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NMHM Presentation April 3, 2013
1. CREEPY
EDUCATIONAL
or
FREAKISH?
Anatomy & Medical Museums
1860-today
Ashley Bowen-Murphy
2. Today
• 19th century dime and anatomy museums
• National Museum of Health & Medicine
• Presence v. meaning in medical museums
• Contemporary questions
• Ethics and bioethics
• Pain and its absence
• Issues in contemporary medical display
• Kids in medical museums
7. and vet the sense seems
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almost dfy detection. The volumes of acientiflc
lore that nil the tables and shelves of tbe medical school, military obedience was the great uinxiij m lruni ana one
fraternity only go to prove .aud elaborate theer important lesson to the student of theun It York Museum
The Proprietors rigid, New contains a splendid
of Anatomy was ordered to hand- in strong nnea of running
questioning obedience. Jackson set them regardlessgun, which
lactam .v
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smallest pimule on the skin is a e indicator the example. He
have determined, hogany carriage,
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report at ten, and did free himself back so of
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laat,-au- death be the tbe reenht and
final close. Mangier e Bilious, Dynpeptlc, and
' Diarrhea Pilla cure where all others fail. While sequence of the humanity, and suppression of
suffering rain. He was ordered to and are four ports, two o
there
don a woolen unitorm in the winter, and, it contains two
having received four of their most interesting and
quackery) no order prescribing or
for Burns, Scalda, Chilblains, Guts, and all abra- same construction as the o
sions of the skin, MaggieTs Salve ia infallible.
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and aU Druxguta, at eents per beg. oc28:R4 dw He considered it
Lectures on wear it.
Instructive wronir to travel or carrv a bore about ten inches in
IrPHILOSOPUr OF MARRIAGE. mails oa Sunday, and would not take part the two latter about six in
Disqualifications, Nervous and Physical is heavily arm
The Proprietors ef the New York Museum of Anat-- ' in the commission of wrong. This ap- The beak
, xmy have determined, regardless of expense, to is- -'
Debility, Premature decline of
pears logical at least, however eccentric. ed witn a sharp and heav
sue free (for the beafit of suffering humanity, and
nppreeHion of quackery ) four of their most inter- lie rode untrracefuilv, walked with an steel that would penetra
Manhood, Indigestion, Weakness or
esting and Instructive Lecture on Marriages and awkward stride, and wanted ease of man- suusiance against which i
Its Disqualification n, NervouH and Physical Debi- ner. He never lost a certain shvnens in en. It slopes craduallv
company, and I remember his air of boy- of Energy and the top
Depression, Impotency, Lack slight curve, from
lity, Frematare decline of Manhood, Indication,
Weakneas or iH'preasion, Iinpotoucy, Lmn y Kur-g-
turret to the point,
' Ahose Maladies which result from youthful follies, Manly full of friends, Great Social seven andDeiow thethe lat
and Manly Power ; the Grat Social Kvil, aort ish restraint, one dav, when, in leaviniran
apartment Power; the he hesitated Evil, ieet those surfa
excesses of maturity, and ignorance of Physiology
And laws of nature. whether to shakewhichwith every one or Its length from a perpendi
Maladies hands result from youthful the 6loPe. 18 thirty-fiv
These Invaluable Lectures have been the means not. Catching the eye of the present P
f antight?mng and saviug thoneaiidii, and will be writer, who designed remainino-- . he hant- -
forwarded frw, on receipt of four stamps, by ad- -' follies, excesses of maturity, and '"deed, a most formid
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Sent free in dontlvsnrumr from his soundness of heart..
a lad v said it was "ancclic" His VOKe free, on
Howard Association, Philadelphia, Pa. my :R4. receipt of four stamps, by addressing flve ln.e neim
ordinarv conversation was subdued and .By8
pleasant from its friendlv and courteous Dee?
INSURANCE. tone, thouRh injurodNew York Museum of Anatomy and
SECRETARY, by the acquired habit
a W est i'ointism ot cutting oft, so to r
STATE Fllifi IASIBAACU CO. speak, each word, and leaving each to take York. she proved herself
Medicine, 615 Broadway, New age, Pf
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; " OF CLEVELAND, OHIO. in his manner of talking; but briefest e,f ?7 m eve "pect.
11. The exhibit halls of the “museum of horrors,” as illustrated in Mary Clemmer Ames's 1874 guidebook.
Image reproduced in Rhodes’ “Rise and Fall of the Army Medical Museum” p. 85.
14. The Los Angeles Herald 19 March 1894.
Image courtesy of Chronicling America (Library of Congress).
15. Exterior of the NMHM on the grounds of
Walter Reed Medical Center.
Image via Colin Kimbrell, public domain.
16. Presence and Meaning
“At their most powerful, original
implements like these, especially when
accompanied by real and specific personal
details, along with the insight of real
experts (patients and
designers, perhaps, as well as
scientists, technicians, and historians), can
contribute to an important and distinctive
historiography. This is essentially a felt
history of the processes of medical practice
and research in the making: its praxis, the
process of treatment and discovery, as well
as all the failure, frustration, and blind
alleys explored along the way.”
U.S. Army regimental pocket
- Söderqvist and Arnold, surgery kit used by Mary Walker.
“Medical Instruments in Museums,” p. 729
Image via NMHM
24. Ready to discuss museum practice?
Image via the National Museum of Health and Medicine
25. “[Museum curator John] Brinton was once confronted by a soldier
who discovered his amputated limb in the [Army Medical] museum
and demanded it back. Brinton asked the soldier how long he had
enlisted for and was told, for the duration of the war. In a
remarkable display of wit, he told the soldier to come back when
the war was over.”
-Michael Rhode, “The Rise and Fall of the Army Medical Museum,” p. 82
Ethics and Bioethics
26. The mere stockpiling of
tissue, like the stockpiling
of raw data, in the absence
of convincing research
paradigm, is ethically
unacceptable.
- Jones et. al. “Stored Human Tissue: An
Ethical Perspective on the Fate of
Anonymous, Archival Material”
Ethics and Bioethics
27. Is There an Ethical Obligation
Regarding Past Collection practice?
Image via Crania Americana
28. Is There an Ethical Obligation Regarding
Past Museum Practice?
Image via the National Museum of Health and Medicine’s website.
32. How to display contemporary medicine
Image via U.S. Army
33. Kids in Medical Museums
Image via the National Museum of Health and Medicine
34. Owen… asked a couple of questions, then quickly said
in a shaky voice, “I don’t like this.” I immediately
suggested we head over to the Lincoln exhibit, which
he had been excited to see. Once there, I started to
point out some of the things we had read about, and
he said he just wanted to go.
I steered us to the “Military Medicine: Challenges and
Innovations” room, thinking we just needed to leave
the area. But with a graphic display about facial
reconstruction in the third room, it didn’t get any
better. My poor boy was clearly done and wanted to
leave the place. So, we did.
- Review on “Kid Friendly DC”
Kids in Medical Museums
Image via “Kid Friendly DC”
35. References and Resources
• Anderson, Julie, and Lisa O’Sullivan. “Histories of Disability and Medicine: Reconciling Historical Narratives and Contemporary Values.” In Re-
presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum, edited by Richard Sandell, Jocelyn Dodd, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, 143–
154. New York: Routledge, 2010.
• Arnold, Ken, and Thomas Söderqvist. “Medical Instruments in Museums: Immediate Impressions and Historical Meanings.” Isis 102, no. 4
(December 1, 2011): 718–729.
• Bud, R., ed. Manifesting Medicine. London: NMSI Trading Ltd, Science Museum, 2004.
• Fabian, Ann. The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and America’s Unburied Dead. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
• Jones, D. G., R. Gear, and K. A. Galvin. “Stored Human Tissue: An Ethical Perspective on the Fate of Anonymous, Archival Material.” Journal of
Medical Ethics 29, no. 6 (December 1, 2003): 343–347.
• Purtle, Helen R. “Lincoln Memorabilia in the Medical Museum of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine
32, no. 1 (February 1958): 68–74.
• Quigley, Christine. Dissection on Display: Cadavers, Anatomists, and Public Spectacle. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2012.
• Rhode, Michael G. “The Rise and Fall of the Army Medical Museum and Library.” Washington History 18, no. 1/2 (January 1, 2006): 78–97.
• Söderqvis, Thomas, and Adam Bencard. “Making Sense or Sensing the Made? Research into Presence Production in Museums of
Science, Technology, and Medicine.” In Research and Museums: Proceedings of an International Symposium, edited by Görel Cavalli-Björkman
and Svante Lindqvist, 161–173. Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 2008.
• Söderqvist, Thomas, Adam Bencard, and Camilla Mordhorst. “Between Meaning Culture and Presence Effects: Contemporary Biomedical
Objects as a Challenge to Museums.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 40, no. 4 (December 2009): 431–438.
• Stephens, Elizabeth. Anatomy as Spectacle: Public Exhibitions of the Body from 1700 to the Present. Representations (Liverpool, England).
Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011.
• ---. “Pathologizing Leaky Male Bodies: Spermatorrhea in Nineteenth-Century British Medicine and Popular Anatomical Museums.” Journal of
the History of Sexuality 17, no. 3 (September 1, 2008): 421–438.
36. Feel free to get in touch:
Ashley Bowen-Murphy
Ashley_bowen@brown.edu
@bowenmurphy Twitter
Image via the National Museum of Health and Medicine
Editor's Notes
Introduction, welcome, and settle in.
I’m going to talk for about 30 minutes and then open it up for a larger discussion. I’ll start with the history and background of medical and anatomy museums in the 19th century. Then, I’ll talk about the museum you see pictured here, the National Museum of Health and Medicine (formerly the Army Medical Museum)– one of my favorites because it’s so interesting/problematic. Finally, I want to spend 20 minutes in a more general discussion about education and ethics in museums like these.
The anatomicalvenus was a lifelike, alluring female figure who could be stripped and put into different sections. Although intended for the medical schools, they were quickly curiosities in their own right.Italian museum museocereanatomiche.itSuuuuuuuuuper creepy venus model: http://www.wellcomecollection.org/full-image.aspx?page=406&image=model-of-a-pregnant-woman
These models quickly entered the public sphere and also contributed to conversations about the medical model/anatomy museum as an obscene space suitable only for the basest thoughts/emotions.http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/exquisite-bodies.aspx
These were for-profit entertainment venues and grew out of the classic “cabinet of curiosities” style of museum in the 18th century. They had frequently changing exhibits but were really “respectable” theater venues. Barnum’s museum included taxidermy (of real and “composite” animals), freak shows, wax works, diaramas, etc. The freak show was standardized and popularized– possibly their largest contribution. Eventually, the rise of cinema and amusement parks put them out of business. That said, in their time they were extreemly popular and enormous! Several floors and frequently rotating exhibts.Yes, that P.T. Barnum. He honed his skills at his museum.These museums continued to exist into the early 20th century, although the rise of amusement parks and other popular entertainment venues reduced their prevelence.
Unfortunately, there are not a lot of images of anatomy museums or their exhibits. In part, this reflects their very low status as much as it does the period.
1865 advertisement for the “Philosophy of Marriage” pamphlets “courtesy” of the New York Anatomy Museum.Do you know what the “Great Social Evil” is? It’s how Victorians referred to prostitution (and resulting venereal diseases)They publicized the pamphlet in a variety of newspapers– I saw ads in Philadelphia, Cleveland, etc.Eventually they were shut down under obscinity laws– Dr. Kahn’s museum was closed in 1873 (although it reopened later). Several other museums were closed under obscentiy charges– but keep this in mind because you’ll see that the plans to close the museums were hardly the same as actually closing them.
I’m not going to talk about the Mutter Museum, not because it’s not interesting… but because it gets all the attention. It opened to the public at about the same time as the NMHM
The museum is a military museum, originally under the war department and still under the control of the Army’s institute of pathology.
The museum moved several times in the first few decades– it began in the Surgeon General’s office (as just a shelf above his desk) and then wandered around DC. In 1866 it moved into Ford’s Theater where it became a kind of shrine to Lincoln and the Civil War dead. In addition to the kind of innate morbid curiosity, the flag draped cases and homage to the dead made it into a de facto national memorial. The museum stayed there for about 20 years.It opened to the public in April 1867 and by the end of the year attracted over 6,000 visitors. By 1874, over 2,600 visitors per month came to Ford’s theater/the Army medical museum. And by 1881, over 40,000 visitors!A few different guidebooks worried that it was too horrible to be a place for leisure. On one hand, writers promoted the creepy aspects of it– saying that by moonlight it would be too frightening to see. But that in the daylight it is fun and educational.
Apparently the cases were also flanked by flags, etc.Despite it’s popularity, several gudiebooks worried that it could not/should not become a place of leisure.In the guide book this image is from, the author wrote: “butto the unscientific mind, especially to one still aching with the memories of war, it must remain a museum of horrors.. . . No! the Museum is a very interesting, but can never be a popular place to visit."
The Lincoln memorabilia remains a major draw for museum visitors. It is promoted in many of the musuem’s publicity materials and is almost invariably mentioned in articles about the museum.They also have some of Booth’s spine but that is not displayed (interestingly, another presidential assassin’s body parts are on display– although in the brain area not in the history section).
The museum moved into its first purpose-built building in 1886. It’s near the Smithsonian castle and on the national Mall. The building also housed the records and pension division. In the period right after it moved (and thus got more storage space) the surgeon general sent around a circular asking for morbid anatomy, disfigurement, rareities, etc– no longer just what someone might encounter in the military. That said, I’m not sure about the items that seem like dinosaur and other large animal skeletons.By 1893, the museum became particularly research focused. Still did some diagnostic stuff for the army and collected a variety of items As late as 1966, it had well over 750,000 visitors!
Dr. Jordan wasn’t a real person, in fact, he was run out of the UK in the late 1870s on charges of quackery and obscenity. He brought Dr. Kan’s museum to the US. Also, this is dated 1894, so clearly this kind of museum continued to coexist with more sophisticated/official/educational spaces associated with the Army and universities. I’ve found some advertisments for doctors/healers as late as 1910, so the museum is clearly still trying to differentiate itself in a much larger segment
NMHM was in this location from 1971-2011. It’s actually the basement of the Institute of Pathology. It was difficult to get to and outside the core of the city. As a result, attendance dropped. In 1988, it was renamed the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
Ken Arnold and Thomas Soderqvist suggest that part of the advantage that they have They’re clear, however, that we can’t push that backward onto the past. It’s a valid emotional response and there probably is some valididity across tme, but it’s also the thing that medical museums have that other museums do not.Mary Walker was a surgeon for the Union. Also a prisoner of war and the only woman to have received the medal of honor.
The new, purpose-built NMHM that opened during the museum’s 150th anniversary in 2012. It’s still on military property and even farther from the heart of DC. While there is ample parking, it’s a difficult location to get to. It’s still the institute of pathology, so what you’re seeing here is the entire building. The portion open to the public is only on the first floor– and is just 3 galleries.
Note, the next image is probably the grossest of the bunch… Biosafety Level 2– which is pretty common.
This case contains a lot of the stuff that’s listed in promotional materials (though not always stuff made by the museum).The Mutter Museum, a peer institution, talks about “distirubingly informative” although this museum is much less playful– probably because of its ties to the military– they nonetheless keep some favorites out: stomach shaped hairball, conjoined twins, fetal development, etc.
Charles Julius Guiteau assassinated GarfieldThey also have Booth’s brain but that’s not on display.
Before I close out, are there any other questions? Anything you’d like to know more about before heading out?Wax model of head mounted on a book
“Given the considerable distance between archival material and actual living persons, any symbolism attached to it will be far less than in the case of identifiable remains although it will not have disappeared completely.” Ask if anyone has read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”Open storage!
Image is from Morton’s Lithograph from Crania AmericanaThese skulls, bones, and other things often come from poor people and people of color. For example, has anyone read Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks?
Do museums have an ethical obligation to acknowledge a problematic past? For example, this is the skull of an unnamed African American man, a member of the 54th MA, shot by a canister near the site of Battery Wagner. This is the only skull in the museum identified as belonging to a black man. While it’s clearly positioned within a military history moment, I found it strange that this skull had his race identified (implicitly).Does this only bother me because I know that history? Should the museum be a bit more transparent about it’s… “problematic” past?
Very few places where there is any indication that these injuries hurt and that they are traumatic! Mostly, pain is historical and it’s about positioning the medical technology as improving lives (e.g. despite popular belief, it was common to “bite the bullett” that was actually not true. They had several different kinds of pain killers and anesthesia options). However, pain management or long term anxiety, pain, frustration isn’t there in the historical collections at least.
Whack’ed…and then everything was different,” by New York artist ElietteMarkhbein these are the only patient voices in the entire museum. That was also, more or less true, at the Civil War medicine museum. Here, people talked about their injuries and the long, slow road to regaining their lives. (See http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/index.cfm?p=media.news.article.nmhm_honoring_survivors_traumatic_brain_injuries)Very little information about anesthesia
Thinking back to the idea of presence v. meaning,Sonderqvist and his coauthors worry about how museums will display future medical knowledge and material culture.
Sgt. Chad Parrott and Capt. Greg Reger demonstrate a simulator used to help in the treatment of PTSD at Madigan Army Medical Center.Photo by Jason Kaye. Photo courtesy of U.S. Army.
Although the NMHM claims to be appropriate for students of almost all ages, the bulk of the students they highlight on their website are middle schoolers. In fact, Disney Family dot com even says it’s good for babies and toddlers!Caption from NMHM: Students from the Joy of Learning Academy hold brain specimens at Howard University's Department of Anatomy's booth during the National Museum of Health and Medicine's 13th annual Brain Awareness Week. Credit: NMHM
Then things went quickly downhill. In one of the cases in that room are three jars containing deformed fetuses and babies, including one with Siamese twins. It didn’t bother me so much because of the museum context; I viewed it as part of a scientific exhibit. Owen, however, had a much different reaction. He asked a couple of questions, then quickly said in a shaky voice, “I don’t like this.” I immediately suggested we head over to the Lincoln exhibit, which he had been excited to see. Once there, I started to point out some of the things we had read about, and he said he just wanted to go. So, I steered us to the “Military Medicine: Challenges and Innovations” room, thinking we just needed to leave the area. But with a graphic display about facial reconstruction in the third room, it didn’t get any better. My poor boy was clearly done and wanted to leave the place. So, we did.Owen is a 1st grader, so probably 6-7 years old.The Wellcome Collection in the UK has a special page for parents and includes information about each exhibit in its website: http://www.wellcomecollection.org/visit-us/your-visit/parents.aspx
