President's Brunch and Celebration of Gene Ransom's 30th Anniversary!

 

For Tickets, please click below:

To become a sponsor of the event, please click below:

We hope to see you then!

Philadelphia Hospital Museum

A few weeks ago, I took a quick trip to see the newly-opened Philadelphia Hospital Museum. We are getting ready to update our Medical Museum here at MedChi, so the opening was fortuitous, as we might be able to get some ideas from what they have done.

The Penn Hospital Museum is located on the campus of Penn Hospital in the oldest section of the city and is the oldest chartered hospital in the USA. 

In this period engraving, you can see the central sections which now holds the museum. On the top floor, the operating theatre uses the light from the sun to illuminate the room. 

The hospital grounds are surrounded by a beautiful garden and a central statue of William Penn, who was a founder of the hospital and later for some of its funding.

Each floor of the Museum has different rooms and exhibits. As you enter, you see the beautiful Minton-tiled floors and the elegant staircase. 

There is also a huge (8'x5.5') painting of Samuel Coates by the painter, Thomas Sully. 

There was also an old exhibition space, along with a botanical room. 

Fortunately, there is much of the original detailing remaining in the building, including secret staircases!

Like MedChi, this Museum has old ledgers and lists, which are fascinating to read. 

Of course, one of my favorite rooms was the beautiful old libraries, filled with glass-fronted bookcases.

They had some of the old anatomical and botanical books printed on heavy plastic (or something) so you could see the actual pages without touching them. 

On the top floor was the operating theatre. The guide told us that they could only operate between eleven and two or three on sunny days because of the light. 

Like us, PHM had lots of old surgical instruments and other tools. 

As I mentioned, the grounds are really lovely, especially on a hot, late June afternoon. 

We were so pleased to have the opportunity to visit and it was really worth the 200+ mile round trip! 

MedChi & The BSO Present: Raiders of the Lost Ark!

MedChi has secured a very limited number of tickets to the sold-out movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with a live orchestra. Along with our friends at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on Sunday afternoon, March 30, 2025, we will be hosting a fundraiser for the MedChi Museum and Archives.

Start the afternoon with a visit to the MedChi Museum of Maryland Medical History, learn about our treasures which date back to the 1500s, tour the historic Osler Hall building, and have a pre-movie snack. Walk across Cathedral Street to take in the sold-out movie, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, complete with live orchestrations. 

Experience the first on-screen adventure of everyone's favorite archaeologist/action hero like never before! Follow along with the adventures of Indiana Jones as he travels across the globe to secure the Ark of the Covenant, accompanied by endearing companions and facing notorious villains. The BSO performs John Williams’ legendary score live from stage while the full-length film plays on the big screen.

Reservations are $100, which includes one ticket to the movie, pre-movie snacks, a tour of the MedChi Museum, and a tax-deductible contribution to support MedChi's Museum and Archives. Unfortunately, there are no discounted tickets to this event, as the event is sold out, and this is a fundraiser for the Museum and Archives. To purchase tickets, please scan the QR code below.

Parking is available in MedChi's private lot at 1204 Maryland Avenue. Public transportation is also available. 

This event is brought to you by the MedChi Museum of Maryland Medical History and the Office of the History of Maryland Medicine and Archives.

We Need Your Support!

This has been a big year, for many reasons:

• In January, we started the 225th Anniversary year with a ceremony at the Maryland State House, where we were lucky enough to have the original charter documents on display. 
  
• In March, we held a reception for local non-profits, foundations and friends to show off the Museum of Maryland Medical History. 
  
• In June, on the exact 225th anniversary of the first meeting of the Founders of the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty, we hosted the Grand Opening of the Museum.
  
• In September, the Director of the History of Maryland Medicine became a full-time, privately-funded, one-year position.
• In October, we launched our social media accounts on YouTube and Instagram, and reached 300,000 unique visits on this blog!
  
• In December, we are adding a significant amount of information on our portraits collection, gleaned from searching our historic Maryland Medical Journal.

This is what we've done, but now we need you to step up and help us with some funding, and with donations of items to be added to our Museum. 

Here's what we need funding for:

• The History of Maryland Medicine Director's position.
• Preservation of the art collection and archives.
• Acquisitions for items for the museum, which come up at auctions with some frequency.

Click the QR code below to make a financial donation. You will be able to select where you want your donation to be directed. 

We are also looking for material donations to the Museum.

• Items should be 100 years or older and have some relevance to our current collections. 
• Portraits of Founders or Past Presidents.
• 1700s and 1800s medical equipment.
• Pre-1900s medical books.
• Smaller medical collections.

If you would like to discuss making a material donation to the Museum, please contact Meg Fielding. 

Thank you for considering our request!

Giving Tuesday

Black Friday.    Cyber Monday.    Giving Tuesday.

You might know what the first two are, but do you know about the third - Giving Tuesday?

Giving Tuesday is touted as a "global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world." It means giving to others, after you've shopped in person on Friday and on the internet on Monday.

We hope that you will consider a gift to the MedChi Museum of Maryland Medical History, and the MedChi Archives this Giving Tuesday!

Thank you so much!

How to Fix Children, Circa 1741

I recently came across a book in our rare book collection entitled "L'Orthopedie ou L'Art de Prevenir et de Corriger Dans les Enfant les Difformites du Corps." For those not fluent in French, the translation is "Orthopedics, Or the Art of Preventing and Correcting Body Deformities in Children."

It is filled with the most wonderful engravings, but I can't really figure out how they correlate to correcting deformities in children. 

Any ideas?

World Premiere! The Museum and Archives YouTube Channel!

For the past several months, I have been working on a series of twelve videos, and I have just created a YouTube channel, MedChi Museum and Archives, which will eventually feature all twelve of these video. Right now, there are only eight on-line, but expect the additional four or five shortly.

Here are the videos and links to them:

1. Our Founding Link

2. The First Meeting Link

3. The War of 1812 Link

4. The Napoleon Chest Link

5. The First Dental School Link

6. Sir William Osler, MD Link

7. Max Brödel, Medical Illustrator Link

8. What's in a Name? Link

Each video is about five minutes long, so I hope you will either watch them in one go, or dip in and out and watch a few at a time.

Let me know what you think!

A Swap Seven Years in the Making!

It was almost exactly seven years ago, when the University of Maryland's Medical School Alumni Association proposed a swap of a portrait they had, for a copy of a portrait we had in our collection. 

We were thisclose to making the swap, when we discovered a letter from the 1850s that mentioned if UM ever wanted to "deaccession" the painting, they had to clear it with the families who commissioned it.

Since this wasn't realistic, we put things on hold. 

Fast forward seven years, Davidge Hall is undergoing a major renovation, and the portrait needed to find a new home.

The portrait is of a man named Tristram Thomas, one of the 101 founders of MedChi, by Thomas Coke Ruckle, Jr. We already have two small portraits of Tristram, but the one from UM would be an amazing addition to our art collection. And we have another painting by Ruckle in our collection, too!

First, it measures eight by five-and-a-half feet!!! He was a tall man, with sloping shoulders, and always carried a gold-headed cane. 

Second, the catch was that he had no association or affiliation with the University of Maryland. He never attended the school. He did not lecture there. He was not a professor there. So, the question is why was his portrait given to the University. We haven't found any information on this.

The swappee was John Crawford, one of the original vaccinators, who was closely affiliated with the University in its earliest days.

John's brother was also a vaccinator and would send threads which had been soaked in smallpox to America. John would re-hydrate them and making a small nick between a person's thumb and forefinger, run the thread through the nick.

Our portrait of Crawford is a charcoal drawing, done in the early 1900s, most likely after an earlier portrait. We had it scanned in a high resolution and printed for the University's collection. 

Oddly enough, we had the Tristram painting here at MedChi from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, when we gave it back to the University of Maryland for some reason!

Yesterday, on possibly one of the hottest days of the year, we moved Tristram back to MedChi, a distance of just a mile or so.

And we also took Crawford to his new home at the Davidge Hall where he will be hung after the renovation.

Each man is now where he belongs and everyone's happy!

In an article in the 1899 Maryland Medical Journal, the portrait was commissioned by friends and patients in Easton, Maryland in 1845, although the painting is marked 1854. It was "deposited at the University of Maryland for safekeeping."  It is noted that he was tall and spare, with narrow sloping shoulders. He carried a cane with wood from the Mount of Olives, given to him by his son, a naval officer. Tristram Thomas is described as the very model of a polished gentleman.

It Was a Grand Grand Opening!

More than 85 members and friends of MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society gathered on Monday, June 3 to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the first meeting in 1799, and to open Phase III of the MedChi Museum of Maryland Medical History. 

The group was entertained by the Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestra who played classical music from the marble staircase landing.

Then the group gathered in Osler Hall for welcome speeches by CEO, Gene Ransom;

MedChi President, Ben Lowentritt, MD;

Center for a Healthy Maryland President, Steve Rockower, MD;

and Center Executive, Allan Browder.

After this, everyone gathered for a ceremonial ribbon cutting,

complete with a giant pair of scissors.

We were so pleased to feature an exhibit of "Urine and War" courtesy of our friends at the American Urological Association and their fascinating museum in Linthicum, Maryland, which included a panel on Napoleon at Waterloo, coinciding with our display of Napoleon's medical chest from the Battle of Waterloo.

The evening ended with a tour of the building, including the Krause Room and the Stacks, as well as one or two ghost stories, given by Meg Fairfax Fielding, head of the History of Medicine in Maryland.