Stories from the stores

Category: Materials

The world of… spoons!

March 15th, 2011 | by | materials, medicine, public health, quirky

Mar
15

Back in January, I posted about some unusual variations of one of our favourite pieces of cutlery – the fork. I guess it was inevitable that I’d be tempted to move on, delving further into obscure corners of our collections. 

While trying to avoid ‘me and my spoon’ type territory, let’s take a random peek into… the world of spoons.

Soapstone spoon

Spoon from Ancient Egypt (Science Museum, Science & Society)

Made of soapstone, this small spoon is in the form of a diving girl sporting either a typical Ancient Egyptian braided hairstyle or a short headdress. It could date from as early as 1575 BCE. Described as an ointment spoon, it was possibly used for scooping up and measuring out drugs or cosmetics.        

Bronze spoons

Bronze 'gold-takers' spoons (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Precious materials were also carried by these spoons. Made of bronze, they were used alongside an ancient set of measuring scales, dating from as early as the 1400s. They were carried by local Ashanti gold traders, in Ghana – formerly known by its appropriate colonial name, The Gold Coast.

Spoon handle

One of the engraved silver spoon handles (Science Museum)

My third example is a pair of silver spoons, notable for their inscriptions rather than their appearance. Made in London in 1740, they were engraved the following year to commemorate two individuals, perhaps siblings, known only by their initials ‘G M’ and ‘I M’ who had survived smallpox. They were presented by the similarly cryptic ‘E P’. 

Smallpox was a deadly disease. Pre-dating Edward Jenner’s vaccine by several decades, these grateful survivors were most likely left with numerous – and permanent – reminders of their near miss.

Polio vaccine poster

Vaccination awareness poster, c1960s (Science Museum, Science & Society)

Fortunately, another once widespread disease polio, looks like it will soon join smallpox in being eradicated through human intervention. This leads to my final spoon, which is a bit of a cheat.  Today, children are likely to have their polio vaccine squeezed directly into their mouths from a plastic vial or via an injection. But, I remember a far more pleasant experience. One day at school, they gave us all a sugar cube. 

Because as Mary Poppins continues to tell us, “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down… in a most delightful way”.

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A cup of tea, some cakes and a biscuit please…

February 16th, 2011 | by | exploration, materials, medicine, public health, quirky, water transport

Feb
16

Many objects in our collections weren’t really meant to survive the long-term. Food stuffs are such an example. While food packaging is commonly found in museum collections, food itself is rarer. And if uneaten during their pre-museum life, these objects remain vulnerable. Destructive pests like the Biscuit beetle are so named for a reason.

Within our stores are a number of foody objects, collected for a variety of reasons and which have so far eluded the appetites of both the two-legged and the six-legged.

Tea brick

Concentrated goodness from China, early 20th century (Science Museum)

This ‘brick’, for example, is not decorative masonry but a slab of compressed tea. A lump could be chipped off when you fancied a brew. Finely ground then forced into block moulds, tea bricks were a convenient form for trading. Once common in Central and Eastern Asia, they were often used as currency.

Cakes and newspaper cutting

Cakes and related newspaper cutting, mid 19th century (Science Museum)

These curious little cakes above are from much nearer home. Produced in the Kent village of Biddenden, they commemorate conjoined twins Maria and Eliza Chulkhurst, the ‘Biddenden Maids’.  There are doubts about when exactly they lived, but they were certainly well known ‘curiosities’ in their lifetimes. They were also philanthropists whose legacy included the Easter-time distribution of food to the local poor. These gifts eventually included the cakes stamped with their likeness which remain popular tourist souvenirs today.

Ship's biscuit

'Hard tack', baked in England c1875 (Science Museum)

This biscuit was also a souvenir – but one with unfortunate associations. It belonged to a member of an ill-fated Arctic Expedition of 1875, commanded by George Nares. The venture was cut short by scurvy, from which several crewmen died. Such biscuits (aka ‘hard tack’) are symbolic of the impoverished ship’s diet that precipitated the illness. And yet, ironically, this expedition had a good supply of lime juice, but it had been rendered useless by distilling it in copper vessels, thereby destroying the vitamin C.

The biscuit is stamped with a ‘D’, perhaps indicating it was from the lead ship HMS Discovery. While our records say the biscuit once belonged to a ‘ship’s carpenter’. A crew list indicates the likely suspects who pocketed this unappetising snack – one that even the biscuit beetles have so far declined.

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‘A weapon calling for careful handling’…

February 4th, 2011 | by | biology, materials, medicine

Feb
04

February 4th marks World Cancer Day. Alongside surgery, chemotherapy and hormone treatment, radiotherapy has been a mainstay of cancer treatment for well over 100 years. Just weeks after Wilhelm Roentgen’s discovery of x-rays in 1895, student doctors began experimenting with the mysterious rays to treat cancer, and other conditions such as ringworm.

By the 1920s, x-ray generators weren’t capable of making the intense beams of radiation needed to treat certain tumours. Hospitals turned to experimenting with radioactive materials such as radium.

This strange looking contraption is a radium ‘bomb’. It’s a rather ingenious machine developed at London’s Westminster Hospital for cancer treatment in the early 1930s.  

The 'bomb' - the egg-shaped treatment head pictured on the left – was a lead-lined container for radium that restricted the beam of radiation. It was extremely heavy, and to keep it in position its weight was offset by the counterbalance you see at the bottom. (credit: Science Museum Photo Studio).

Why does it look so odd? Well its designers were faced with several difficult dilemmas – how to deliver treatment to the patient whilst keeping staff safe from radiation exposure? With radium costing over £200,000 an ounce, maximizing the effect of the few grams of radium received on loan from the government, was a critical concern.

Like much experimental medical apparatus, this equipment was made in the hospital’s own workshops. In fact it was made up of bits of bike! Staff could be kept at a safe distance when positioning the ‘bomb’, and to expose the patient’s tumour to the radium – a shutter was operated via a bicycle brake cable.

When not in use, hospitals would keep radium buried in lead-lined chambers – protection that became critical with the impending threat of actual bombs during the Second World War.

Women painting alarm clock faces

Women painting alarm clock faces, Ingersoll factory, January 1932 (Science Museum)

Cancer treatment went on to change rapidly. More powerful radiation sources were developed, such as linear accelerators. Atomic reactors also helped to transform the situation – through producing large amounts of alternative radioactive material such as cobalt-60.

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Oddy Oddy Oddy

October 22nd, 2010 | by | conservation, materials

Oct
22

Would you like to take a test to see what you’ll be like in the future?

Well, if so an Oddy test could be what you’re looking for - although unfortunately it’s not suitable for human testing.

An Oddy test is an accelerated aging procedure that we carry out on materials to see how they’ll react over time. It was first introduced by Mr Andrew Oddy in the 1970s and materials are enclosed in a test tube with metal coupons and heated over 4 weeks. The principle is that the heating accelerates the aging of the material.

The setup for oddy testing materials (Kayleigh Beard, 2010)

We use Oddy tests in museums to test how materials which are used for storage and display are going to react over time.

We can tell whether a material is suitable for use by looking at the metal coupons within the test tube. For example, if the material gives off gases while it ages the accelerated aging in the test tube will cause the metal coupons to corrode – obviously we don’t want this to happen to our objects!

You can also look at the condition of the materials after the 4 weeks and if cracking has begun to occur it may indicate that after 10 years your material will no longer be strong and stable.

Metal coupons used in Oddy testing. Compared to control coupons you can identify if corrosion is present. (Kayleigh Beard, 2010)

Currently we are working alongside the British Museum to try and build up an archive of Oddy tested material. The aim is to then make the results of these tests available to other museums.

Sharing knowledge means that museums can ensure they are looking after their collections using the best possible materials. Not so odd afterall…

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Joule’s spiders

September 7th, 2010 | by | earth sciences, materials

Sep
07

Before my first visit to the Science Museum’s stores, I’d imagined having to search for my mysterious magnetic instruments in the midst of much dust and cobwebs in the warehouse from the closing scenes of Citizen Kane.

In the rather more ordered and hermetically sealed rooms of Blythe House, the spider threads I found were of a much cosier sort. Encased in their own tiny frame, they rather reminded me of my great-grandparents in their wedding portrait.

Two kinds of Diadema spider thread, as used in Joule's dip circle. (Alison Boyle / Science Museum)

The two cocoons of Diadema spider silk are surviving samples of the types used in the dip circle designed by James Prescott Joule. (Yes, that Joule.)

James Prescott Joule, English physicist, 1882. (Science Museum / Science & Society)

As scientists became more interested in magnetic phenomena in the late eighteenth century, more effort was made to improve the apparatus used in their study. The friction of pivoted needles found in many magnetic instruments was a problem limiting the accuracy and ease of making measurements.

The usual method involved the needle’s cylindrical axle rolling on agate planes as it aligned itself with the surrounding magnetic field.

A needle on an agate plane, in a dip circle by Robinson, c.1830. (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Joule turned to spider threads to create an alternative suspension method. JD Chorlton examined one of Joule’s dip circles after the latter’s death, describing it as follows:

“The needle, constructed of a thin ribbon of annealed steel, weighing 20 grains, is furnished with an axis made of a wire of standard gold. This axis is supported by thread of the Diadema Spider attached to the arms of a balance suspended by a fine stretched wire. The whole is hung by a wire which can be twisted at the head through 180°”.

Strong, resilient and light, spider silk sounds like an ideal material. In practise the silk was too fiddly, and the needle’s weight and friction with the axle meant that the thread would be prone to snap. Still - it’s a lovely story which gives a sense of the patience, precision and ingenuity required of scientific investigation.

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