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For the LOVE of Medical History

For our final #MuseumWeek post we're talking about why we LOVE medical history and why we hope that love is contagious! #loveMW It's not uncommon for the Dittrick Medical History Center to be referred to a bit like a cabinet of curiosities,  a niche museum, or perhaps more kindly, a "hidden treasure." Although we've always worked to make collections accessible and major public engagement efforts are underway, we still often have to make the case for the (sometimes not so) implicit question "Why should I care about medical history?" The answer tends to go a little like this: Medical history is the history...

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Student Research at the Dittrick

The Dittrick Medical History Center welcomes researchers from the community, the region, the nation, and abroad. We've been pleased to host a number of colleagues, including David Jones, Diana Day, Mike Sappol, and many others. But seasoned scholars and PhDs are not the only visitors to the collections here; Case Western Reserve University students frequently attend classes in the museum's Zverina room. Today, we begin a three part series featuring some of their work. As always, we welcome all curious and intrepid explorers of our medical past! There are few instruments more recognizable or emblematic of medicine than the stethoscope....

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Listening to the Body: Stethoscopes in 1900

Cinemax's The Knick transports viewers to at a New York hospital at the turn of the twentieth century to listen in on the drama between colleagues and patients. Each episode shows the variety of early instruments, ranging from x-rays to thermometers, used by doctors in 1900 to diagnose disease and trauma. While these objects were able to speak to the body's condition -- the shape of a broken bone or the magnitude of a fever, it was the stethoscope that brought the actual sounds of the heart or lungs to the diagnostic listener. What stories did these devices hear and do...

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