Stories from the stores

Category: New acquisitions

Curatorial collecting – new radioactive tracer machine

January 10th, 2012 | by | climate science, medicine, new acquisitions

Jan
10

One of the best parts of a curator’s job is collecting new objects. It can sometimes feel like a daunting task but occasionally serendipitous circumstances lead to a great acquisition.

A member of staff from GE Healthcare was visiting the Science and Art of Medicine gallery of the 5th floor of the museum and noticed that their company had recently developed a new updated version of a piece of kit. Fortunately for us, they offered us a model for the Museum’s collections.

Model of a Technetium-99 generator by GE Healthcare

Model of a Technetium-99 generator by GE Healthcare (© GE Healthcare)

The generator produces a radioactive version of the element Technetium-99, used as a tracer in the body. Radioactive tracers are used in nuclear medicine. This is the use of radioactive isotopes to diagnose and treat illness. The radioactive element is injected, swallowed or inhaled and the progress is tracked using a gamma camera or a PET scanner. The radiation received from a tracer is comparable to that of an X-ray.

PET Scanner ( Wellcome Images )

Non-radioactive tracers have also been used to image the body. Early versions of tracers include a barium meal drink used with X-rays to show up the guts.

Barium 'Shadow Meal', 1981-595/1 (Science Museum, London)

One of the most commonly used tracers is Technetium-99. One of the problems is that Technetium-99 has a half-life of only 6 hours. So it is transported with a longer lasting isotope Molybdenum-99. Once at the hospital, the isotopes can be separated. This is done by injecting a saline or salt solution which leaves the molybdenum absorbed on the aluminium columns inside.

The designers at GE Healthcare worked in collaboration with hospital staff including radiographers to find out their needs and come up with a design solution. The model has won design awards from the Design Business Association and has also reduced its carbon footprint in the process.

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We have also sound-houses…

March 25th, 2011 | by | exhibitions, music, new acquisitions, sound, women in science

Mar
25

“We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have, together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet…”

Daphne Oram, founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, returned time and again to this quotation from Francis Bacon’s 17th century fantasy, The New Atlantis.

Now, with help from our friends at Goldsmiths College, we have been able to acquire the machine that was fed by these fantasies, “The Oramics Machine”, as she called it.

Input device for Oramics machine, before conservation (credit: Tim Boon)

Listen! That’s Daphne herself showing off just some of the sounds that this extraordinary beast could produce.  

Oramics Machine sound generator cabinet (credit: Science Museum / Science & Society)

People like to say that things are unique. This one really is - there was only ever one. Daphne operated it by painting on the ten synchronised strips of 35mm film that used to run across the top of the machine. Via light-dependent transistors this produced voltages that controlled the sound generators in the white cabinet. These too were based on hand-painted waveforms:

Two waveform slides hand-painted by Daphne Oram, from her Oramics Machine (Credit: Science Museum / Science & Society)

We have big plans for this unique machine.

We can report that it has been very carefully conserved by our experts and it’s going to go on display in the Museum later this year, surrounded by other gems from the Museum’s music and sound collections.

Nick Street has posted a video of the machine’s arrival in this country: Oramics by Nick Street. If you’d like to hear more about the project, keep an eye on this blog or e-mail us at: publichistory@sciencemuseum.org.uk.

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Recording science and medicine

March 2nd, 2011 | by | medicine, new acquisitions

Mar
02

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about the items in our collections used to record the thoughts and ideas of practitioners of science and medicine.

We have a great number of inkwells, pens and pencils belonging to scientists and doctors, some famous, like Louis Pasteur and others less so.

Louis Pasteur's inkstand, 1800s ( Science Museum, London )

Some of these items have almost a relic status about them having been owned by scientists and doctors who made a great impact on the history of science and medicine. Knowing who owned an item, to me, entirely changes how I look at it.

Pen owned by Alfred Chune Fletcher (Science Museum, London)

But why collect this item, a pen from a Mr. Alfred Chune Fletcher? Mr. Fletcher (1865-1913) was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and a Senior House Surgeon at St Bartholemew’s Hospital. Pens like this are often everyday tools of doctors, capturing their normal working lives rather than landmarks in the history of medicine.

Laboratory books have also been a common theme in the collections, especially when they detail important discoveries.

'Mouse Book, Factor IX', 1980-1985 ( Science Museum, London )

These laboratory books detail the experiments for the discovery of  a monoclonal antibody to Factor IX. Monoclonal antibodies are identical antibodies cloned from a single cell. Factor IX is one of the factors involved in blood clotting. Its absence causes a type of haemophilia.

In the electronic age should we be collecting email correspondence and scientists’ hard drives to represent the working lives of doctors and scientists? With rapidly decreasing storage space, deciding what objects to acquire is going to be a challenge for us and future generations of curators.

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Collecting the uncollectable?

November 19th, 2010 | by | anatomy, biology, medicine, new acquisitions, public health

Nov
19

There are some stories you read in the press that you immediately react to as a curator. For me recently it was reading about the first UK Service of Dedication for lives lost to eating disorders that took place at Southwark Cathedral.

Sensing an acquisition in sight, I contacted b-eat - a UK charity for people with eating disorders – to get hold of a copy of the Order of Service.

Recent acquisition. Order of Service from Southwark Cathedral dedicated to lives lost to eating disorders (Credit: Science Museum).

Eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa are such prevalent mental health problems – affecting 1.6 million people in the UK alone – yet such experiences are barely documented through material culture at all.

Part of the problem is that there might not be any objects to collect. Can we document mental health experiences (depression for example) when they seemingly aren’t embodied in objects or expressed through stuff?

Why collect objects to represent such illnesses anyway?

With an anthropological hat on, documenting experiences and reactions to eating disorders reveals a lot about us as a society –  the significance of food and health, perceptions of beauty, and how our bodies respond to stress.

Historically, how societies have treated self-starvation is fascinating. Apollonia Schreier, a German woman, was credited with almost mystical abilities after refusing food for 11 months.

Engraving of Apollonia Schreier by Paullus Lentillus after her alleged fast of 11 months, at Galz, near Berne, 1604. (Source: Wellcome Library)

Of course we can’t treat such experiences as ‘Anorexia’ – the condition didn’t medically exist until the late nineteenth century. But by documenting historical and contemporary experiences through material culture, we can perhaps understand a little better why we treat illnesses today as we do.

A relatively recent mental health phenomenon? As this Lancet case report shows, doctors began to diagnose cases of self-starvation as Anorexia Nervosa towards the end of the nineteenth century. (Source: Wellcome Library)

Perhaps not all human experiences can be told through objects. Yet, I’d argue that material culture has a unique ability to connect you to stories and experiences even at a glance – so I think it’s worth a bit of lateral thinking.

Anyway, here’s a few other objects we could collect on the topic: size zero clothing, the personal effects of an individual who’s experienced an eating disorder (perhaps their weighing scale or diary for instance), self-help manuals, health education material etc. Other thoughts, suggestions or insights most welcome.

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X-rated collecting: Part-1

November 2nd, 2010 | by | medicine, new acquisitions

Nov
02

The Science Museum might not be the first place you think of when you hear the word sex, but we’ve got lots of artefacts from all over the world designed both to titillate and to treat sexual dysfunction and infertility. Some even claim to cast a love spell (Brian Cox watch out – I have the power…).

To add to this collection we’ve been working with Jonathan Roberts, lecturer at Mount Saint Vincent University, to make some new acquisitions. Jonathan’s been out collecting love, sex and fertility medicines for us in the markets of Accra, Ghana’s capital.

The first thing you notice about stalls selling sex medicines, Jonathan says, is the immense diversity of treatments that both male and female patients can choose from.

Alongside traditional West African treatments, vendors are selling Christian and Islamic faith medicines, as well as pharmaceuticals like real Pfizer Viagra and fake Chinese “Vigra”.

The stalls are like display cases for many different medical cultures. (Credit: Jonathan Roberts).

West African medical systems tend to be pluralistic. Practices and treatments encountered from different cultures are selectively absorbed, and re-invented in parallel with traditional African practises to meet the specific health needs of African communities.

Jonathan adds, this fusion of medical cultures reflects to a great extent the power of African patients. Patients to an extent self-diagnose their problem in order to make choices about which medical system is most appropriate to them or which treatment they believe will be most effective.

Comfort Owusu, the trader the medicines were purchased from (Jonathan Roberts).

Researchers like Jonathan are investigating how patients are making such choices – which has profound implications for improving health services.

Of course collecting these medicines poses some difficult issues for us Curators. Explicit imagery on the boxes, for example, makes real or virtual display problematic (even these photos needed lots of editing to be usable!).

But without preserving these items, evidence documenting this fascinating period of cultural and medical hybridisation in West Africa will disappear.

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