Past to Meet Present Part 5

The story of 1,300 antique medical instruments donated to the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine continues and Thursday, September 29, 2011 is a day to remember!

Dr. John "Jack" Monroe and his family, who donated the collection, were honored at an "opening" reception of the collection on display on the second floor of the Richard Dean Biomedical Research building where WFIRM is located. There is not enough room to display the entire collection so part of it is in storage but that didn't dampen the mood at yesterday's reception.

Speakers at the event were Dianne Johnson, archivist; John Gillon, senior director of gift planning in the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs; George Christ, education coordinator and professor for WFIRM; Karen Richardson, senior communications officer for WFIRM and Dr. Tony Atala, director of WFIRM.

And while John, Dianne and Karen agreed that this gift has been the hardest one to organize, facilitate and make available - the satisfaction of the Monroe family made it all worthwhile and Thursday's event was the culmination of nearly a year of work.

Guests, mostly employees from WFIRM, also had the honor of listening to Dr. Monroe talk about his favorite pieces. He agreed to talk for only a few minutes but I recorded 17 minutes worth of video on my iPhone which was quickly transferred to a DVD since my phone was nearly dead :).

Since Dr. Monroe practiced obstetrics and gynecology, one of his favorites is the "Lydia's Bottle." Some of his other favorite pieces have to do with bloodletting, a technique used to relieve all kinds of pain up until the 1900s. The least painful way to relieve the patient's pain was with leeches and Dr. Monroe said that many doctors used to carry leech boxes in their pockets to store the leeches as they used them over and over.

Another instrument used for bloodletting was lancets - small knives:

And of course the doctor had to contain/collect the blood in the "bleeding bowl," this one being Dr. Monroe's favorite:

Dr. Monroe said he was one of the top collectors in the world of bleeding bowls. During his years of collecting - spanning close to 60 - his favorite example of historical medicine was Dr. Samuel Vierling, one of the early doctors in Old Salem.

The afternoon ended with food and more stories from Dr. Monroe, his wife Boo - known as the great bargainer - and their daughter, Cloud. Mrs. Monroe would bargain for the pieces, many of which were found at flea markets such as Metrolina Trade Show near Lake Norman and even a flea market in Liberty, NC.

While Dr. Monroe and his family left happy, there still is some tweaking to the display of the collection, according to Karen. So stay tuned!

Past to Meet Present Part 4

A quick review since it has been exactly three months since the last post on this subject.

And the subject is Dr. John Monore's collection of antique medical instruments that are eventually going to be displayed downtown in the Dean Research Building, specifically Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

In March and April, Karen Richardson (public relations officer for WFIRM) and I:
1. Cleaned out the six display cabinets donated by Dr. Monroe
2. Figured out how to install the glass shelves into those cabinets
3. Worked on new locks for those cabinets
4. And finally, actually made many trips with a cart from an office where the instruments are stored to the cabinets!

Since we are not the most "visual" people, we re-organized several times but finally got the instruments grouped according to our themes: bloodletting, feeding, general diagnostic, pharmaceutical, etc. After that, we started researching museum cards to describe the different instruments. Karen has done most of the legwork on this which was finding the slips of paper in which Dr. Monroe described each piece and then finding the "matching" piece - great puzzle solver! She then started typing up some descriptions for each piece. We learned along the way that there really isn't enough room in the cases to place physical description cards for each piece so we were leaning toward framed descriptions to hang on the wall.

Meanwhile, while going through some collections in the Archives, specifically Dr. Lawrence C. McHenry who did research on the history of medicine, I have found awesome and relevant materials for antique stethoscopes and brain/neurological-type instruments.

So, Karen is doing her thing (creating first draft of descriptions) and I'm doing mine (collecting and learning all about old medical instruments) when...

Dr. Tony Atala, director of WFIRM, who seems to have a great insterest in the history of medicine, decided that he wants more pieces displayed. We barely touched the surface, really, out of 1,300 items.

When she sent me an email update just this week, she said:

Just wanted to give you an update on the mini-museum ....

Dr. Atala has decided to purchase additional cases since only a small portion of the collection was displayed.

So, can guess the 1.5 words that have made my entire week?

Ahhhh ... "mini-museum"

And of course, I replied with:

Dr. Atala needs to think bigger J I am ready to display all the things here too!

Okay, slight tangent there. Needless to say, Karen hopes to have the display completed by early Fall 2011.
Stay tuned!

Past to Meet Present Part 3

It wasn't better than chocolate but what a treat on Valentine's Day, 2011 to choose and learn all about antique medical instruments!

Karen Richardson, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine's (WFIRM) public relations officer, and I sat in a second floor office at the Institute surrounded by boxes and totes filled with history while we discovered the most interesting instruments to display in the lobby of the Richard Dean Biomedical Sciences building at the downtown research park.

We decided that since the display cabinets aren't quite ready we would look at pictures (taken for appraisal) first and then start pulling items out of the 30+ boxes to display when the cabinets are ready. The cabinets and instruments are all from Dr. John Monroe, a retired ob/gyn physician, who accumulated his collection over 40 to 50 years.

Karen started writing down the number of each item and a brief description and as we progressed, we developed several themes for displaying. I began to write down unfamiliar terms to research upon returning to the Archives.

Besides bloodletting (or instruments used for bleeding, a common practice in antique medicine), we came up with the theme of general diagnostic -which is where two of our favorite pieces come in:
1.

And this is a tooth key, used to pull decaying teeth (not to actually count them). One person helping with the collection said: I think the tooth key is my favorite for pure brutality. Intrigued? In pain? Then read here.

2. Next up is:

a doctor's lady, a figurine for a female or husband to show the doctor where it hurts. According to Dr. Monroe, the Chinese husband left his wife at home and used something like the above to show the doctor what kind of problems his wife was having. He often arrived home with medicine or treatment instructions. Want to see an R-rated version? Need help? Check this out.

So next up in this interesting experience is physically removing the items from the boxes and placing them in the clean and lit cabinets. Stay tuned!

Past to meet Present Part 2

Well, it was like an early Christmas the week of November 1, 2010, thanks to Dr. John Monroe.

A trip to the Development and Alumni Affairs office to help John Gillon, senior director of charitable planning, sort through 30-some boxes of antique medical instruments yielded many interesting items. From bleeding bowls to apothecary scales to ob/gyn forceps to a baby scale to even some "scary" powders made for a couple of interesting mornings on the seventh floor of Piedmont Plaza I.

After three days of sorting and matching numbers to a paper list, John G. was ready to compile the listed pieces into a format for the appraiser who spent two days on Nov. 4 and 5 doing her thing. John G., Dr. Monroe and others involved were pleased with the final appraisal.

The collection is now waiting for the Wake Forest Institute Regenerative Medicine area to be finished before the cabinets can be moved and then more fun in choosing which pieces to display and where to store the rest of the collection.

Past to meet Present

In preparation for over 1,300 antique medical instruments, I met with representatives of Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) to see where the items will be displayed at the Richard H. Dean Research Building downtown. Dr. Tony Atala, WFIRM director, acquired the instruments from Dr. John Monroe, a retired ob/gyn, who has accumulated the massive collection over the last 50 to 60 years.

Karen Richardson, senior communications manager for WFIRM, picked me up in her two-seater car on a warm Thursday afternoon in October and took us to the building where Major General (ret) Dr. George Weightman, WFIRM chief operating officer, toured us around the second floor where new laboratory space, offices and a common area is being created. WFIRM currently occupies the fourth floor of the Dean Research Building, about 25,000 square feet of research space. The second floor will give the institute 10,000 more square feet of lab space. The physiology, chemistry and half of the biomaterials sections will move to the second floor. Also on the second floor is a huge commons area for scientists to collaborate, relax and hold conferences with multiple flat-screen TVs, two separate audio systems, a coffee bar, mailroom and small kitchen.

With the instruments will come five display cases that will be placed in the hallway area of the second floor, near the elevators. We discussed rotating pieces and a possible video of Dr. Monroe talking about the collection. Dr. Monroe will be invited to the grand opening of the new space in early Feburary 2011.

Next up is a trip to the Development and Alumni Affairs office to help John Gillon, senior director of charitable planning, sort through the pieces for appraisal.