3. Physical and external medicine including baths, exercise,
electricity, massage, surgery, cautery, and blood-letting;
4. Internal medicine including medications and treatment used by
the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Hindus, Arabians, and Chinese;
and
5. Preventive medicine including beverages, food, soil, clothing
and habitation.
It is certainly to Dr. Flint's credit that from its early conception,
first as Section of Materia Medica and thereafter as Division of
Medicine, he planned for an all-embracing exhibition and reference
collection of the medical sciences. Until the end of the 19th century
and the early years of the 20th century, crude drugs as well as
primitive and magic medicine held a more prominent place than medical
instruments in the exhibits and collections. In 1905, Flint issued his
last, known, literary contribution, "Directions for Collecting
Information and Objects Illustrating the History of Medicine," in Part S
of _Bulletin of the U.S. National Museum_, no. 39. The emphasis he put
upon this shows Dr. Flint's interest in collecting medical and
pharmaceutical objects and equipment of historical value. Consequently,
he arranged new exhibits including one on American Indian medicine. A
medical historian, Fielding H. Garrison, inspected these about 1910 and,
in his "An Introduction to the History of Medicine," wrote of their
novelty and appeal. "In the interesting exhibit of folk medicine in the
National Museum at Washington," he commented, "a buckeye or horse
chestnut (_Aesculus flavus_), an Irish potato, a rabbit's foot, a
leather strap previously worn by a horse, and a carbon from an arc light
are shown as sovereign charms against rheumatism. Other amulets in the
Washington exhibit," he added, "are the patella of a sheep and a ring
made out of a coffin nail (dug out of a graveyard) for cramps and
epilepsy, a peony root to be carried in the pocket against insanity, and
rare and precious stones for all and sundry diseases." It had been Dr.
Flint's intention, besides presenting an educational display on the
history of the medical arts, to warn the public against the perils of
quackery and the faults of folk medicine, as well as to expose evils in
drug adulteration. Today, we can see actual fulfillment of these
intentions in the present exhibit at the medical gallery which has been
executed recently on the basis of scientific, historical research.
After Dr. Flint's retirement from the Smithsonian Institution in 1912,
there was no replacement for over five years. Therefore, the Division
of Medicine was placed, for administrative purposes, under the
supervision of the curator of the newly reestablished (1912) Division of
Textiles, Frederick L. Lewton. During these years, he fought against the
dispersal of the medical and _materia medica_ collections. Thus, for
lack of a curator of its own, almost all new activities in the Division
of Medicine were curtailed until 1917.
On January 31, 1917, Lewton addressed members of the American
Pharmaceutical Association inviting them to cooperate in gathering up
and preserving at the National Museum the "many unique and irreplaceable
objects" connected with the early history of pharmacy in this country
which could still be saved.[10] Then, on March 14, 1917, an examination
was announced by the Civil Service (held May 2) for an assistant curator
for the Division of Medicine, and the position was filled by Joseph
Donner on August 16, 1917. Donner was the first full-time employee paid
by the Smithsonian Institution for the curatorship of this Division. He
held the post until January 31, 1918, when he was inducted into the
Sanitary Corps of the United States Army. No significant activities in
the Division of Medicine were reported during these few months.
Mr. Donner was followed by a second, full-time, museum officer who
promoted a great amount of good will towards the Division during his
curatorship of a little over 30 years. Dr. Charles Whitebread
(1877-1963), the first pharmacist to head the Division, joined the
Smithsonian in 1918 and remained until his retirement in 1948, the
longest service, thus far, of any individual in the Division.
Dr. Whitebread received his degree of Doctor of Pharmacy from the School
of Pharmacy at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in
1911. He entered government service late in 1915, but it was not until
April 2, 1918, that he agreed to become assistant curator of the
Division of Medicine.
Curator Whitebread's first year was an active and challenging one, for
in this new position he began to develop a deep interest in the history
of the healing arts. He made a number of important acquisitions, most of
them pertaining to pharmaceutical products, synthetic chemicals and
crude drugs. He found that many specimens from the older drug
collections had deteriorated to such an extent as to be worthless, and
he began replacing them with freshly marketed drugs.
[Illustration: Figure 5.--CURATOR CHARLES WHITEBREAD inspecting, with
admiration, five drug containers from the Squibb collection (1945).
(_Photo courtesy of the American Pharmaceutical Association._)]
Plans were completed for the opening of new medical exhibits and
adopting, with some modifications and additions, earlier classifications
set by Dr. Flint. Dr. Whitebread grouped these into the following
classes: the evaluation of the healing arts; a picture display of
medical men prominent in American history;[11] a _materia medica_
display including the history of pharmacy; and an exhibition on
Sanitation and Public Hygiene[12] which was later to evolve into the
Hall of Health.
In 1920, Dr. Whitebread added a number of specimens of medical-dosage
forms and pharmaceutical preparations to the Division's collections. He
also acquired other gifts to complete existing exhibits illustrating the
basic principles of the various schools of medicine, such as homeopathy
and osteopathy--their methods, tools, and ways of thought.
In 1921, a tablet machine by the Arthur Colton Company of Detroit,
Michigan, was acquired, and an exhibit illustrating vaccine and serum
therapy was installed in the medical gallery. This was followed, in
1922, by a collection arranged to tell the story of the prevention and
cure of specific diseases by means of biological remedies.
During the following two years, two more exhibits related to hospital
supplies and sanitation were added to the rapidly developing Hall of
Health exhibition which was opened in 1924. A third exhibit in 1925
consisted of 96 mounted color transparencies illustrating services
provided by hospitals to promote public health. Plans for the further
development of the Hall of Health continued during 1926, and contacts
were made with organizations interested in the educational aspects of
the healing arts. As a result, several new exhibits were added. In 1926,
the American Optometric Association helped in the installation of an
exhibit on conservation of vision or the care of the eyes under the
slogan "Save your vision," as a phase of health work. Other exhibits in
the Hall at this time were: what parasites are; water pollution and how
to obtain pure water; waste disposal; ventilation and healthy housing,
and the importance of recreation; purification of milk and how to obtain
pure milk; transmission of diseases by insects and animals; how life
begins; prenatal and postnatal care and preschool care; duties of the
public health nurse; and social, oral and mental hygiene.
With the acquiring of more medical appliances and the widening of the
scope of the exhibits, more and more space was needed, and attention was
turned to the area of the medical gallery which had been occupied by the
_materia medica_ collection for almost four decades. To gain more
exhibit space, it was decided that the greater part of the crude drugs
should be removed from the exhibits and be kept as a reference
collection and for research.[13]
[Illustration: Figure 6.--EXHIBIT ON EGYPTIAN AND HEBREW MEDICINE,
installed about 1924, which was illustrated by graphs and drugs
mentioned in extant records of this ancient period. (Smithsonian photo
30796-C.)]
[Illustration: Figure 7.--EXHIBIT ON MEDICAL HISTORY during the
Greco-Roman period. (Smithsonian photo 30796-D.)]
[Illustration: Figure 8.--EXHIBIT ON REMEDIES DERIVED FROM DRUGS of
vegetable origin, displayed about mid-1930's. (Smithsonian photo
30439.)]
In 1926, original patent models including those related to pharmacy,
medicine, and dentistry, were transferred from the U.S. Patent Office to
the National Museum. These patent models, together with other apothecary
tools and the machines used in drug production took up most of the
available space. This unfortunate situation led Dr. Whitebread to turn
down significant medical and pharmaceutical collections offered the
Museum between 1927 and 1930. Since the patent models were devised for
inventions designed to simplify the practice of the health professions,
three cases of these models were displayed in the medical gallery in the
early 1930's. Other exhibits shown during this decade included the
deception of folk medicine with warnings against superstitions, and an
exhibition on osteopathy,[14] as well as dioramas on the manufacture of
medicines and their use in scientific medical treatment.
In the meantime, Dr. Whitebread was an active contributor to the
literature of the health field in various periodicals, as well as in
pamphlets issued by the Museum and other governmental agencies (see
bibliography). His literary contributions, guided by the exhibits he
designed and the collections he acquired, were focused on the Division's
collections, such as primitive and psychic medicine and warnings against
reliance on magic and superstitions in treatment, medical oddities, and
the utilization of drugs of animal origin, both past and present.