text poster were available for sale in the museum gift shop.







And here are a few installation views from the museum's Chicago incarnation, as photographed by Saverio Truglia:





Straitjacket. Humane Restraint Co. Circa 1930's. Canvas, Leather, Brass and Steel. HM3909.5. Copyrighted images.

Tranquilizers For Sick Minds. Paul Baxendale. 2002. Editioned Portfolio of 4 screenprints, ea 13" x 17.5". HM4009.5. Copyrighted Images.

Stereoscopic Anatomy: The Human Body in Three Dimensions.

Several years ago the museum acquired an excellent boxed set of stereocards from a series entitled "Edinburgh University Stereoscopic Anatomy". This set, printed by the Imperial Publishing Company of New York in 1910, consists of 50 stereocard images of the Pelvis and Thorax regions of the body, and is part of a master set of 5 volumes covering each area of the human body. The images are rather shocking; each having been photographed directly from a dissected human body using a special stereoscopic camera.

The cards proved so popular with HospitalMuseum visitors that the staff conservator soon became concerned for the safety of the set: while visitors were instructed to handle the cards with white cotton gloves that were provided, they still suffered the occasional mishap, and the exposure to light was also feared to have an adverse effect on the photos. We soon thereafter conceived of a solution to the problem and means by which visitors could take home a piece of the museum by using a computer to convert several of the images into red and blue anaglyphs that, when viewed with traditional "3D" glasses, reproduced the dimensional effect of the original stereocards. They were sold in the museum's gift shop as a set of six offset printed cards tucked into a specially designed offset printed cardstock envelope along with a pair of 3D glasses.

Front of the 3D souvenir pack.

Back of the 3D souvenir pack.

Tragically, as the hospitalmuseum was in the process of relocating from Chicago to Manhattan, the case holding the entire stock of the 3D sets was accidentally dropped into a mud puddle by a careless preparator, damaging all but 3 or 4 sets beyond repair. I've decided it might be interesting to post the images here... if anyone has a set of 3D glasses lying around, have a look... im not sure whether the images will "pop" on the computer screen as they do in real life, though.







*UPDATE 10/31/2010* This morning I received a lovely note from a fellow in the London area who, prior to renovating his attic, was forced to clear it of many years of interesting accumulations, among them a complete first edition set of Edinburgh University Stereoscopic Anatomy cards. The really neat thing about his discovery is that it included the optical viewer that was originally supplied with the set. HospitalMuseum visitors have become accustomed to viewing our little collection of images through a Victorian-era stereopticon, which certainly works fine but isn't original to the set; I'm very fond of the sleek, industrial aesthetic of the original optical viewer, and Im sure that focusing knob aids greatly in putting the images in sharp focus! Thanks so much for sharing, Steven! By the way, the whole set is for sale... if owning a big chunk of anatomical history interests you please send me a note and I will forward it to the owner!
*images below are reprinted here with permission of the owner; artifacts pictured below are not in the HospitalMuseum collection.









Edinburgh University Stereoscopic Anatomy. Imperial Publishing Company, New York. 1910. 50 card stereocard set. HM3709.4. Copyrighted Image.

The Human Interior, Official NMHPH Souvenir. Paul Baxendale. 2002. Offset printed cards and 3D glasses. HM3809.4. Copyrighted Images.

Ebony Handled Amputation Saw and Knife

Amputation is a procedure that I hope to never experience, regardless of advancements in surgical technique. These fine old instruments date to around the mid-1800's. They are immediately identifiable as "Pre-Listerian" (before Lister's germ theory of disease became widely accepted and antiseptic surgical procedures adopted after 1880 or so) by the handle material: they are carved of dense (but not dense enough to thwart germs) ebony wood.

The elaborately scrolled handle of the bow frame amputation saw is a style commonly seen on English amputation saws, although this example bears no makers mark by which to confirm its exact origin. The knife, while the blade shows some tarnish and light pitting, is still sharp as the dickens and deadly too, although the death this instrument might have dealt would stem not from the blade, but from within the numerous nooks and crannies created by the diamond grip pattern carved into the handle which would harbor innumerable colonies of nasty organisms. Later instruments were crafted entirely of easily heated and disinfected metal, and streamlined of any excess surface texture or ornamentation that might harbor bacteria.

The knife is probably of German manufacture, as indicated by the name of the firm "Thuerriegl" stamped into the base of the blade. Oh... in case you were wondering why that saw handle was designed to look so fancy, it actually serves a purpose: check out the mean grip the good doctor can get on that handle-- just the thing for a quick and dirty amputation!



Bow-Frame Amputation Saw. Maker Unknown. Circa 1850. Nickle Plated Metal and Ebony. HM3509.4

Amputation Knife. Thuerriegl. Circa 1850. Polished Steel and Ebony. HM3609.4

Kid Stuff: Playmobil and Medical Themed Playsets!

The hospitalmuseum loves to introduce young people to hospital and medical history, so we make an effort to add relevant kid-friendly items to the collection whenever possible. The Britains toy hospital figures mentioned in an earlier post were designed and marketed to children, but adults love them too. We feel the same way about the medical line put out by the German toy manufacturer Playmobil: made for kids, but detailed and elaborate enough that even adults find them very interesting. Playmobil has been making their distinctive line of toy figures and playsets since 1974, and has released several medically themed sets since then. The website Collectobil is a treasure trove of information on and photographs of all of the different Playmobil sets:

Hospital Team from 1980-84

The earliest ambulance set from 1977-85

Field Hospital from 1988-94
(above images courtesy Collectobil)

The hospitalmuseum proudly displays the following sets:

The Playmobil ambulance set produced between 1985 and 2000.

Playmobil operating room produced between 1985 and 1997. The surgeons look as though they have nobody to operate on... the patient is being prepped in the other room! (Or perhaps I packed the operating table into a separate crate... oops, dont tell the registrar!)

Doctor with Incubator.

And the best set of all... the only Playmobil hospital ever released! I believe it was released in 2007. I must admit that I haven't actually put the whole thing together yet, as it is very complicated; imagine the most difficult piece of ikea furniture you have ever assembled, then multiply that times ten! It will make a lovely display when it is assembled, though, and I have noticed that Playmobil sells separate lighting kits to add on; I shall have to add lighting when I get it all together!



Before either the Britains or Playmobil hospital sets were around, a child interested in incorporating a medical theme into his or her imaginative playtime might have reached for the Fuzzy Felt Hospital set. Produced in the 1960's by Allan Industries of Buckinghamshire England, the Fuzzy Felt Hospital was one of many themed Fuzzy Felt playsets consisting of a specially flocked playmat onto which brightly colored felt shapes could be arranged to represent all manner of exciting scenarios. The Fuzzy Felt Hospital was packaged with an instructive sheet that offered suggested layouts for such scenarios as "The Doctor's Visit, " "The X-Ray Picture," or "Teatime".







Finally, the hospitalmuseum librarian enjoys accessioning medically themed childrens books when they become available or are donated, here are a few from the collection:





From Let's Find Out About the Hospital


Let's Find Out About the Hospital. Eleanor Kay, R.N. Franklin Watts Inc., 1971. Printed Media. HM2609.4

A Visit to the Hospital. Lester L. Coleman M.D. Wonder Books, 1958. Printed Media. HM2709.4

The Human Body. Nutmeg Press Books. 1971. Printed Media. HM2809.4

Your Body: Bones and Muscles. Sean Morrison and Dr. Ira Freeman. Random House. Circa 1970's. HM2909.4

Playmobil Ambulence Set 3456. Playmobil. 1987. Plastics. HM3009.4. Copyrighted Image.

Playmobil Doctor with Incubator 4225. Playmobil. 2007. Plastics. HM3409.4

Playmobil Operating Room Set 3459. Playmobil. 1990. Plastics. HM3109.4. Copyrighted Image.

Playmobil Hospital 4404. Playmobil. 2007. Plastics. HM3209.4. Copyrighted Image.

Fuzzy Felt Hospital. Allan Industries. 1965. Felt, Flocked Cardboard, Paper. HM3309.4