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 Univer- 

 sity 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 Penkillium 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 

 I mi. mist Benjamin M. Daggar who, while working for 

 Lederle Laboratories, developed Aureomycin (chlor- 

 tetracycline) 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 

 i' !' ul the human heart during a surgical operation, 17 

 was presented to tin- Smithsonian Institution. 



The following year. 1955. the Division acquired one 



17 Dodrill, and others, "Tempor.n > Mi i hanii .il Substitution 



i lilt Ventricle in Man," pp. 642-644, and "Pulmonary 



Valvuloplasty under Direct Vi i sing thi Mei hanical Heart 



mpleti Bypa ofthi Right Heart in a Patient with Con- 

 genital Pulmonary Stenosis,'' pp. 584-595. 



of the earliest Einthoven string galvanometer- 

 (named after the Dutch physiologist Willem Eins 

 thoven, 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. 



In 1956, among many publications of interest in 

 the fields of medical and pharmaceutical history, was 

 Curator Griffenhagen's Pharmacy Museum, with a fore- 

 word by Laurence V. Coleman, who termed it a 

 useful catalog and "a good reflection of the history of 

 the museum movementat 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 Massa- 

 chusetts 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 Phar- 

 maceutical 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 



I )i\ ision'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 administra- 

 tively, was renamed the Department of Science and 

 Technology of the Museum of History and Technology. 



I I 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. 



290 



[il I I I UN 2 10: I OMR1BI IKiNS I ■ 1« iM IIIK MI'SF.VM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



