by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu We haven’t had a Thingamajig in awhile but, luckily, we just got a new donation, and new donations often mean new mystery objects. We can thank the estates of Drs. Robert G. McCorkle, junior and senior, for the following: There are two of them, left and right. They’re about […]
Thingamajig – The mystery returns
by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu Well, to borrow a sound bite from “Car Talk“, this chump is stumped[2]. The problem with identifying unidentified objects is that it’s very difficult to research them if you don’t know what they are. It’s a little bit like asking how a word is spelled and being told to […]
Thingamajig
by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu Thingamajigs often make for short posts because I don’t want to give too much away. This one will be an especially short post because, in all honesty, I have no idea what it is. (I guess that solves the “give too much away” problem, doesn’t it? I can’t give […]
Outfitting a hospital, 1925
Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu Why, oh, why, didn’t I think to save last week’s post on Piltdown Man for April Fool’s Day? Oh, well. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Moving on from poor blog timing . . . this week takes us back into […]
Stereoscopes, Hominids, and Hoaxes
by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu I hope you’re sitting down, because this post is gonna be a wild ride. Archivist Philip Montgomery brought me a stereoscope image a few days ago and asked me to find out whether the fact that the card on which the photographs were mounted was curved was normal, or […]
Pigeon Hole Parking, 1953
by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu The following letter and brochure come from the Hermann Hospital estate collection, which is immense and has not yet been processed. I had the project of transferring it into clean archival folders and boxes a few years ago, and I know there are some interesting things hiding among the […]
Thingamajig
by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant We’re back with the answer to last week’s Thingamajig! Here it is, to refresh your memory: We got several suggestions about what this might be, including a snail race track (complete with “escargot”–car go–pun), a snake warmer, and, more seriously, a giant electrophoresis apparatus. Actually, the snake warmer guess wasn’t […]
Thingamjig
by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu We’ve gotten some new donations, which have included new Thingamajig fodder. The following came from the estate of Thomas Matney, M.D. (1928-2010). It’s almost three feet long and, although it’s made of aluminum, it’s pretty much cast solid and probably weighs fifty or sixty pounds. Phil commented that it […]
Pneumothorax apparatus
by Alethea Drexler, archives assistant mcgovern@exch.library.tmc.edu We got a visitor on Monday who brought us a new gadget. Meet the pneumothorax apparatus: (double-click on image for a larger version) This machine, which is a little over a foot tall and has a cylinder about six inches in diameter, was used to induce artificial pneumothoraces […]
Spoonful of sugar, stat!
by Alethea Drexler archives assistant We received an inquiry a few weeks ago that involved a question about nineteenth century medications, and it turned into a rather interesting fact-search. While I have it on my mind, I thought we could take a look at one of our antique medicine cases. We have several doctors’ bags […]