Collecting and Recollecting: Gifts from the Recent Past

Introduction

The objects and issues of interest to a medical museum are surprisingly diverse. The tools, medicines, and procedures of health care are deeply embedded in the life of every culture and time. Not only scientific knowledge, but social, political, religious, and economic trends are important to medical history.

The preservation and collection of artifacts poses an important obligation for a medical museum. But how should it decide what to save for posterity? A tool developed in Iowa and important in the advancement of medical technique is an important contribution. In this exhibition, the prototype for the "Iowa Trumpet," an obstetrical needle-guide developed in the early 1960's, represents such an object. But humbler objects offer a different kind of insight to our medical past.

A single artifact may bring to mind several associations and stories which make it important for historical consideration. The leather pill dispenser with its contents reminds one of past health care delivery and the state of pharmacological knowledge and preparation; it is also associated with personal memories of a father who was a physician.

Collecting and Recollecting places the Medical Museum's recent acquisitions within the perspective of the history of medical practices, and situates those practices within the contexts of their time. Donor's anecdotes help to ground these objects in everyday experience.