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.
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.