From Monsters to Malformations: Anatomical Preparations as Objects of Evidence for a Developmental Paradigm of Embryology, 1770-1850.

A common object found within medical museums is the developmental series: an arrangement of embryos depicting the transformation of an unremarkable blob into an anatomically organized and recognizable organism. The developmental series depicts a normative process, one where bodies emerge in reliable sequential stages to reveal anatomically perfect beings. Yet a century before the developmental series would become a visual model of embryological development, the very process of development itself was discerned through the comparative study of preserved human fetuses-specifically, those deemed "monstrous" or characterized as "malformations." This article examines how anatomically diverse fetal bodies were reformulated from singular curiosities into alternative developmental pathways whose characteristics testified to the laws of nature and to the primordial, physical relationship between humans and other species. In early nineteenth century Amsterdam, the father-son team of physicians Gerard and Willem Vrolik built up an internationally renowned anatomical museum famous especially for Willem's collection of fetal malformations. Physical preparations of fetal malformations play a central role in Willem's monumental handbook on developmental embryology: comparing human embryos against one another and the embryos of other species, Willem plots out a sequence of embryological development in which a body's form marks its place within the ever-unfolding natural order. In conversation with the literature on model organisms, this article explores how the "monstrous" gets standardized and, in doing so, contributes to the scientific production of a normative physiological process.

Duplicates under the hammer: natural-history auctions in Berlin's early nineteenth-century collection landscape.

The nineteenth-century museum and auction house are seemingly distinct spaces with opposing functions: while the former represents a contemplative space that accumulates objects of art and science, the latter provides a forum for lively sales events that disperse wares to the highest bidders. This contribution blurs the border between museums and marketplaces by studying the Berlin Zoological Museum's duplicate specimen auctions between 1818 and the 1840s. It attends to the operations and tools involved in commodifying specimens as duplicates, particularly the auction catalogue. The paper furthermore contextualizes the museum's sales in a broader history of duplicate auctions across Berlin's collection landscape.

Curating duplicates: operationalizing similiarity in the Smithsonian Institution with Haida rattles, 1880-1926.

In the late nineteenth century, the anthropology curators of the Smithsonian Institution consulted their cataloguing systems and storerooms, assessing specimens in order to determine which could be designated as duplicate specimens and exchanged with museums domestically and abroad. The status of 'duplicate' for specimens was contingent on conceptions of similiarity impacted by disciplinary classification praxis, with particular emphasis on object nomenclature and formal attributes. Using rattles from Haida Gwaii collected between 1881 and 1885 by James Swan for the Smithsonian Institution, this article explores how anthropology curators designated rattles as exchangeable duplicate specimens. It considers cataloguing and spatial arrangements, as well as changing populations and formal characteristics of rattles, in order to explore how similarity was operationalized in the museum to produce duplicate anthropological specimens.

Wax hearts: seeking the antiquity of cardiac pathology.

Wax models of normal and diseased organs were formerly essential medical teaching tools. The ceroplastic heart models from two 19th century pathology museums at the Universities of Florence (n = 8) and Coimbra (n = 10) were analysed. The Florentine collection comprised congenital malformations as well as infectious and inflammatory disorders. The Coimbra waxworks included congenital defects, cardiac hypertrophy and dilation, valvular pathology and cardiac adiposity. This study focuses on heart diseases and teaching resources in European university hospitals during the 19th century. It also highlights the importance of wax models in medical education both then and today, in an era of informatics and digital photography.

On Growth and Form in context - an interview with Matthew Jarron.

D'Arcy Thompson was born in 1860, trained in Edinburgh and Cambridge, and held positions in Dundee and St Andrews, where he worked until his death in 1948. On Growth and Form, his classic work on the mathematical patterns and physical rules underlying biological forms, was first published in 1917. To learn more about the book's context, we met Matthew Jarron, Curator of Museum Services at the University of Dundee, in the University's D'Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum. Surrounded by specimens, many of which were collected by Thompson himself, we discussed the legacy of On Growth and Form and the life of the man behind it.

Daniel Smith Lamb (1843-1929): A window into the early histories of the Army Medical Museum and Howard University Medical School.

U.S. Army doctor Daniel Smith Lamb was a significant figure in the history of American pathology during its formative years. For 55 years (1865-1920), Lamb performed hundreds of autopsies in and around Washington, D.C. and personally collected over 1,500 gross pathology specimens for the Army Medical Museum. His work began at the close of the Civil War and continued on through World War I, contributing substantially to gross pathological and histological studies that documented wartime pathology, thus further contributing to the training of Army doctors. Specimens he collected also include material from autopsies he conducted on President James Garfield, his assassin Charles Guiteau, and other historical figures. Under the auspices of the Army Medical Museum, he conducted autopsies across the city of Washington for the museum's collection, many of which survive to this day at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. He served under 12 U.S. Army Surgeons General and 11 Museum Curators and was noted to be a steadying influence during a time of constant leadership changes at that institution. Lamb was known throughout Washington, D.C. as an advocate of medical education for African-Americans and women. While working at the Museum, he simultaneously served for 46 years as professor of anatomy at Howard University (1877-1923). He wrote seminal histories of the institutions with which he was associated and in so doing also contributed significantly to the study of the history of medicine.

The electroshock triangle: disputes about the ECT apparatus prototype and its display in the 1960s.

In the early 1960s, a climate of public condemnation of electroconvulsive therapy was emerging in the USA and Europe. In spite of this, the electroshock apparatus prototype, introduced in Rome in 1938, was becoming hotly contended. This article explores the disputes around the display of the electroshock apparatus prototype in the summer of 1964 and sheds new light on the triangle of personalities that shaped its future: Karl and William Menninger, two key figures of American psychiatry in Topeka; their competitor, Adalberto Pazzini, the founder of the Sapienza Museum of the History of Medicine in Rome; and, between them, Lucio Bini, one of the original inventors of ECT, who died unexpectedly that summer.

Physiology studies and scientific exchange in the Anthropology Laboratory of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro (1910s-1920s).

The main purpose of this study is the scientific practice of Edgard Roquette-Pinto at the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro during the 1910's and 1920's in the XXth Century. The article examines the relationship between laboratory science and nation building. Driven by Physicians-Anthropologists like Edgard Roquette-Pinto among others, the investigations performed at the Anthropology Laboratory there reveal the dynamic of the borders between Laboratory and Field Sciences, and the new biological parameters adopted at that time. The investigative agenda involved plants, animals and human bodies, and it was related to the current Anthropology concept aligned with the debate of Nation construction. The physiological studies amplified the scientific exchange with different institutions, emphasizing cultural exchange between Brazil and Paraguay, and the role played by Edgard Roquette-Pinto there as he inaugurated the Physiological course at Faculty of Medicine at University of Asunción.

Neuroscience without borders: Preserving the history of neuroscience.

Over the last 50 years, neuroscience has enjoyed a spectacular development, with many discoveries greatly expanding our knowledge of brain function. Despite this progress, there has been a disregard for preserving the history of these discoveries. In many European countries, historic objects, instruments, and archives are neglected, while libraries and museums specifically focusing on neuroscience have been closed or drastically cut back. To reverse this trend, the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) has organized a number of projects, including (a) the History of Neuroscience online projects, (b) the European Brain Museum Project (EBM), (c) the History online library, (d) the FENS meeting History Corner, (e) history lectures in historic venues, and (f) a series of history seminars in various European venues. These projects aim to stimulate research in, and increase awareness of, the history of European neuroscience. Our seminars have attracted large audiences of students, researchers, and the general public, who have supported our initiatives for the preservation of the history of neuroscience for future generations and for the promotion of interest in the history of neuroscience. It is therefore urgent to develop new methods for preserving our history, not only in Europe but also in the rest of the world, and to increase greatly teaching and research in this important aspect of our scientific and cultural legacy.

An insight into the history of anatomopathological museums. Part 2.

The second part of the comprehensive work concerning pathology museums and collections presents their history since the 19th century. The evolution and specialisation of museums, depending on the attitude of their creators and geographic localization, have been analysed. The changing aspects of obtaining the exhibits and how they were preserved, presented, and stored are also a part of this work. The methods of human organ fixation reached excellence in the 19th century, but the rarity of some pathologies urged the scientists to recreate them artificially in models for didactic purposes. In the 19th and 20th centuries one could observe the flourishing development with a plateau and then decline from the second part of the 20th century to the reorientation of the museums that took place in Europe and North America. The history of anatomopathological museums is connected with ethical problems related to acquisition of exhibits in previous centuries and especially during World War II. The changing purpose of the collections, as well as their unclear future and the impact on the visitors, are evident. For the last 50 years, many museums have been closing completely, but some collections have been digitalised and are still in permanent use. The uniqueness of old specimens with certain diseases, often long gone and not observed anymore, makes them important in many aspects nowadays. Pathology museums are themselves relics of the past, being at the same time tangible proof of ways of development in medicine, but also a way of preservation of human knowledge in a special type of relation with the human body.

A Space of One's Own: Barbosa du Bocage, the Foundation of the National Museum of Lisbon, and the Construction of a Career in Zoology (1851-1907).

This paper discusses the life and scientific work of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823-1907), a nineteenth-century Portuguese naturalist who carved a new place for zoological research in Portugal and built up a prestigious scientific career by securing appropriate physical and institutional spaces to the discipline. Although he was appointed professor of zoology at the Lisbon Polytechnic School, an institution mainly devoted to the preparatory training of military officers and engineers, he succeeded in creating the conditions that allowed him to develop consistent research in zoology at this institution. Taking advantage of the reconstruction and further improvement of the building of the Lisbon Polytechnic, following a violent fire in 1843, Bocage transferred a natural history museum formerly located at the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon to his institution, where he conquered a more prestigious place for zoology. Although successive governments were unwilling to meet Bocage's ambitions for the Zoological Section of the newly created National Museum of Lisbon, the collaborators he found in different parts of the Portuguese continental territory and colonial empire supplied him the specimens he needed to make a career as a naturalist. Bocage ultimately became a renowned specialist in Southwestern African fauna thanks to José de Anchieta, his finest collaborator. Travels to foreign museums, and the establishment of links with the international community of zoologists, proved fundamental to build up Bocage's national and international scientific reputation, as it will be exemplified by the discussion of his discovery of Hyalonema, a specimen with a controversial identity collected off the Portuguese coast.

[The anatomy museum of the University of Chile: a national monument]. / El Museo de Anatomía de la Universidad de Chile, un monumento nacional.

The accrual of anatomical preparations since the nineteenth century in Santiago, Chile, became the so called "anatomical cabinet" under the supervision of professor Julio F Lafargue. Afterwards, this cabinet evolved to form an anatomical museum in the mid twentieth century. It contained preparations using corpses whose identification was not known. Now, the corpses are donated through a body donation program that started thirty years ago. The collection contains, among other interesting items, a situs inversus preparation, Juan Martel's mummy, Tramond house wax preparations and a jibarized head. Nowadays, the museum is open to the community, its collection is recognized as a national historical monument, and has links with other university museums in the country and abroad.

[The Museum of the Hôpital Saint-Louis]. / Le musée de l'hôpital Saint-Louis.

In 1866, Alphonse Devergie, physician supported by Armand Husson, manager of the Assistance publique created a permanent exhibition of teaching images of skin diseases at the Hôpital Saint-Louis (Paris). Twenty-five years later the initiative was made concrete by the inauguration of a building housing a museum, a medical library and rooms for outpatients. Enriched by the works of dermatologists, moulageurs - mainly Jules Baretta -, painters and photographs the museum became worldwide renown exhibiting the largest wax moulages collection of the world. Today the didactic value of the moulages is no longer used. The collection illustrates several aspects of hospital dermatology during a century. Listed as an Historical Monument in 1992, the museum has been recently renewed thanks to the support of private and public actors attracted by its patrimonial value. © 2018 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. © 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. Tous droits réservés.

Health by design: teaching cleanliness and assembling hygiene at the nineteenth-century sanitation museum.

In 1878, amid a rapidly proliferating social interest in public health and cleanliness, a group of sanitary scientists and reformers founded the Parkes Museum of Hygiene in central London. Dirt and contagion knew no social boundaries, and the Parkes's founders conceived of the museum as a dynamic space for all classes to better themselves and their environments. They promoted sanitary science through a variety of initiatives: exhibits of scientific, medical and architectural paraphernalia; product endorsements; and lectures and certificated courses in practical sanitation, food inspection and tropical hygiene. While the Parkes's programmes reified the era's hierarchies of class and gender, it also pursued a public-health mission that cut across these divisions. Set apart from the great cultural and scientific popular museums that dominated Victorian London, it exhibited a collection with little intrinsic value, and offered an education in hygiene designed to be imported into visitors' homes and into urban spaces in the metropole and beyond. This essay explores the unique contributions of the Parkes Museum to late nineteenth-century sanitary science and to museum development, even as the growth of public-health policy rendered the museum obsolete.

[The History of International Associations of Museums of Medicine].

The article considers history of activity of international associations of museums of Europe and North America from the moment of organization of the first International Association of Medical Museums existed from 1907 to 1955 and to the European association of Museums of History of Medical Sciences (since 1983) and the Association of Medical Museums (since 1985) both existing at the present time. The analysis is presented concerning their role in unification of scientific community, development of research methods, determination and reconsideration of professional concepts and also alterations of functions of medical collections and museums with the course of time and new trends in medical education, clinical and fundamental medicine and museum business. The existence and development of museum associations is compared with concept of three "museum revolutions": professionalization of museum sector (at the turn of XIX-XX centuries), orientation on education of broad masses of population (second half of XX century), establishment of principles of social inclusion and multi-culturality (beginning of XXI century). The method of study is analysis of such sources untranslated to Russian previously as archives of "Vestnik" and reports and also scientific publications of members of associations involved into their activities. The results of study determined possible directions of work related to coordination of activities of medical museums, development of scientific research and scientific education methods and exposition work. The conclusions are made about an important role of international associations in systematization of knowledge, organization of scientific activities and medical community, development of guidelines for regional museums and also organization of unified information space for workers of medical museums.

"Ex Museolo Nostro Machaonico": Collecting, Publishing, and Visualization in Fabricius Hildanus1.

This essay seeks to use the learned surgeon Wilhelm Fabry von Hilden (1560­1634), better known by the Latinized name of Fabricius Hildanus, to establish links among areas that have so far generally been seen by historians as separate. They include the publication of Observationes chirurgicae, the establishment of a surgical museum, and the collection and publication of several images documenting his activities. Fabricius was among the first to embark on these three endeavors. The essay provides an especially rich account of his museum, including its holdings and in some cases the preservation methods he employed.

Sites Related to Crawford Williamson Long in Georgia.

BACKGROUND: Crawford Williamson Long (1815 to 1878) was the first to use ether as an inhaled anesthetic for surgical operations. By not publishing his discovery for 7 yr, his pioneering work was largely overshadowed by that of Horace Wells (1815 to 1848), Charles Thomas Jackson (1805 to 1880), and William Thomas Green Morton (1819 to 1868). As a result, sites commemorating Long's discovery are not offered the same recognition as those affiliated with Wells or Morton. METHODS: We highlight sites in Athens, Danielsville, and Jefferson, Georgia, that honor the first man to regularly use ether as an anesthetic agent. Extensive site visits, examination of museum artifacts, and genealogical research were used to obtain information being presented. RESULTS: Historic Oconee Hill Cemetery in Athens is where Long and members of his family are buried. Established in 1856, it is closely linked to the history of Athens and the University of Georgia (Athens, Georgia). The main site we describe is the Crawford W. Long Museum, located in Jefferson, Georgia, which opened to the public in 1957. It has undergone extensive renovations and holds an expansive collection of Long's family heirlooms and personal artifacts. In addition, it displays an impressive art collection, depicting Long, surgical procedures, members of Long's family, and homes associated with him. Visitors to the museum may also enjoy a walking audio tour that highlights the life of Long and his contribution to medicine. CONCLUSIONS: We provide information on sites and artifacts that honor Georgia's most celebrated physician. Much of this has not been published before, and it is our hope that Crawford Williamson Long's legacy receives the attention it richly deserves.