SECRETARY'S REPORT 13 



21. NUMISMATICS 



The Numismatic Hall, or Hall of Monetary History and Medallic 

 Art, can best be described as an amazingly complete world museum 

 of the history of money. Here are shown real examples of the first 

 coins ever minted in ancient Greece. Following the case that shows 

 these very early coins are others in which a visitor can see illustrated 

 the spread of coinage throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. 

 Also shown are means of exchange other than coins and samples of 

 the gold and other monetary forms of non-European nations. The 

 special feature is the great collection of colonial American and United 

 States coins and paper money for which the Smithsonian has long 

 been famous. The newly opened presentation of coins has a com- 

 pletely novel objective, for it is organized to teach the history and 

 geography of the world in relation to money. Many of the out- 

 standing gold pieces from the Institution's great Straub collection 

 are on display, as are also coins of the recently presented Du Pont 

 collection of Kussian money. Many examples in the well-lighted 

 cases are from the United States mint collection, which is now part 

 of the over-all Smithsonian collection. Examples of almost every 

 coin ever struck in America are thus on view or in the study collec- 

 tions of the Institution. The visitor to this hall who comes to it with 

 intellectual curiosity will learn not only the fascinating story of 

 coinage, sculpture, design, and medallic art through the centuries, 

 but also much else that is important in the history of economics and 

 even of civilization itself. 



22. HALL OF HEALTH 



Years ago, national representatives of American medical organ- 

 izations urged the Smithsonian to establish a hall of health. For 

 many years the original hall was open, but gradually it became shabby 

 and outmoded. The modern Health Hall at the Smithsonian, on the 

 contrary, presents the basic anatomical and physiological processes 

 of human beings as they are known to modern science. The hall 

 shows something of the mechanisms by means of which electronics 

 and other technologies assist the physician in measuring and record- 

 ing the human heart beat, blood pressure, respiration, visual and 

 auditory acuity, and the like. Here the visitor can watch his own 

 heart beat on a cathode-ray tube by holding a receiver on his chest. 

 In this hall is located a fascinating transparent human figure which 

 by a series of lights and a concomitant electronically reproduced 

 lecture shows in a vivid and accurate way the principal organ systems 

 of the human frame and how they work. 



