Museums and the Medicine Nerd

Just returned from a week-long jaunt to Washington, DC to visit my parents, Dr. and Mrs. IL-(X-1), and my sister, IL-N.  I arrive back in the snowy north with lots of warm fuzzies, new snow boots, a t-shirt of a turtle wearing a top hat and holding a briefcase, and an extra 1.8 pounds (true fact: adding cayenne pepper to simple chocolate cookies makes them physically addictive).

My boyfriend, Intaglio, came along.  He is an artist.  As such, we visited a large number of art museums and galleries.  Despite my lack of artistic training, I was able to glean a few insights from the many pieces I viewed:
1) There sure is a lot of art around.
2) Yup.
My participation on these outings was, on the whole, limited to carrying the camera case and periodically exploding into paroxysms of rage that were generally triggered by 'pieces' consisting of blank canvases.

But on my very last day in Maryland, on a clear blue day, we happened across the National Museum of Health and Medicine.  It has recently moved, having previously been housed on the now-defunct Walter Reed Hospital campus in DC.  It's not set to become fully operational until May, so only two exhibits were open: a basic overview of normal and pathological anatomy, and field medicine during the Civil War.

And they.  Were.  Fantastic.

It was nothing at all like the shameless sort-of exhibitionism and thinly-veiled gawking of the awful Body Worlds show (that's worthy of a post in and of itself).  Each exhibit was the perfect balance of scientific fact, illustration, exhibition, and human interest.  A lot of it was review (but a cheerful sort of, "Oh, I remember this!" review, not "Ugh, not this again" review), but there was plenty I did not know.  For example, both the respiratory professors and the infectious disease professors neglected to teach us about scrofula, which is the cutaneous manifestation of tuberculosis.  Given how they often seem the prefer the shock-and-awe approach to medicine, I can't really see why:

Image taken from the Visibly Human Health and Disease in the Human Body website, National Museum of Health and Medicine

And, as someone who has, on occasion, forgotten to use hand sanitizer when beginning an examination of a standardized patient, I can personally attest to the fact that once you have seen the Civil War surgery exhibit, this will never again slip your mind.  Ever.  There are only so many references to sepsis and pus-filled sponges that one can take. 

However, I was most impressed with the Civil War era successes in medicine.  Take the reconstruction of a soldier whose face was eaten away following the formation of gangrenous ulcers due the use of a mercury-based medicine:

All images taken from Trauma and Surgery: Medicine During the Civil War website, National Museum of Health and Medicine
When you consider the technology they had to work with, that's really not too shabby!

But yes, I am back now, which means more grant proposal and schedule-wrangling.  Onwards!