New artifacts donated to Warren Museum

Dominic Hall Center for the History of Medicine Warren Anatomical Museum

Worn, leather surgery kit laying open on a table to show the medical tools inside.
Pocket field surgery kit, used in the American Civil War and found on a battlefield in 1862. Warren Anatomical Museum [WAM 21049], Francis A Countway Library of Medicine.

The Warren Museum recently acquired two new artifacts.

Pocket Surgery Kit

R. Bryan and Drew Trainor donated a pocket surgery kit to the Museum that had been passed down through their family. The kit was found on an American Civil War battlefield in 1862 by Julius Reed of 1st Regiment of the Heavy Artillery of Connecticut. Reed gave the kit to the donor’s great-great-grandfather.

The surviving instruments in the kit are mostly made by George Tiemann & Co. and were designed for minor surgery. They include an artery forceps, tortoise-shell folding probe, a tortoise-shell folding curved bistoury and tenotome, a tortoise-shell folding gum lancet and tenaculum, a tortoise-shell folding curved bistoury and scalpel and a suture needle. The kit also contained a bullet from a Vanderberg Volley Gun.

Eli Lilly Liver Extract

Harvard Medical School Associate Professor of Medicine Peter Tishler donated a box of Eli Lilly Liver Extract #343, circa 1929, to the Museum’s collection, marking an important moment in the history of hematology as well as the history of university and industry partnerships. In 1926 Harvard physicians George Minot and William Murphy announced that feeding liver to pernicious anemia patients helped restore their health. By 1928 Minot and Murphy had collaborated with Eli Lilly to create and market Liver Extract#343 to treat the disease. Minot and Murphy, along with University of Rochester’s George Whipple, won the 1934 Noble Prize for their pernicious anemia research.

A worn green box that contained 24 vials of liver extract number 343. Contents of one vial represent 100 grams. Users are instructed to keep in a cool place and protect from moisture.
Eli Lilly box containing Liver Extract #343, dated 1929. Warren Anatomical Museum [WAM 21053], Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine.

Patients were instructed to take “3 to 6 vials” of Liver Extract #343 a day, depending on the recommendations of their physicians. Each box contained 24 vials of the compound. The donated box most likely came from a former pernicious anemia patient. Of the 16 surviving vials, 15 have been emptied of their contents./p>

The Warren Museum is grateful to our generous donors whose gifts will benefit of future physicians, historians of science, and the curious public.

This news post was originally published on the Center for the History of Medicine’s Wordpress site.