Medical specimens and the erasure of racial violence: the case of Harriet Cole.

This article analyses the complex narrative of Harriet Cole, a 36-year-old African-American woman whose body was delivered to the anatomy department of Hahnemann Medical School in 1888. The anatomist Rufus B Weaver used her preserved remains to create a singular anatomical specimen, an intact extraction of the 'cerebro-spinal nervous system'. Initially anonymised, deracialised and unsexed, the central nervous system specimen endured for decades before her identity as a working-class woman of colour was reunited with her remains. In the 1930s, media accounts began to circulate that Harriet Cole had bequeathed her remains to the anatomist, a claim that continues to circulate uncritically in the biomedical literature today. Although we conclude that this is likely a confabulation that erased the history of violence to her autonomy and her dead body, the rhetorical possibility that Harriet Cole might have chosen to donate her body to the medical school reflects the racial, political and legal dimensions that influenced how and why the story of Harriet Cole's 'gift' served multiple purposes in the century and a half since her death.

[Veterinary pathological collections: yesterday - today - tomorrow]. / Veterinärpathologische Sammlungen: Gestern ­ Heute ­ Morgen.

INTRODUCTION: History, relevance and development of veterinary pathological collections are presented by analyzing and comparing the collections from Berlin, Munich, Vienna and Zurich of the 19th and 20th century. The indices of the collections are analyzed according to the frequency of animal species, body parts, organs and disease processes or etiologies respectively. Collection differences allow to draw conclusions on the founder of the collection and historical significance. Each collection was part of a university and thus involved in teaching and research. This often ensured the continuous existence of the collections. Nevertheless, changing teaching methods made pathological collections increasingly redundant. A comparison with other university collections, such as those of the University of Zurich, show new application aspects for existing collections and required measurement are discussed.

INTRODUCTION: En analysant et en comparant les collections pathologiques vétérinaires du 19e et 20e siècle de Berlin, Munich, Vienne et Zurich, on illustre l'histoire, la signification et le développement de ces collections. Les catalogues des collections sont analysés par rapport à la fréquence des espèces animales, des parties du corps ou d'organes et des maladies respectivement des étiologies. Les différences permettent des conclusions quant au créateur de la collection et aux circonstances temporelles de la création de la collection. Chacune des collections examinées faisait partie d'une université et étaient donc liée à l'enseignement et à la recherche. Cela a souvent assuré la pérennité des collections. Les changements dans l'enseignement universitaire ont rendu les collections de plus en plus superflues. Une comparaison avec d'autres collections universitaires telles que celles de l'Université de Zurich montre de nouveaux aspects d'utilisation des collections existantes. Les mesures nécessaires pour cela sont discutées.

A historical review of the techniques of recovery of parasites for their detection in human stools.

Since the early 20th century, the detection of intestinal parasites has improved with the development of several techniques for parasitic structures recovery and identification, which differ in sensitivity, specificity, practicality, cost, and infrastructure demand. This study aims to review, in chronological order, the stool examination techniques and discuss their advantages, limitations, and perspectives, and to provide professionals and specialists in this field with data that lays a foundation for critical analysis on the use of such procedures. The concentration procedures that constitute the main techniques applied in routine research and in parasitological kits are a) spontaneous sedimentation; b) centrifugation-sedimentation with formalin-ethyl acetate; and c) flotation with zinc sulfate solution. While selecting a technique, one should consider the purpose of its application and the technical-operational, biological, and physicochemical factors inherent in the procedures used in stool processing, which may restrict its use. These intrinsic limitations may have undergone procedural changes driven by scientific and technological development and by development of alternative methods, which now contribute to the improvement of diagnostic accuracy.

A historical review of the techniques of recovery of parasites for their detection in human stools

Abstract Since the early 20th century, the detection of intestinal parasites has improved with the development of several techniques for parasitic structures recovery and identification, which differ in sensitivity, specificity, practicality, cost, and infrastructure demand. This study aims to review, in chronological order, the stool examination techniques and discuss their advantages, limitations, and perspectives, and to provide professionals and specialists in this field with data that lays a foundation for critical analysis on the use of such procedures. The concentration procedures that constitute the main techniques applied in routine research and in parasitological kits are a) spontaneous sedimentation; b) centrifugation-sedimentation with formalin-ethyl acetate; and c) flotation with zinc sulfate solution. While selecting a technique, one should consider the purpose of its application and the technical-operational, biological, and physicochemical factors inherent in the procedures used in stool processing, which may restrict its use. These intrinsic limitations may have undergone procedural changes driven by scientific and technological development and by development of alternative methods, which now contribute to the improvement of diagnostic accuracy.

U.S. Public Health Service STD Experiments in Guatemala (1946-1948) and Their Aftermath.

The U.S. Public Health Service's sexually transmitted disease (STD) experiments in Guatemala are an important case study not only in human subjects research transgressions but also in the response to serious lapses in research ethics. This case study describes how individuals in the STD experiments were tested, exposed to STDs, and exploited as the source of biological specimens-all without informed consent and often with active deceit. It also explores and evaluates governmental and professional responses that followed the public revelation of these experiments, including by academic institutions, professional organizations, and the U.S. federal government, pushing us to reconsider both how we prevent such lapses in the future and how we respond when they are first revealed.

Paolo Boccone and the visual communication of pre-Linnean botany. A comparison between his Leiden herbarium, Paris autoprint and published Icones (1674).

This article addresses the development of visual practices in early modern Botany by focusing on the diverse strategies of graphic representation of plant species. Naturalis Biodiversity Center holds a historic herbarium of 169 sheets with specimens of Mediterranean plants collected by the Sicilian Botanist Paolo Boccone (1633-1704). Part of Boccone's dried specimens served as model for the etchings published in his Icones et descriptiones rariorum plantarum (1674) and part of them were used as matrix for at least one album of botanical autoprints kept in Paris. The exceptional survival of the three collections: the original dried specimens, their autoprint impressions and the etched illustrations of the book, offers a unique insight in the material and intellectual issues addressed in the process of visual representation of plants in early modern Botany. Here we present the first scientific comparison of these three valuable 17th century botanical collections. Visual comparison revealed that the Leiden collection provided 64 specimens to Icones, while 44 specimens show a perfect matching with the autoprint impressions. In nine cases the Leiden specimens appear both in the autoprints and in the Icones, thus showing the complete process of visual translation of the plant preliminary to its wider circulation in the scientific community.

Assumptions of authority: the story of Sue the T-rex and controversy over access to fossils.

Although the buying, selling, and trading of fossils has been a principle part of paleontological practice over the centuries, the commercial collection of fossils today has re-emerged into a pervasive and lucrative industry. In the United States, the number of commercial companies driving the legal, and sometimes illegal, selling of fossils is estimated to have doubled since the 1980s, and worries from academic paleontologists over this issue has increased accordingly. Indeed, some view the commercialization of fossils as one of the greatest threats to paleontology today. In this article, I address the story of "Sue"-the largest, most complete, and most expensive Tyrannosaurus rex ever excavated-whose discovery incited a series of high-profile legal battles throughout the 1990s over the question of "Who owns Sue?" Over the course of a decade, various stakeholders from academic paleontologists and fossil dealers to Native Americans, private citizens, and government officials all laid claim to Sue. In exploring this case, I argue that assumptions of authority are responsible for initiating and sustaining debates over fossil access. Here, assumptions of authority are understood as assumptions of ownership, or expertise, or in some cases both. Viewing the story from this perspective illuminates the significance of fossils as boundary objects. It also highlights the process of boundary-work by which individuals and groups constructed or deconstructed borders around Sue (specifically) and fossil access (more generally) to establish their own authority. I draw on science studies scholarship as well as literature in the professionalization, commercialization, and valuation of science to examine how assumptions of authority facilitated one of the most divisive episodes in recent paleontological history and the broader debate on the commercial collection of vertebrate fossil material in the United Sates.

Did Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) Postulate Before Vesalius That Liquid Collects in Ventricles in the Hydrocephalus?

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to present and evaluate the part of Avenzoar's Liber Teisir that pertains to hydrocephalus. Avenzoar was an Andalusian physician prominent in the history of medicine because of the broadness of his observations and original methods. His most important work is recognized to be the Al-Taysir fi al-Mudawat wa al-Tadbir (On Preventive Regimen and Treatment), and its Latin version, Alteisir scilicet regiminis et medelae, which was in use for centuries in Europe. METHODS: The Arabic (Rabat, Morocco, in 1991) and Latin (Venice, Italy, in 1530) versions of Avenzoar's work were perused, relevant sections were separately translated into English, and both translations were then compared. An English version was prepared and is given in our results. RESULTS: The location of liquid collection was described as the anterior ventricles of the brain and around the brain. CONCLUSIONS: Avenzoar might have noted one of the earliest records on the clinical state called idiopathic adult hydrocephalus and postulated liquid collection in the ventricles of the brain in hydrocephalus before Vesalius.

Henry Ware Cattell and Walt Whitman's Brain.

Henry Ware Cattell was a prominent pathologist and medical editor in late 19th and early 20th century America. Strangely, his name is unknown to most medical historians but is more widely known by aficionados of Walt Whitman's poetry. In 1892, Cattell was involved in an incident that abruptly changed his life and decreased his commitment to pathology as a career. Cattell had been serving as the pathologist/prosector for the American Anthropometric Society at the time the poet Walt Whitman died. Cattell, the pathologist for the University of Pennsylvania's Wistar Institute, performed Whitman's autopsy on March 27, 1892; Whitman's brain was removed and was to join those of other prominent American intellectuals who had donated their brains to the Society's "Brain Club," but something went horribly wrong (allegedly, an assistant had dropped the brain and destroyed it) and Cattell kept this a secret. Full of self-doubt, Cattell was anguished about his inadequacies as a pathologist and was extremely worried about how all of this would affect his career when discovered. While still continuing to practice hospital-based pathology, he began to transition into an author and editor. This essay will provide a detailed biographical sketch of Henry Ware Cattell, address his sibling rivalry with his more famous brother James McKeen Cattell, briefly discuss the fad of 19th century intellectuals embracing the pseudo-science of phrenology and their participation in anatomical "brain clubs," and, finally, address the mystery of what happened to Walt Whitman's brain. Clin. Anat. 31:988-996, 2018. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Ludwik Karol Teichmann (1823-1895).

Ludwik Karol Teichmann was the last of gross anatomists. His magnificent work on the lymphatic system gained him appreciation of the whole current scientific world. Based on the unpublished materials authors wanted to commemorate one of the greatest Polish and world anatomists with special regard to coming soon 150th anniversary of Theatrum Anatomicum of Jagiellonian University Medical College.

The platypus in Edinburgh: Robert Jameson, Robert Knox and the place of the Ornithorhynchus in nature, 1821-24.

The duck-billed platypus, or Ornithorhynchus, was the subject of an intense debate among natural historians in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Its paradoxical mixture of mammalian, avian and reptilian characteristics made it something of a taxonomic conundrum. In the early 1820s Robert Jameson (1774-1854), the professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh and the curator of the University's natural history museum, was able to acquire three valuable specimens of this species. He passed one of these on to the anatomist Robert Knox (1791-1862), who dissected the animal and presented his results in a series of papers to the Wernerian Natural History Society, which later published them in its Memoirs. This paper takes Jameson's platypus as a case study on how natural history specimens were used to create and contest knowledge of the natural world in the early nineteenth century, at a time when interpretations of the relationships between animal taxa were in a state of flux. It shows how Jameson used his possession of this interesting specimen to provide a valuable opportunity for his protégé Knox while also helping to consolidate his own position as a key figure in early nineteenth-century natural history.

Career, collections, reports and publications of Dr Francis Buchanan (later Hamilton), 1762-1829: natural history studies in Nepal, Burma (Myanmar), Bangladesh and India. Part 1.

During his 20-year career as a surgeon-naturalist with the British East India Company, Francis Buchanan (later Hamilton, known in botany as Buchanan-Hamilton and in ichthyology as Hamilton-Buchanan) undertook pioneering survey explorations in several diverse regions of the Indian subcontinent. A naturalist at heart, his collections of plants and animals are often the first from such regions, notably Nepal, Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh. Buchanan had wide-ranging interests beyond natural history, using his talent for observation and meticulous recording to amass a huge body of information on the lands and peoples he encountered. However, much of this information remains unpublished in his survey reports, journals and other manuscripts, and so his role in the building of knowledge for these areas has been under-appreciated. Although a keen and able botanist, it is ironic that his multitudinous botanical discoveries are particularly poorly known, with the vast majority of his material on this subject languishing unpublished in archival collections. These include his original records and working notes which show the methods he used when dealing with 'information overload' and arranging his syntheses ready for publication. Notable is his experimentation with Jussieu's Natural System for classifying his Nepalese plants, and his recognition of biogeographic links of the Nepalese flora with Europe and Japan - both ahead of his fellow countrymen in Britain and India. The life of Francis Buchanan awaits the attention of a biographer who can do justice to his many interests, activities and influences. This is the first of two papers covering his life, providing an empirical baseline for future research and correcting misinformation that abounds in the literature. These papers outline Buchanan's professional career, concentrating on his activities in the exploration of natural history, and placing them in the wider context of botanical research in India.

[Divine cadavers: gender, medical discourse, and anatomical collections in the legend of Pedro González de Velasco]. / Divinos cadáveres: género, discurso médico y colecciones anatómicas en la leyenda de Pedro Gonzólez de Velasco.

This paper examines the relationship between the public image of Pedro Gonzólez de Velasco (1815-1882), famous for his anatomical collections and his Anthropological Museum, founded in 1875 in Madrid, and the popular legend related to the death, embalming and exhumation of his daughter Concepción. The doctor who is committed to the nation becomes a mad scientist, and his official biography is transformed into an urban legend. Beyond the merely anecdotal, I show how the aesthetics associated with female corpses and artificial women organize cultural imaginaries, bringing together medical discourses and literary and artistic representations.

The Coral of Death. Kunst- und Wunderkammern between Temporality and Allegory.

The aim of this essay is to show the existence of a substantial discontinuity between the Kunst- und Wunderkammern phenomenon and the practice of both eclectic and specialised collecting in the 18th century. A more detailed examination of the cases of fossils and corals, particularly the way they wove in and out of the differing rationales of collecting in the 17th and 18th centuries, brings to light how elusive their relationship was with the history of the notion of temporality. Subsequently, Lamarck and Darwin were to provide a conclusion to the temporality debate when they completed the historisation of nature.

Preparations, models, and simulations.

This paper proposes an outline for a typology of the different forms that scientific objects can take in the life sciences. The first section discusses preparations (or specimens)--a form of scientific object that accompanied the development of modern biology in different guises from the seventeenth century to the present: as anatomical-morphological specimens, as microscopic cuts, and as biochemical preparations. In the second section, the characteristics of models in biology are discussed. They became prominent from the end of the nineteenth century onwards. Some remarks on the role of simulations--characterising the life sciences of the turn from the twentieth to the twenty-first century--conclude the paper.

[DRY PREPARATIONS OF ANATOMICAL LESIONS IN PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY MUSEUMS]. / PREPARAZIONI ANATOMICHE A SECCO NELLE COLLEZIONI DEI MUSEI DI ANATOMIA PATOLOGICA.

Collection of pathological specimens began soon after the seminal description of autopsy by Giovan Battista Morgagni in Padoa in the second half of the 18th Century. Pathologists soon realized difficulties of preserving the form and to prevent decay caused by autolysis and attack by bacteria and parasites. The ancient procedures devoted to mummification were applied to the purpose, and a number of personal experiences were reported in the first half of the 19th century, mainly in Northern Italy and France, testifying a dedicated interest of the time in those areas. A combination of chemical fixation (with corrosive sublimate/mercuric chloride and/or tannic acid) and careful drying allowed to produce dry preparations, once very numerous in the Pathological Anatomy's Museums so much popular in the 19th and early 20th Century. In fact, it was the sole way to give visual evidence of disease and pathological processes. Only a limited number of these dry preparations are still present and visible in Pathology Museums, mainly in Universities of Northern Italy, while a few examples can be traced in the other European Country.

History of the preanalytical phase: a personal view.

In the 70ies of the last century, ther term "preanalytical phase" was introduced in the literature. This term describes all actions and aspects of the "brain to brain circle" of the medical laboratory diagnostic procedure happening before the analytical phase. The author describes his personal experiences in the early seventies and the following history of increasing awareness of this phase as the main cause of "laboratory errors". This includes the definitions of influence and interference factors as well as the first publications in book, internet, CD-Rom and recent App form over the past 40 years. In addition, a short summary of previous developments as prerequesits of laboratory diagnostic actions is described from the middle age matula for urine collection to the blood collection tubes, anticoagulants and centrifuges. The short review gives a personal view on the possible causes of missing awareness of preanalytical causes of error and future aspects of new techniques in regulation of requests to introduction of quality assurance programs for preanalytical factors.

[Ludwik Karol Teichmann--a preparator]. / Ludwik Karol Teichmann jako preparator.

Ludwik Karol Teichmann significantly contributed to the creation of modern techniques in the anatomical preparations. He was, next to Joseph Hyrtl, the most versatile among the anatomical preparators in the second half of the 19th century, successfully introducing modifications to existing methods, as well as striving for independent solutions in this field. His precision in performance, transparency and sustainability of the whole brain preparations, excellent osteological preparations, including small bones and cartilage, evoked and still evoke high admiration. He made his name, however, with preparations obtained by means of injection and corrosion techniques. The application of these techniques inthe lymphatic system's study, both the physiologically proper and the pathologically changed, earned Teichmann a permanent position in the history of anatomy. The developed by Teichmann mass for cold injections (the so-called Teichmann's cold mass) revolutionized the macro-and microscopic preparatory of that time, thus opening great new research perspectives still widely used during the interwar period.