Health & Medicine - Overview
The Museum's collections of medical science artifacts represent nearly all aspects of health and medical practice. Highlights include early X-ray apparatuses, such as one of Wilhelm Roentgen's tubes, penicillin mold from Alexander Fleming’s experiments, and Jonas Salk's original polio vaccine. More recent acquisitions include the first artificial heart implanted in a human, the earliest genetically engineered drugs, and materials related to David, the "Bubble Boy." Other artifacts range from artificial limbs and implant devices to bloodletting and dental instruments, beauty products, and veterinary equipment. The contents of a medieval apothecary shop and an 1890s drugstore form part of the collections, along with patent and alternative medicines. The collections also document the many differing perspectives on health and medical issues, from patients, family members, doctors, nurses, medical students, and out-of-the-mainstream health practitioners.
"Health & Medicine - Overview" showing 5 items.
Gynovlar Oral Contraceptive
- Description (Brief)
- The popularity of “the Pill” created a new market for pharmaceutical companies. For the first time, healthy women would be taking medication for an extended period of time. Pill manufacturers developed unique packaging in order to distinguish their product from those of their competitors and build brand loyalty. Packaging design often incorporated a “memory aid” to assist women in tracking their daily pill regimen, as well as styled cases to allow pills to be discreetly carried in bags and purses. The National Museum of American History’s Division of Medicine and Science’s collection of oral contraceptives illustrates some of the changes that the packaging and marketing of the Pill underwent from its inception in 1960 to the present.
- Schering Chemical Ltd. of Argentina produced this Gynovlar brand oral contraceptive in 1966. Originally founded in Berlin in 1851, Schering had a variety of subsidiaries in Latin America, including a large presence in Argentina. In 1961 Schering released Anovlar, the company’s first oral contraceptive, followed by Gynovlar in 1966. Gynovlar was packaged in a pink and white cardboard box containing a 21-dose silver blister pack and a sheet of paper bearing instructions in Spanish.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1966
- ID Number
- 1982.0531.022
- accession number
- 1982.0531
- catalog number
- 1982.0531.022
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Wagner DialPak Patent Model
- Description (Brief)
- The popularity of “the Pill” created a new market for pharmaceutical companies. For the first time, healthy women would be taking medication for an extended period of time. Pill manufacturers developed unique packaging in order to distinguish their product from those of their competitors and build brand loyalty. Packaging design often incorporated a “memory aid” to assist women in tracking their daily pill regimen, as well as styled cases to allow pills to be discreetly carried in bags and purses. The National Museum of American History’s Division of Medicine and Science’s collection of oral contraceptives illustrates some of the changes that the packaging and marketing of the Pill underwent from its inception in 1960 to the present.
- David P. Wagner received his patent (number 3,143,207) for “medication dispensing means” on August 4, 1964. Wagner was prompted to invent the device when he and his wife had trouble remembering if she had taken her daily pill. The patent covered a variety of uses for a device that “aids the taking of a medication by an individual on an irregular schedule . . . readily synchronized with the menstrual cycle of the user . . . with an unmistakable visual indication as to whether the individual should take a pill . . . to dispense pills only one dose at a time . . . with the physical form of a novel device that can be reused indefinitely . . . in a case indistinguishable from a lady’s cosmetic ‘compact’ and adapted to be carried among the personal effects of a lady in a purse without giving a visible clew [sic] as to matters which are no concerns of others.” Wagner’s patented device covered both a circular design and a rectangular calendar design. This object represents the circular design. The patent addressed three big issues with the packaging of the Pill, discretion, compliance, and reusability. Wagner tried to sell his patent to Ortho and Searle and was originally rebuffed by both. Later, when Ortho introduced the DialPak, Wagner successfully defended his patent, and Ortho paid him $10,000 not to sue and a small fee for every DialPak produced afterwards.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1962
- maker
- Wagner, David P.
- ID Number
- 1995.0057.01
- catalog number
- 1995.0057.01
- accession number
- 1995.0057
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Wagner Calendar Dispenser Patent Model
- Description (Brief)
- The popularity of “the Pill” created a new market for pharmaceutical companies. For the first time, healthy women would be taking medication for an extended period of time. Pill manufacturers developed unique packaging in order to distinguish their product from those of their competitors and build brand loyalty. Packaging design often incorporated a “memory aid” to assist women in tracking their daily pill regimen, as well as styled cases to allow pills to be discreetly carried in bags and purses. The National Museum of American History’s Division of Medicine and Science’s collection of oral contraceptives illustrates some of the changes that the packaging and marketing of the Pill underwent from its inception in 1960 to the present.
- David P. Wagner received his patent (number 3,143,207) for “medication dispensing means” on August 4, 1964. Wagner was prompted to invent the device when he and his wife had trouble remembering if she had taken her daily pill. The patent covered a variety of uses for a device that “aids the taking of a medication by an individual on an irregular schedule . . . readily synchronized with the menstrual cycle of the user . . . with an unmistakable visual indication as to whether the individual should take a pill . . . to dispense pills only one dose at a time . . . with the physical form of a novel device that can be reused indefinitely . . . in a case indistinguishable from a lady’s cosmetic ‘compact’ and adapted to be carried among the personal effects of a lady in a purse without giving a visible clew [sic] as to matters which are no concerns of others.” Wagner’s patented device covered both a circular design and a rectangular calendar design. This object represents the rectangular calendar design. The patent addressed three big issues with the packaging of the Pill, discretion, compliance, and reusability. Wagner tried to sell his patent to Ortho and Searle and was originally rebuffed by both. Later, when Ortho introduced the DialPak, Wagner successfully defended his patent, and Ortho paid him $10,000 not to sue and a small fee for every DialPak produced afterwards.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1962
- maker
- Wagner, David P.
- ID Number
- 1995.0057.02
- catalog number
- 1995.0057.02
- accession number
- 1995.0057
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Vicks Cough Syrup
- Description
- The indications or uses for this product as provided on its packaging:
- Gives safe, sure cough relief without narcotics
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1960
- maker
- Vick Chemical Company
- ID Number
- 1989.0711.60
- catalog number
- 1989.0711.60
- accession number
- 1989.0711
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Liotta-Cooley Artificial Heart
- Description
- This is the first total artificial heart implanted in a human body. It was developed by Domingo Liotta and implanted by surgeon Denton Cooley on April 4, 1969, at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston. The recipient, Haskell Karp, lived for sixty-four hours with the artificial heart pumping oxygenated blood through his body until a human heart was available for transplant.
- Although Karp died soon after receiving a real heart, and some criticized the surgery as unethical because it was without formal review by the medical community, the procedure demonstrated the viability of artificial hearts as a bridge to transplant in cardiac patients.
- Date made
- 1969
- maker
- Liotta, Domingo
- ID Number
- 1978.1002.01
- accession number
- 1978.1002
- catalog number
- 1978.1002.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center