An inscription on this item reads in part “gambro / fiber / plasmofilter” and “Manufactured by / Gambro Dialysisatoren . . . Federal Republic of Germany / AUT 224 / A N50175 rev. 09/81”. Nils Alwall (1904-1986), Professor of Nephrology at Lund University, in Sweden, invented the world’s first single-use artificial kidney in the early 1960s. In 1964, Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, formed Gamla Brogatans Sjukvårdsaffär (translated as Old Bridge Street Medical Supplies Company) to introduce Alwall’s invention to the medical world. That firm, soon known as Gambro, began developing the single-use artificial kidney into a marketable product. It also established a manufacturing facility in Germany.
This is the first Hollow Fiber Artificial Kidney (HFAK) for the diffusion of molecules from blood. It was developed by Richard D. Stewart (b. 1934), M.D., Ph.D., a professor at the Marquette University School of Medicine; in collaboration with Joseph C. Cerny, M.D., of the University of Michigan and H. I. Mahon of the Dow Chemical Company. It was developed on a contract with the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases.
Ref: R. D. Stewart, “Artificial Body Organ Apparatus,” U.S. Patent 3,373,876 (March 19, 1968), assigned to the Dow Chemical Co..
Richard D. Stewart, Joseph C. Cerny, Ben J. Lipps, and Ben J. Holmes, “Hemodialysis with the Capillary Kidney,” University of Michigan Medical Center Journal 34 (1968): 80-83.
“Compact and Efficient Artificial Kidney Simulates Network of Human Capillaries,” The NIH Record (June 11, 1968): 5.
Electroscope designed by Charles Christian Lauritsen (1892-1968), a Danish-American physicist on the faculty of the California Instrument of Technology. An inscription reads "Quartz Fiber Electroscope / Pat. No., Model 2, Ser. No. 157 / Fred C. Henson Co., Pasadena, Calif., U.S.A."
Ref: Charles C. Lauritsen, “Radiation Counter,” U.S. Patent 2,022,117 (Nov. 26, 1935), assigned to California Institute of Technology.
Electrocoagulator cord used by Harvey Williams Cushing (1869-1939), American neurosurgeon, pathologist, and pioneer of brain surgery. Cushing did not invent electrocoagulation, but his use and publicity in the 1920s did much to promote the technique.
Ref: Harvey Cushing, “Electrosurgery as an Aid to the Removal of Intracranial Tumors,” Surg. Gynec. Obstet. (1928).
Part of a group of imported crude drugs and medicinal products donated to the Smithsonian in 1884 by George W. Jewett, Examiner of Drugs, New York City Custom House. The museum record does not disclose why this specimen was retained by Dr. Jewett.
The position of Examiner of Drugs was established by the Import Drug Act of 1848, the country’s first major effort at federal drug regulation. The Act sought to address the rampant problem of drug adulteration and contamination (although only in drug imports) and authorized the appointment of a special examiner of drugs in each of the major ports of the United States. According to an 1891 account, Dr. Jewett had been employed at the New York City Customs House since the 1860s. By the beginning of the 20th century, authority for the examination of imported drugs was shifting from the Customs Service to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This shift was solidified in the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act which combined responsibility for domestic and imported drugs under the USDA.
