Stories from the stores

Help us unpack the stories from this doctor’s bag

June 14th, 2011 | by | medicine, public history

Jun
14

Behind every Museum object there can be dozens of stories about the people who made and used it, or are otherwise linked to it.

In an upcoming exhibition about the relevance of our collections to family historians we’re going to use one object to illustrate that fact – and we’re hoping that you might be able to help us out.

Doctor's bag

A bag full of names (Science Museum)

We’re going to take this doctor’s bag and unpack some of the personal histories that are connected to it.

It was once the property of John Hill Abram (1863-1933), a physician based in Liverpool who was latterly a Professor of Medicine at the local University. We’ll be teasing out all other the names – and therefore people and places – connected with it, to uncover different faces, stories and events to create a web of connections.

We’re keen to gather images as well as anecdotes, stories and more general information that relate not simply to Prof Abram, but to the many companies and individuals mentioned in his bag – check out the list below.

The bag and its contents are dated 1890-1930 and this is the period we would like to focus on. Images and information that relates to individuals and companies may well fall outside 1890-1930 period, but ideally we’d like to keep the broader social content roughly within these dates. 

So, do you have photographs of a works outing in the 1920s? Did any of the companies below raise a brigade in WW1?  What did their factory look like in Edwardian times?

The people and companies with connections to the bag and its contents are:

John Hill Abram Professor & MD – Owner

Finnigan’s Ltd – Bag makers

White & Wright – Surgical instrument makers, Liverpool

Thomas Spencer Wells – Victorian physician and artery forceps designer

Alexander and Fowler – Surgical instrument makers, Liverpool

Curry & Paxton – Optical instrument makers

Grundy’s – cigarette manufacturers

John Player & Sons – ditto (clearly Dr Abram liked to smoke!).

Henry De Zeng – US instrument optical maker and patentee

Sir William Fergusson – stethoscope designer

Bazzi and Bianchi – Instrument designers based in Rome.

Park, Davis & Co – Drug manufacturers, London

Burroughs, Wellcome & Co – Drug manufacturers, London

Clay & Abraham Ltd – Chemists

Johnson & Johnson – New Brunswick, US branch

Ever Ready – Yes, there is a battery!

If you can help, please contact us via publichistory@sciencemuseum.org.uk

The bag will also feature in August’s edition of Family Tree, the UK’s leading magazine for family historians, in which we have been helping to develop a number of monthly features on trades and professions.

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Edward Jenner, his chair… and his hair

May 23rd, 2011 | by | medicine, meta, public health

May
23

The future of the remaining sample strains of the smallpox virus has been the subject of much speculation recently. Discussed at this month’s World Health Assembly, the dilemma of what best to do with these outstanding stocks has raised contrasting concerns. A waste of public money and scientific resource or a defensive tool against the global terrorist threat?  

Edward Jenner

Edward Jenner (Science Museum / Science & Society)

But rather than focus on the possible death of smallpox, I’d like to take a look at the death of one of its greatest enemies, Edward Jenner. The English country doctor who introduced the vaccine for smallpox at the end of the 18th century, died on the 26th January 1823. 

There is much Jenner-related material in our collections, but alongside objects associated with his life-saving work is a small group of objects linked to his death – and burial.

Jenner's chair

A final resting place... (Science Museum / Science & Society)

This rather garish padded affair, with wheels, is the chair that he died in. The cause of death being recorded as apoplexy – what we would now refer to as a stroke. Physically incapacitated, he had finally succumbed aged 73, seated in his country house in Gloucestershire. 

Now a museum, the site is almost as famed for its alleged ‘spectral events’ than its connections with the pioneering doctor.  

Jenner's hair

Hair sample (Science Museum / Science & Society)

These hair clippings were taken from Jenner’s head shortly after his death. This was quite a common practice, with the hair often being integrated into brooches and other ornate mourning jewellery. We actually have several samples, which does raise concerns about the dignity of his natural coiffure at the time of internment.

Cloth fragment

Cloth fragment (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Finally, and most curiously, is this tiny fragment of black cloth, held within a glass topped container. Inside, a hand-written note proclaims it is “A piece of cloth taken from Dr. Jenner’s coffin, March 23rd 1854”. 

This date is more than three decades after Jenner’s death, but it is the day before the burial of his son Robert. It can only be assumed that somebody couldn’t resist gathering a souvenir when re-visiting the Jenner family vault.

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The return of the ‘Green Peril’

May 11th, 2011 | by | art, medicine, public health

May
11

Anti-absinthe poster

L'Absinthe c'est la Mort (Absinthe is death), 1905. (© David Nathan-Maister / Science & Society)

After nearly a century’s banishment, one of the most notorious of all alcoholic drinks is set to return to its… er… spiritual homeland, France. Distinctively green and extremely powerful, sales of absinthe have been banned there since 1915.

Absinthe poster

Poster for Absinthe Robette, by Henri Privat-Livemont, 1896. (© David Nathan-Maister / Science & Society)

Its geographical origins may lie in Switzerland, but absinthe is forever associated with the bohemian and artistic circles of Paris of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not that it was a peculiarly French habit. With its main ingredients of fennel, anise and the herb wormwood, it was imbibed across much of Europe and the United States. Initially considered a drink of the aristocracy, ‘absinthe fever’ rapidly spread to all social classes during the second half of the 19th century.

Iced water dispenser

Dispenser for holding iced water to mix with absinthe, France late 1800s (Science Museum)

Nicknamed ‘the green fairy’, ‘the atrocious sorceress’ and ‘our lady of forgetting’, absinthe developed a fearsome reputation for mental and physical ruination. As such, it eventually became a public health cause celebre, its particular demonisation fuelled by virulent campaigning by temperance groups. They saw it as a easy target, whose abolition might be a first step towards the wider banning of alcoholic products.

Anti-absinthe postcard

Le peril vert (the green peril), postcard c.1910 (© David Nathan-Maister / Science & Society)

While its negative social effects and alleged hallucinogenic properties may have been overstated by those opposing its availability, it is a very strong drink. Alcohol levels are over 80% in some brands – twice the strength of whisky. 

And, at the height of its popularity, inferior versions started to appear which found a market among the more desperate drinkers. Just as gin became culturally linked with degradation and death in 18th century London, so absinthe did in the eyes of many Parisians by the end of the next. 

In France, the First World War proved to be a final tipping point in the campaign against the ‘green peril’. Portrayed as a threat to national efficiency at a time many thousands of Frenchmen were fighting on the Western Front, it was prohibited during 1915. Similar bans were applied in other countries around the same time.

Poster announcing ban

Proclamation banning absinthe, 1915. (© David Nathan-Maister / Science & Society)

The ban was effectively lifted by EU regulations in 1988, but in France it could only be sold if it was not actually labelled with the name absinthe! The recent vote in the French Senate looks set to remove this anomaly so the nation can once more order a glass of the controversial drink Oscar Wilde considered “as poetical as anything in the world”.

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You Dirty Rats…

April 18th, 2011 | by | environment, medicine, public health

Apr
18

Dead rats

Rats killed at Paddington Station, London, 9 November 1921 (National Railway Museum / Science & Society)

The recent pronouncements by Scott Springer – Borough President of Manhattan – about the rat problem in New York received international attention. While they may have been motivated as much by politics as public health concerns, they once again highlighted our fractious relationship with these particular rodent.

Few animals have attained such universal levels of loathing, although more than one friend of mine has enjoyed keeping pet rats – ‘Dave’ being one still remembered with great fondness. But even the most committed animal lovers tend to physically cringe should a wild one scuttle past in the street.

Rat trap

Iron gin rat trap, England, c.1800s (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Pets aside, our interactions with rats tend to have pretty negative outcomes for one or other party. They are linked with disease, known as stealers and spoilers of stored food and generally associated with gutters, sewers and other nasty places, and we are pretty merciless in our actions.

Each year, we poison, trap and otherwise despatch many millions of these highly fertile beasts. We’ve even developed poisons that effectively mummify the rats to reduce the odour from the carnage – though one wonders what horrors await future generations of roofers and renovators.

Rodent housing unit

Lab rat housing unit, England, 1990-1999 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

The benefits we have derived through decades of laboratory research on rats have done little to endear them to us.

The spreading of diseases such as plague, typhus and leptospirosis could be seen as the rats’ revenge, but in reality they tend to play the role of unknowing, if highly proficient, vectors of sickness. They also succumb to many of the diseases they are associated with sharing with us.

X-Ray of rat

Ex-rat X-ray, 1896 (National Media Museum / Science & Society)

While it’s unlikely that we’ll ever learn to love or live happily with rats – the likes of ‘Dave’ notwithstanding of course – perhaps they are due a certain respect. Despite all we have done to them, they just keep coming back for more…

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Spitting the target

April 11th, 2011 | by | medicine, public health

Apr
11

We spend most of our daily lives surrounded by things. Many of which we barely notice. They’re always just there. Lampposts, telephones, pens, kettles, books… They may change in appearance, but certain stuff always seems to keep hanging around. Until, those times you realise that you can’t recall the last time you actually saw one of these ubiquitous items. Typewriters anyone?

I’m fascinated by how objects make that transition from commonplace and everyday to banishment, and the ranks of the ‘disappeared’. Fashions change and technological advances are a big factor, but sometimes other forces are at play. 

Examples of these lost objects are often revealed in old photographs.

Hotel room

'Smoke Room' at the Midland Hotel, Bradford, c. late 19th century (NRM / Science & Society)

I recently noticed this photograph on our image database. An unremarkable late Victorian interior, my eye was drawn to a round object on the floor. Zoom into the scene and that dogbowl-like object is revealed to be a metal spittoon.  

spittoon

Spot the spittoon (NRM / Science & Society)

Such receptacles were once common to many public areas in Britain – although their presence was comparatively low key compared to America. There, with chewing tobacco a popular habit, spitting in public remained more socially acceptable. Photographs from the 19th and early 20th century can reveal spittoons in many US social settings, from the office to the bank , the courtroom to the barbershop. 

Increasingly regarded as a vulgar practice, spittoons became the only really acceptable outlet for public saliva. They discouraged random spitting and partly contained a major public health hazard – once sputum was linked to the transmission of tuberculosis in the 1880s.  

Ceramic spittoon

Spittoons came in a wide range of designs! (Science Museum / Science & Society)

But the days of these once omnipresent trip hazards were numbered. In many countries, health officials increasingly discouraged or banned their provision, while encouraging the use of personal spittoons. And while they remained more commonplace in US, the 1918 Flu pandemic, the popularity of cigarettes and changing social mores all contributed to the decline there too. 

Enamel sign

Enamel railway sign, c.1920s (NRM/ Science & Society)

Not that this is a total, global vanishing. For example, public spittoons can still be found in China, while in India, the many gutkha chewers use spittoons – albeit most of them improvised. But unless they’re hosting a wine tasting, the days of encountering a spittoon in a grand hotel in Bradford have long gone.

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