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.