Dittrick Museum of Medical History (11/6/2021)

Saturday, November 6, 2021

Finally a visit to the Dittrick Museum of Medical History!

Also on the campus of Case Western Reserve University:
Thwing Hall (1913, as the Excelsior Club for Men, est
1872 for the Jewish upper middle class who were
excluded from other private clubs in Cleveland)

Snow Fence (1981, by Gene Kangas)

Mary Chisholm Painter Memorial Gateway Arch (1904,
by Charles Schweinfurth), a gift of the parents, William and
Mary Stone Chisholm, in memory of their daughter

The Church of the Covenant (1909-1911, by
Cram and Ferguson, in English Gothic style
as the Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church)
was renamed after a merge with the
Second Presbyterian Church of Cleveland

Martha Holden Jennings Memorial/
Wings of Eternity (1968) symbolizes the
flight and growth of the future in young
generations, in memory of the woman
whose Foundation (est 1959) has granted
hundreds of millions of dollars to K-12
schools and school programs throughout Ohio

The Allen Memorial Medical Library (1926,
by Walker and Weeks in Neoclassical style)

Allen Memorial Medical Library auditorium

Grand Stairway of the Medical Library with murals
representing the mythological origin of medicine
 (c 1925, by Cora Millet Holden)

The Dittrick Museum of Medical History is on the third floor.

Doctor's Office of 1875 in the Western Reserve,
with fewer instruments and little concern with germs

Doctor's Office of 1930 with easily cleaned enamel over
metal furniture, autoclave to sterilize instruments,
 and more diagnostic equipment

Emerson Infant Respirator (1952), one of the "iron lungs"
used to treat polio patients from the 1930s to 1950s

Engeln X-ray Table (1927) was developed and
manufactured in Cleveland

An illustration advocating breast milk
for babies (1912)

A photo to illustrate the industrial and
commercial progress in Cleveland:
Master stone carver Antonio Chiocchio's
team of stonecutters, blacksmiths, polishers,
and crane operators with one of the
"Guardians of Traffic" (1932)

The Major League Baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, will become the Cleveland Guardians starting in the 2022 season.

A periodical cover illustration of when
President James Garfield was shot in 1881

It is now understood that President Garfield died from an infection caused by too many doctors probing the wound looking for the bullet, not from the bullet itself. The wound should not have been fatal.

One gallery was devoted to Historic Contraception Devices:

Aristotle’s Masterpiece, Displaying the Secrets of Nature
in the Generation of Man (1684) was the first widely
circulated guide to childbirth and sexual matters

Reproductive Freedom Flag (2014, by Dawn Hanson)

Early stethoscopes were monaural
(involving one ear)

Early 1870 and 1880 sphygmographs (to measure blood pressure)

Hmm, these days it is not so strange that people would
accept a horse enema for humans (but not back in France!)

Custom jars (1927) from Eli Lilly and Company
illustrating the manufacture of Iletin/Lilly insulin,
were given to Dr Howard Dittrick

Back on the Case Western Reserve University campus:

Statue (1985, by William McVey) of
1920s modernist poet Hart Crane who
was born in Garrettsville, OH and
attended high school in Cleveland

The sun was at the right spot for a photo of
Severance Hall, now Severance Music Center (1929-1931,
by Walker and Weeks in Neoclassical style)

And here is the Cleveland Museum of Art (1913-1916,
by Hubbell & Benes in Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts style)
with the Fountain of the Waters (1927, by Chester Beach)

It was Family Play Day at the Museum of Art,
which included painting pumpkins