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Secrets! The curious history of the Chamberlen forceps

It's #MuseumWeek, where museums around the world take to Twitter in a behind-the-scenes look at collections! Today's theme concerns secrets; join on here, on Twitter and on Instagram, to see what the buzz is about! #secretsMW Secret Instruments of Medicine! In 1569, a family of Huguenots (members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France) fled religious persecution and settled in England. Their surname name was Chamberlen, and this enterprising family forever changed the world of obstetrics. Described by Bryan Hibbard as bold, undaunted, and even unethical and “rogue”-like, the Chamberlens made as many enemies as friends, particularly in the practice of...

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Call For Papers: European Association of Museums

Call for Papers: ‘Out of the Showcase’ – EAMHMS Conference 2016 (Groningen, 28 September – 1 October 2016) The 18th European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences biennial Congress will be held in Groningen (the Netherlands), 28 September – 1 October 2016, and is jointly hosted between the Universiteitsmuseum, University of Groningen and the University Medical Centre Groningen. The theme for the 2016 Congress is ‘Out of the Showcase’. EAMHMS is an active global network of curators, scholars and stakeholders with an interest in medical collections. The biennial Congress is a great opportunity to present research within a...

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Mosquito or Man — "Steadily or Surely Conquered"

With the recent global attention on the Zika virus (we won't say emergence, as Zika virus itself is not new), public health programs focused on controlling the mosquito vector enter a debate with its own long and storied past. Pick up any early 20th century book on infectious disease management and you'll find confident statements assuring the victory of humans over illness and death. One text from 1909 called Mosquito or Man? speaks of this inevitable triumph over disease with an air of colonial domination, stating: The tropical world is today being steadily and surely conquered...The campaigns show that the three great insect-carried scourges of...

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Museums, STEM, and the Vital Role of Humanities

This week, Brandy Schillace (public engagement fellow at Dittrick and editor of MedHum Fiction | Daily Dose) posted about the intersections of STEM and humanities at museums. STEM has become something of a buzz word in education, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math as the driving force for curricula. And these are, of course, brilliant things to aim for--a way of bringing forward those aspects of education that support industry and the economy, innovation, and change. Except, as many educators are quick to point out, STEM misses one very key component: the humanities. What about art and literature, anthropology, sociology,...

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