Hi, I'm Anna Dhody, Curator of the Mütter Museum and Director of the Mütter Research Institute. I'm Nancy Hill, Museum Manager.
For years, the Mütter Museum released an annual calendar. When we discontinued it, we heard from many of our die-hard fans about how much they missed it.
Well, we’re resurrecting it, and putting out a calendar featuring underappreciated objects and images from our Memento Mütter online exhibition.
And showing you some of those objects up close today!
These calendars are part of a special Giving Tüesday fundraiser. All donations of $30 or more will receive a calendar, and sincerest thanks from our staff
for helping support us, exhibits, educational programs, and more! You can donate through our website during the presentation.
We'll be dropping a link in the chat, and don’t forget to send us your questions in the chat as well!
First up: A Wax Moulage of Syphilitic Face. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted bacterial infection. Today, it is easily treatable once diagnosed. But that wasn’t always the case.
Prior to the development of effective antibiotics, treatments ranged from mercury tinctures and injections: “A night in the arms of Venus leads to a lifetime on Mercury...”
to gum guaiacum, derived from a flowering plant native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas.
But, these did not work, and eventually the disease would progress to the tertiary stage, which often includes tissue necrosis.
The word “necrosis” just means cell death, and can affect all kinds of tissues, including bone, as seen in this skull.
This moulage, or wax model, shows syphilitic necrosis of the face, and is featured in the 2021 calendar!
Wax moulages were an important educational tool prior to color photography to show physicians the color and texture of various skin conditions.
This poor person lost their nose- not uncommon in 17th century London, in fact so common that there was at least one “no nose club”
for people socially exiled due to the disfigurement that implied sexual impropriety. Get tested, wear a condom, and take antibiotics has directed!
Our fans will know of the Chevalier Jackson swallowed objects, but they may not have met light sensitive Michelle!
Dr. Chevalier Jackson was a renowned Philadelphia otolaryngologist and Fellow of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
Jackson was world-renowned for his skill in the rapid use of endoscopic instruments to remove inhaled and swallowed foreign bodies without anesthesia,
which greatly reduced the risks of the procedure. He also developed specialized instruments and techniques for removing these objects,
and could extract safety pins, nails, broken glass, and other dangerous objects without injuring the patient.
Dr. Jackson taught other physicians how to perform these removals- however, more than 80% of the patients in his records were under 15 years old.
So how do you teach a room full of adults to work on children?
Enter: Michelle. Michelle was sewn by Jackson’s longtime assistant Angele Piquenais, this doll simulates a small patient with a child-sized trachea and esophagus.
Dr Jackson used her to demonstrate his non-surgical techniques for removing foreign objects from the throats of children,
and for students to practice on a proportional smaller body. She’s a little scary looking, but that’s mostly because she’s seen a lot of use.
By one estimate, the students Dr. Jackson trained saved as many as half a million lives using his techniques. Thanks, Michelle!
Did you know we have a very special connection to Marie Curie? When she traveled to the U.S. in 1921, she visited The College of Physicians and gave us this instrument.
It is called a Piezo-Electric Quartz Electrometer. It was built by her husband, Pierre, and his brother. It was one of only two devices built by them
and it was one of the first tools used to measure radioactivity. It was used to determine the First International Radium Standard,
which was accepted by the First International Radium Standard Commission in 1912. So, how does this devise work?
Well, I could tell you, or you could watch “Marie” tell you in the video.
This grew out of a childhood interest he had, a fascination with the topic of symmetry in all natural phenomena. A leaf, a butterfly, a flower.
Something where you can draw a line and it's a mirror image, one side or another. He was especially interested in crystals and he, working with his brother, Jacques Curie,
discovered a very special property of this quartz crystal that, if placed under tension, such as this, then it will generate electric charge.
They theorized and then proved the opposite also, that if you take a quartz crystal and expose it to an electric current, it will deform on its own very slightly.
They named this property Piezo-Electrics and it has proved invaluable in our own experiments. He managed to create a very special sort of scale that could,
through these very tiny deformations of the crystal, weigh very, very small quantities. So you could either measure the electricity by placing a weight on the scale.
Or you could measure the weight of an unknown object by measuring the electricity that it produced when this crystal was stretched.
Here’s another fun fact, this instrument was “hot” or radioactive for about 60 years until it was properly cleaned and decontaminated.
It’s perfectly safe now and on display for our visitors.
They say that diamonds are a girl’s best friend... Well, we two girls collect a different kind of jewelry, a kind that you may not actually want to wear.
Maybe you thought this would be a kidney stone pun, but these gems are a bit closer to the family jewels than that. The beads you see here are actually genital warts.
We’ve had them a long time… what? Us personally? No! The museum has.
These warts, caused by the human papillomavirus, were accessioned by Dr. Mütter himself. We joke a lot, but the reality is that HPV is so common,
most sexually active people get it at some point in their lives. We’re not making that up! That’s straight from the CDC!
You might have heard of HPV because there’s now a vaccine against it, and really, everyone should get it. Some strains of HPV can cause cancer, while others
can cause growths like these. And the thing is, 79 million Americans have it, and while usually it does clear up on its own, you can pass it even if you don’t have symptoms.
So, like with our favorite spirochete, remember to use protection when you do the do, and remember that vaccinations are good and useful things!
Now, we wanted to show you the king quackery, the invention that launched a thousand emails (to Nancy), an Antiques Roadshow classic: the Violet Ray Generator.
In the late 19th century, electricity was new and exciting, and thought to hold endless possibilities, including medical possibilities.
From the 1890s to the 1950s, thousands of different electrotherapy models and units were produced and sold for home use,
and advertised to treat all kinds of things, from heart disease to muscle cramps to warts.
The Violet Ray generator was invented in 1905 by Ralph C. Brown of the B&B Apparatus company, and saw common use for decades
until the FDA filed a misbranding complaint against the Violetta brand generator in 1951, which stated, quote:
How they hypothetically “worked” is the device supplies radio energy into a low-pressure gas electrode, the glass part.
That energy is applied to the body as diathermy, which is meant to stimulate blood flow and relieve pain.
At the same time, the gas discharge in the tube creates ozone and ultraviolet light, which have been thought to be effective in the treatment of many ailments.
So while they didn’t do any major harm, aside from some mild burns and unpleasant zaps, they didn’t do much good either.
In the museum collection, we have 20 electrotherapy units, including this beautiful and working Violet Ray generator, which we will demonstrate for you today.
I have agreed to get zapped for science and entertainment. I have this thing were when someone tells me something smells bad or is mildly unpleasant,
I immediately want to try it out, so I’m actually really excited for this.
Let the record show, Nancy wants to do this!
Okay, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna turn this unit on. You should be able to see a faint purple glow. And this machine is going to make a buzzing noise.
And then, if she wants me to, Nancy can tell me to turn it up. If you want. Here we go...
You can turn it up, that doesn't really feel like anything.
Okay, do you want me to arc it? Yeah, let's do it.
That's not so bad. Not so bad.
There you have it, no screaming. Not so bad? What do you say on a scale one to ten on the pain threshold?
I didn't think it hurt at all. At the highest, it kind of felt like when you're getting hit by sleet, and that kinda tap tap thing, it's unpleasant.
Needly? Not sharp like that, but just kinda like bleh. Stop it.
Well, when I had it used on me--I'm clearly not using it right, because he managed to arc a bolt of lightning, it went right into my--
I'm probably not like doing it right and not hurting you enough. But I'm sorry I'm not a skilled Violet Ray pain giver.
And, to be fair, I am heavily tattooed under the lab coat, so that might be setting the precedent of what I expected it to feel like.
That's interesting. I've never had a tattooed, so maybe that's--
Yeah, it's that kind of vibrationy thing, but it doesn't hurt like a tattoo does.
Can we just get a shot of the beautiful color? Purple is my favorite color.
Look at that. See? Doesn't match the glove though. Isn't it pretty? Alright.
Well, there you have it! The Violet Ray Generator.
So, these have been some of our underappreciated favorites.
We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about them, and might want to see these again and much more in our 2021 calendar.
To donate, visit the link in the video description and in the chat. It makes a great stocking stuffer for that...very... special someone, or for yourself.
As always, thank you for watching. Please make sure to like, comment, and subscribe, and follow our other social media accounts for more disturbingly informative content.
May Your Mütter days be merry and bright... Wash your hands, and wear a mask, goodnight...
Merry Mütter Holidays!