Medical Museum (Part 2)

 

We now proceed with the virtual tour of the medical museum, continued from last week.  This is a old medical journal from the New York Medical Society.........

....the articles are fascinating, describing problems and solutions I have never even heard of, using many flowery non-existing medical term............

....here is the reason.  Most medical until about 1910 was pure quackery and killed more than it cured.  In 1910, the government got involved and studies the problem.  The result was the Flexner report and a bunch of national professional societies which standardized the training and practice of medicine and ran out most of the charlatans (except me)............

....This you may recognize as hip prosthesis.  It's called an Austin-Moore, no clue as to why.  It is for people who have a good socket, but a wrecked ball, probably secondary to infection or fracture or birth defect.  The highly polished ball (so polished you can see the photographer, if you look close), rubs ever so smoothly on the cartilage of the socket, but eventually, most wear out and need a hip replacement anyway.  They went out of style about 1990, about two lifetimes ago by medical technology standards, a real antique (again, what does that say for me?)..........

....this is a needle-holder or needle-driver.  Used for sewing............

....it is in the museum because it is the largest one I have ever seen. Neil, is this thing veterinary??....

 ....this is how sutures used to be packed, in glass tubes.  No idea as to why.  They had to be broken, sometimes resulting in injury to the nurse. Ethicon is still a major manufacturer of suture.  In the 70's during my training, our nurses (Nuns) would buy spools of silk from J. C. Penny and wrap the silk thread around a piece of wood.  They were then treated in beeswax from leftover altar candles and autoclaved to be sterile.  They were then cut and were our sutures, using threaded needles.  Much cheaper and easier than these old glass vial sutures. Ethicon and companies like them now make a King's ransom on individually packaged needle-attached sutures now.  Progress.  Maybe the Obama health plan will have us shopping back at J. C. Pennys?...........

 ....back to the future?...........

Uncle Hans