Back to Front PageVOLUME 6, NUMBER 4

Prescription for Spring Break:
A Dose of Medical History

By Jennifer Proctor

Beaches crowded with coeds not your idea of a perfect spring break? Don't want to hit the slopes or cart the family to Disneyland? Let the AAMC Reporter be your guide to interesting, unusual sites and side trips for spring break - or anytime - that showcase our nation's medical history.

If Boston is your destination, make sure to stop by the Harvard Medical School. Its recently renovated Countway Library is the new home for the Warren Anatomical Museum. John Collins Warren, M.D., donated $5,000 and his collection of anatomical and pathological specimens to found the museum in 1847. Since then, it has grown to include almost 13,000 items, including anatomical models, photographs, medical instruments, and memorabilia.

One of the most famous items on display in the museum is the skull and life mask of Phineas Gage, who survived six years after an explosion in 1854 launched a 13-pound rod through his head. While he regained many functions after the accident, his personality changed considerably, and his experience helped to define the brain's connection with personality.

The library also houses more than 200,000 rare books, including a history of medicine from the ninth century, European books printed in the 16th through 19th centuries, American books published from 1668 through 1870, and medical Hebraica and Judaica from as early as the 14th century. Although the collection is not open to the public, books are displayed occasionally.

As you stroll the Harvard Medical School grounds, you might reflect on some of the school's little-known history, such as the 1849 murder case of George Parkman, M.D. Dr. Parkman disappeared after lending money to his Harvard colleague, John White Webster, M.D. According to lore, after discovering Dr. Webster had secured another loan with the same valuables, Dr. Parkman wanted to collect his debt. Soon after, his body parts were found scattered throughout Dr. Webster's lab.

The Touma Medical Museum in Huntington, W.Va., boasts one of the world's largest collections of ear trumpets.

The Doctor as Collector

If you go to West Virginia to hike, mountain bike, or raft, carve out some time to visit Huntington's Touma Museum of Medicine.

More than 20 years ago, Joseph Touma, M.D., a professor of surgery at the Marshall University School of Medicine, started his collection with antique ear trumpets, and it soon grew to include a variety of medical items - from audiological implements and bedpans to surgical instruments and spittoons.

After acquiring one of the most extensive ear horn collections in the world, Dr. Touma ventured to a New York auction and returned with a ruckload of historic medical items, including a complete turn-of-the-century pharmacy. Dr. Touma, who calls collecting a "disease," says he now has a good representation of various medical specialties as well as some medical novelties.

For example, if as you pull your air-conditioned, late-model automobile up to the curb in Huntington you start wondering about the history of physician transportation, the Touma Museum can enlighten you. Inside the multigallery facility, Dr. Touma has an actual 1926 Ford Model T, the Doctor's Coupé edition. He also showcases a doctor's buggy from the 1800s.

The museum serves as an educational tool for Marshall University medical students and faculty. Visiting professors and all first-year medical students tour the museum before they even start at the school. In addition, the university sometimes uses the museum's conference facilities for public relations and social occasions.

A Baltimore Must-See

The University of Maryland's Davidge Hall is the oldest medical teaching facility still in use in the Northern Hemisphere.

Historical sites in Baltimore not only include the home of Edgar Allan Poe and the Revolutionary War-era Brewers' Park but also the oldest medical teaching facility still in use in the Northern Hemisphere.

Davidge Hall was named a historic landmark in 1997 and is recognized as the first building of the University of Maryland system. Originally part of the College of Medicine of Maryland, later the University of Maryland, the 1812 building was renamed in 1958 to honor John Beale Davidge, M.D., an Annapolis, Md.-born physician, who trained in Edinburgh and Glasgow and went on to become the first dean of the school.

At the time of the school's inception, medical education in the United States was based more on apprenticeship, but a physicians' movement was pushing for more formal medical education. Faculty members who were part of this faction financed the construction of the building themselves, ensuring Davidge Hall's fast completion, despite the War of 1812.

Robert Cary Long Sr. is traditionally credited with designing the classical building, reminiscent of ancient structures. Originally, the building contained a chemical hall, an anatomical hall, a dissection room, and a library. Davidge Hall's impressive façade once masked a grungy, foul-smelling interior - a typical environment for medical students and teachers during that time and enough to make any contemporary medical school faculty member or student appreciate modern facilities. During the building's infancy, oil lamps and stoves combined with inferior embalming methods and chemical experiments to cause a permeating stench.

Now totally restored, Davidge Hall houses the University of Maryland Medical Alumni Association.

Learning from the Past

Whether you are researching the great doctors Albert Sabin, Robert Kehoe, or Johnny Fever, Cincinnati has something to offer.

As the "jumping-off place for the Wild West," Cincinnati has a rich and unique history that includes its medical past, says Billie Broaddus, director of the Cincinnati Medical Heritage Center. The center, located on the University of Cincinnati Medical Center campus, preserves and presents the medical legacy of the university, the Cincinnati community, and the nation. It contains a museum, archives, and a library.

The Albert B. Sabin Archives draw considerable attention. Scholars examine the papers of Dr. Sabin, who developed the oral polio vaccine while at the University of Cincinnati. Spanning from 1930 to 1993, the papers include the doctor's correspondence; data; and files on poliomyelitis, live oral vaccine development, tropical medicine, and more. The museum also includes evidence of polio's devastating past, including an iron lung donated by the Cincinnati March of Dimes. "The archives and exhibit help people remember what polio was like," says Broaddus, who has worked at the center for 17 years.

The center's points of interest also include volumes dating back to 1500; a collection of art objects depicting medical anomalies; a replica of a 15th-century Italian pharmacy, which was originally displayed at the 1899-1900 Paris Exposition; and an original copy of the largest medical book ever published, Paolo Mascagni's Anatomiae universai icones 1823-1832, which measures 39 by 28 inches.

Medical History Southern Style

Planning a Visit? Warren Anatomical Museum: The museum is open to the public during regular library hours. Visitors can obtain a free pass at the library security desk. Large groups are encouraged to make appointments by calling Virginia Hunt, (617) 432-6196. The library's special collections, while not available to the public, are on display periodically. Information is available on the Web at www.hms.harvard.edu/ countway_tour/warren.html. Touma Medical Museum: The museum is open free to the public by appointment. Call (304) 522-8800 for details. Davidge Hall: Visitors can currently view the inside of the building at no charge Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Formal tours will start in June, when the building's restoration is complete. Information is available on the Web at www.medicalalumni.org/history/overhead.html. Cincinnati Medical Heritage Center: The center is open to the public Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Collections are accessible to the public with restrictions. For more information, contact Billie Broaddus at (513) 558-5120, or billie.broaddus@uc.edu. Waring Historical Library: The library is open to the public at no cost. To visit or use the collections for research, call (843) 792-2288. For more information, go to http://waring.library.musc.edu/overview. National Museum of Health and Medicine: The public can visit the museum any day of the week from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call (202) 782-2200 or visit the Web at www.natmedmuse.afip.org.

Charleston, S.C. is brimming with Civil War history and prime examples of Georgian and Federal architecture, but after a visit to the Fort Sumter National Monument, you might want to stop in at the Waring Historical Library of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).

The library's museum collection contains about 1,000 medical artifacts, including surgery and amputation cases and saddlebags that doctors used to store their instruments. Objects such as a bamboo "leech box" visually demonstrate medicine's progress.

Named after its first director, Joseph Ioor Waring, M.D., the library primarily chronicles the history of the health sciences in the state and the South, but much of the material is universal. Most of the books in the library date from the 18th and 19th centuries, and there are some materials that can be traced as far back as the 16th century. Guests can also peruse early journals from England, France, and the United States.

Another interesting sight is the Waring Library building itself, which was constructed in 1893 as part of the Porter Military Academy and acquired by MUSC in 1966. Originally a federal arsenal, the Porter Military Academy was founded after the Civil War to educate impoverished young men.

Capital Attractions

A journey to our nation's political hub is as American as Mom and apple pie. After you have seen all the Washington, D.C., standard sights and the Metro ride seems like the most exciting part of your day, reenergize your trip with a stop at the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

The museum is filled with decidedly weird and sometimes downright disturbing specimens that should not be missed. See a stomach-shaped hairball surgically removed from the inside of a 12-year-old girl and touch a human brain. Or, for the fainter of heart, examine the bullet that John Wilkes Booth fired at President Lincoln and contemplate the difference between the lungs of a smoker, a coal miner, and a city dweller.

Originally established during the Civil War as the Army Medical Museum, the museum built its collections on objects sent from medical officers on the battlefield. The U.S. Surgeon General had directed these officers to collect "specimens of morbid anatomy… together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed." The National Museum of Health and Medicine now focuses its collections and exhibits on the history and practice of American medicine, military medicine, and current medical research issues.

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18 April 2001