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.
Division of Medical Sciences (1957 to Present)
The U.S. National Museum was reorganized on July 1, 1957, into two units, the Natural History Museum and the Museum of History and Technology. At the same time, and in view of the widening scope of the Division, its more scientifically based planning, and the constantly increasing collection with equal emphasis on all branches of the healing arts, the Division’s title was changed to the Division of Medical Sciences—the title it still bears in 1964. With the reorganization, the Department of Engineering and Industries, under which the Division fell administratively, was renamed the Department of Science and Technology of the Museum of History and Technology. It was also the first time since its establishment in 1881 that the Division had two curators, for on July 1, 1957, Dr. John B. Blake joined the staff.
Figure 19.—Curators John B. Blake and George Griffenhagen examine the newly acquired (1957) electromagnetic, Morton-Wimshurst-Holz Influence Machine. It was manufactured by the Bowen Company of Providence, Rhode Island (1889). With the discovery of x-ray, it was used for making x-ray photographs until early in the 20th century.
As a result of these changes, the Division was subdivided into a Section of Pharmaceutical History and Health and a Section of Medical and Dental History. The former was planned to encompass the collections of materia medica, pharmaceutical equipment, and all material related to the history of pharmacy, toxicology, pharmacology, and biochemistry, as well as the Hall of Health which was opened November 2, 1957, and which emphasizes man’s progressing knowledge of his body and the functions of its major organs. [18] The latter Section was planned to include all that belongs to the development of surgery, medicine, dentistry, and nursing, especially in relation to hospitals.
In October 1957, the Division acquired a collection of rare, ceramic, drug jars which included two, 13th-century, North Syrian and Persian, albarello-shaped, majolica jars; a 15th-century, Hispano-Moresque drug container; and a 16th-century, Italian faience, dragon-spout ewer. During the following two years, Curator Griffenhagen periodically toured museums and medical and pharmaceutical institutions in this country, South America, and Europe gathering specimens and information for the Division and for publication, respectively. However, on June 27, 1959, he resigned his curatorship to join the staff of the American Pharmaceutical Association in Washington, D.C. Dr. Blake became the curator in charge of the Division and Mr. Griffenhagen was succeeded on September 24, 1959, by the author of this paper as associate curator in charge of the Section of Pharmaceutical History and Health.