After taking charge of the Division of Medicine in 1918, Dr. Whitebread
gave special attention to public health displays. His activities in this
area were accelerated after 1924 when the health exhibit at the
Smithsonian Institution was inaugurated. As the exhibits in this field
increased, the Division, in 1939, took the more comprehensive title of
Division of Medicine and Public Health. Also, in 1939, Dr. Whitebread
was promoted to the rank of associate curator.
[Illustration: Figure 9.--EXHIBIT ON METHODS OF TREATMENT of diseases
through mental impressions and psychic conditions as displayed about
1925. (Smithsonian photo 30796-B.)]
[Illustration: Figure 10.--AN EXHIBIT ON SUPERSTITIONS, EMPIRICISM,
magic, and faith healing in the light of scientific medicine, completed
in 1962, is in sharp contrast with that shown in figure 9.]
He continued his efforts to collect more specimens of interest to
medical history and to contribute to the literature. Among exhibited
specimens in 1941 were a powder paper-crimping machine, a portable drug
crusher, an odd device for spreading plaster on cloth, a pill-coating
apparatus, various suppository molds, a lozenge cutter, and an ingenious
Seidlitz powder machine. The derivation of medicinal drugs from animal,
vegetable, and mineral sources was also depicted, as were synthetic
materials and their intermediates. Basic prescription materials were
displayed, and rows of glass-enclosed cases held samples of crude
botanical drugs from almost every part of the globe with explanatory
cards giving brief, concise descriptions. The exhibition provided
medical and pharmaceutical students about to take state-board
examinations, the opportunity to study the subject in detail, especially
the enormous collection of _materia medica_ samples.[15] Also in 1941,
Eli Lilly and Company donated an exhibit on the medical treatment of
various types of anemia. In the same year, a diorama including a
hypochlorinator for purification of water on a farm was installed in the
gallery. In 1942, the first Emerson iron lung (developed in 1931 by John
Haven Emerson) for artificial respiration was acquired by the Division.
The Division acquired, in 1944, the first portable x-ray machine known
to have been operated successfully on the battlefield, as well as other
x-ray equipment and early medicine chests.
[Illustration: Figure 11.--OLD PUBLIC HEALTH EXHIBITION installed in the
gallery about 1924. (Smithsonian photo 19952.)]
[Illustration: Figure 12.--THE HALL OF HEALTH, reestablished and opened
in November 1957. (Smithsonian photo 44931.)]
[Illustration: Figure 13.--EARLY EXHIBIT ON HOMEOPATHY showing its
history, methods and remedies which was installed about 1929.
(Smithsonian photo 27049.)]
Without a doubt, the most outstanding accession in the field of
pharmaceutical history during Dr. Whitebread's years of service was the
acquisition of the E. R. Squibb and Sons old apothecary shop. Most of
the baroque fixtures, including the stained-glass windows with
Hessian-Nassau coats of arms and wrought-iron frames, were part of the
mid-18th-century cathedral pharmacy "Muenster Apotheke" in Freiburg im
Breisgau, Germany. It was offered for sale in September 1930 by Dr. Jo
Mayer of Wiesbaden, Germany, who was an enthusiastic collector of
antiques, especially those related to the health professions. Earlier
that year, a historian of pharmacy and chemistry, Fritz Ferchl of
Mittenwald, Germany, had published a series of scholarly and informative
articles on the Meyer collection in which the outstanding specimens were
beautifully portrayed and thoroughly described (see bibliography).
As a result of Dr. Mayer's efforts to sell his collection, the impact of
Ferchl's illustrated articles, and the uniqueness of the collection, E.
R. Squibb and Sons purchased it in 1932 and brought it to the United
States "with the thought that it would provide for American pharmacy,
its teachers and students, a museum illuminating the history, growth,
and development of pharmacy, its interesting background and struggle
through the ages." It was displayed at the Century of Progress
exposition held in Chicago during 1933 and 1934; subsequently, it was
assembled in the Squibb Building in New York City as a private museum
where, for about 10 years, it was visited by many interested in
pharmacy, ceramics, and art. Charles H. LaWall, who was originally
engaged to prepare a descriptive catalog on the exhibit, gave it the
title "The Squibb Ancient Pharmacy."
Late in 1943, E. R. Squibb and Sons offered the collection as a gift to
the American Pharmaceutical Association if the latter would provide
museum space for it. The offer was accepted, but the Association
finally found it difficult to spare the needed space for the collection
and decided to take up the matter with the U.S. National Museum.
[Illustration: Figure 14.--THIS EARLY EXHIBIT ON OSTEOPATHY was
renovated several times prior to the early 1940's. (Smithsonian photo
19250.)]
At this point, it should be stated that since 1883 the members of the
American Pharmaceutical Association have been keenly interested in
having the National Museum serve as the custodian for all collected
objects and records of historical interest to pharmacy. In 1944, the
Association officially offered to deposit on permanent loan, the
Squibb's pharmacy collection in the Smithsonian Institution with the
understanding that a suitable place would be provided for prompt and
permanent display. The offer was accepted, and during April and May of
1945, the entire collection was transferred to the Smithsonian
Institution, and construction to recreate the original two rooms for the
old, 18th-century, European "Apotheke" was underway.
By August 1946, the exhibit was completed. In the large room where the
pharmacist met his customers, the shelves were filled with 15th-to
19th-century, European pharmaceutical antiques. These included
Renaissance mortars; 16th-and 17th-century nested weights; beautiful
Italian, French, Swiss, and German majolica and faience drug jars; Dutch
and English delft; drug containers made of flint or opal glass with
fused-enamel labels with alchemical symbols; rare, 16th-century, wooden
drug containers, each with the coat of arms of the city in which each
was made; and two glass-topped, display tables contained franchises
issued and signed by Popes or state rulers, medical edicts,
dispensatories, herbals, pharmacopoeias, and pharmaceutical utensils.
On the walls in the small laboratory room, which also had been used as a
workshop and a study, were a stuffed crocodile, shark's head, tortoise,
fish, and salamander, parts of which were utilized as remedial agents.
Their presence provided tangible evidence that the pharmacy dispensed
genuine drugs and not substitutes.
The pharmaceutical profession in this country hailed the outstanding
exhibition, and the November 1946 issue of the _Journal of the American
Pharmaceutical Association, Practical Pharmacy Edition_, devoted its
front cover to depicting one corner of the study and laboratory room of
the shop.[16] Also, in a letter dated January 2, 1947, addressed to Dr.
Alexander Wetmore, then Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Dr.
Robert P. Fischelis, the secretary of the American Pharmaceutical
Association, considered the completion of the deposited exhibition a
triumph and "as one of the highlights of the accomplishments of the
Association in 1946."
[Illustration: Figure 15.--LATE 16TH-CENTURY, wooden drug container with
coat-of-arms, in the Squibb collection. The inscription _Ungula Alcis_
(the hoof of the elk) suggests a superstitious attitude in medical
practice and the wide use of animal organs in medical treatment.
(_Courtesy of the American Pharmaceutical Association._)]
From 1946 to 1948, the Division's collection was further enriched with
a number of historical specimens, among which was a "grosse Flamme"
x-ray machine with induction-coil tube and stand developed by Albert B.
Koett. It is one of the earliest American-made machines of its kind,
producing a 12-inch spark, the largest usable at that time with
180,000-volt capacity, and a forerunner of later autotransformers. Other
accessions included two 19th-century drug mills, an electric belt used
in quackery, two medicine chests, three sets of Hessian crucibles used
in a pioneer drugstore in Colorado, a drunkometer, mineral ores, and
purely produced chemical elements.
[Illustration: Figure 16.--A RARE, ANTWERP, 16th-century drug jar in the
Squibb collection deposited by the American Pharmaceutical Association.]
In the spring of 1948, Associate Curator Whitebread retired after 30
years of service with the U.S. National Museum. He was a pioneer in the
field of health museums and during his curatorship had developed a
moribund section into a Division of field-wide importance. Dr.
Whitebread was succeeded by George S. Thomas, also a pharmacist, who
served as associate curator from August 1948 until early 1952.
[Illustration: Figure 17.--THE APOTHECARY SHOP as seen in the Arts and
Industries building (1946-1964). (_Courtesy of the American
Pharmaceutical Association._)]
[Illustration: Figure 18.--VIEW OF THE LABORATORY AND STUDY ROOM of the
apothecary shop. On the left, the German-Swiss bronze mortar and pestle
(1686) sign and above it an 18th-century German painting on canvas of
Christ, "the apothecary of the soul." The drug containers represent "the
fruits of the spirit," faith, patience, charity, etc., and the scales
represent justice. Underneath is the verse from Matthew, 11:28, "Come
unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest." (_Courtesy of the American Pharmaceutical Association._)]
During his almost-three and a half years of service, Thomas acquired
hearing-aid appliances from which he designed an exhibit on the
development of these aids, surgical sutures, early samples of
Aureomycin, and a static-electricity machine made by Henkel about 1840.
He also published three short articles under the title, "Now and Then,"
in the _National Capital Pharmacist_ (1950), no. 1, pp. 8-9; no. 2, pp.
18-19, 29; and no. 3, pp. 15-16. In early 1952, Dr. Arthur O. Morton
presented to the Division, a Swiss-made keratometer which he had
purchased in 1907, and it is believed to be one of the first used in the
United States to measure the curves of the cornea.
The achievements of the Division reached their highest point, thus far,
in significantly increasing the national collection, as well as in
contributing to the scientific, historical, and professional literature,
under the curatorships of George B. Griffenhagen (December 8, 1952, to
June 27, 1959) and John B. Blake (July 1, 1957, to September 2, 1961).
Their reorganization of exhibits and collections, their competence and
industry, fulfilled the hopes, plans, and purposes laid down by earlier
curators for the Division.
Immediately after assuming the responsibilities of the Division and
throughout 1953, Mr. Griffenhagen (M.S. in pharmaceutical chemistry from
the University of Southern California) undertook to develop the
collections still further. He increased the emphasis not only on
historical pharmacy, but also on medicine, surgery, and dentistry. He
also renovated the exhibits in the medical gallery.
In 1954, several antibiotics were donated to the Division including a
mold of _Penicillium notatum_ prepared and presented to the Smithsonian
Institution by Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), the discoverer of
penicillium (1929), and a few Petri dishes used by botanist Benjamin M.
Daggar who, while working for Lederle Laboratories, developed Aureomycin
(chlortetracycline) in 1948. The Forest D. Dodrill--G.M.R. mechanical
heart (1952), the first machine reported to be used successfully for the
complete bypass of one side of the human heart during a surgical
operation,[17] was presented to the Smithsonian Institution.
The following year, 1955, the Division acquired one of the earliest
Einthoven string galvanometers (named after the Dutch physiologist Willem
Einthoven, 1860-1927) made in the United States in 1914 by Charles F.
Hindle for an electrocardiograph. Also added to the Division's
collections was the electrocardiograph used by Dr. Frank E. Wilson of
the United States, a pioneer educator in this field. Two temporary
exhibits on allergy and surgical dressings were installed in the
gallery. In the same year, Curator Griffenhagen published _Early
American Pharmacies_, a catalog on 28 pharmacy restorations in this
country.
In 1956, among many publications of interest in the fields of medical
and pharmaceutical history, was Curator Griffenhagen's _Pharmacy
Museum_, with a foreword by Laurence V. Coleman, who termed it a useful
catalog and "a good reflection of the history of the museum movement at
large." A third x-ray tube of Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen (1845-1922) was
added to the collection in 1957 as well as a complete set of
hospital-ward fixtures of about 1900 from the Massachusetts General
Hospital, rare patent medicines, 18th-century microscopes, and a
13th-century mortar and pestle made in Persia.
In 1957, Mr. Griffenhagen published a series of illustrated articles in
the _Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, Practical
Pharmacy Edition_, which were later reprinted by the Association in a
booklet entitled, _Tools of the Apothecary_. In it, he described several
pharmaceutical specimens in the collection and their place in history.