Civil war amputation kits, kits for transfusing blood directly from one person to another, a spectrum of bleeding instruments for the classic treatments from the 1800s of bleeding, cupping, puking and purging, prohibition liquor bottles with the prescription label still on them, a fully functional Iron Lung… and more, all at our Society’s Medical Museum.
Few people probably realize that our Medical Society is the home of one of only two medical museums in California. The museum opened 23 years ago, after several years of exhibits in the entry way that were created after the closing of Out of the Doctor’s Bag, a five-month exhibit I curated at the Sacramento History Museum in Old Sacramento in 1990. Our 2,000 square foot museum features a wide spectrum of artifacts reflecting the progress of medicine since the days of the Gold Rush. The museum almost doubled in size several years ago, and an appropriate home it is — our Medical Society is the oldest in California, in continuous operation since its founding in 1868.
On a productive Free Museum Day held on March 2, we hosted 275 visitors. That stimulated us to, on a trial basis, open the museum on the second Saturday of the month, 10am-4pm, from May to August, no reservations needed (thanks to Sam Mello for all her support and initiating this plan).
We have approximately 1,000 medical textbooks, mainly from the mid-1800’s to the early-mid 1900’s, and close to 1,000 reference and resource books that include a long series of beautiful leather-bound reprints of classical medical texts spanning centuries. Also in our archives are multiple binders and boxes of ephemera containing old newspaper articles and pharmaceutical sponsored diaries, many going back to the 19th century.
We started our quarterly Medical History programs with Chris Enss who talked about women physicians of the 1800’s, and you can check our website for past lectures. We will also occasionally be showcasing new and interesting additions to our museum. We recently received a MASH surgical light (Korean War era) that can be packed in a trunk and dropped into a field hospital. More recently we received a Singer Surgical Stitching Instrument (you may remember Singer sewing machines).
A special thanks to two of our physician docents for the time they have recently devoted to the museum. Dr. William Vetter, a regular attendee at least one day a week and a retired cardiologist, has conducted many tours and with several family members has restored our Iron Lung to a prime working condition. Dr. Hanns Haesslein, a retired OB-GYN and perinatologist, has also been a regular Tuesday attendee, working avidly to sort out and organize our numerous artifacts not already on exhibit.
SSVMS visitors continue to rate the museum highly. But when they are asked how they found us, their response is generally “Googling” and they also say they never knew it existed. Hopefully, that may benefit from a recent “Visit Sacramento” Podcast Sam and I did and also an article in Comstock’s magazine on the nonprofit arm of our Society that includes the museum. We are currently exploring ways to promote the museum more widely, especially to our medical centers. Our largest number of tour visitors are from the various career colleges that train medical assistants and related vocations.
We have been continuing to upgrade our website, which is now very inviting and user friendly since Sam Mello converted it to a new URL: museumofmedicalhistory.org. Please visit it if you have not done so recently.
Email Bob LaPerriere, MD
