Today’s the Great American Smokeout — time to stop smoking. Smoking is the single largest preventable cause of death and illness in the world, and causes about 480,000 deaths every year. This pin promoted the NIH change in smoking policy in 1987, which banned smoking in all buildings. You can also be happy to be smoke free https://smokefree.gov/

Douglas Howard took care of these large batteries for the Pathology Division of the National Cancer Institute in November 1939.  Does anyone have an idea about what equipment needed so many batteries?  We’d like to know!

If you need help, LSM is still around https://mscl.cit.nih.gov/index.html

“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras,” is a saying used in medical schools. It means that most doctors are trained to look for common diseases — horses.  The NIH Office of Rare Diseases Research (ORDR) looks for the unexpected hoofer — zebras. On November 6, 2002, the NIH was given statutory authorization by the Rare Diseases Act to promote and support research into rare diseases. More than 7,000 diseases are considered rare, so there are at least 25 million Americans affected by them. For more information about NIH and rare diseases https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/

It’s National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month. Find out about Alzheimer’s and other dementias at the National Institute on Aging’s page https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/alzheimers 

While this photo of President Franklin Roosevelt on the porch of Building 1 is very nice, as well as amusing for the broom leaned against the pillar, it’s even more impressive to see his dedication speech of the NIH campus, 79 years ago today. Yes, it was taped! You can watch it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrVZblIYljo&feature=youtu.be

Historically, October has been a busy month for legislation regarding #NIH.  Today we remember the splitting of one institute into the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).  NIDCD did a lovely history page for their 30th anniversary last year  https://bit.ly/2zfQOj8 and NINDS sponsored our exhibit on the founder of neuroscience Santiago Ramon y Cajal https://bit.ly/2Noy0q5   @NINDSnews @NIDCD

Do you take vitamins? Let’s celebrate the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Office of Dietary Supplements to conduct and coordinate #NIH research relating to dietary supplements and the extent to which their use reduces the risk of certain diseases.  We’re pretty sure that something in birthday cake is fortified. @NIH_ODS https://ods.od.nih.gov/

We congratulate all the Nobel winners this year, some who receive NIH grant funding. So far, five scientists have won a Nobel while actually working at the NIH:  Marshall Nirenberg, Julius Axelrod, Christian Anfinsen, Carleton Gajdusek, and Martin Rodbell. They’re all shown here celebrating. Nearly 160 other scientists supported by NIH have won a Nobel Prize. Find out who https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-almanac/nobel-laureates

The awkwardly named “Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999”, became law today in 1998.  The act had some far-reaching results for the NIH.  The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine was created (now called the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health); the National Institute of Dental Research had “and Craniofacial” added to its name; and two new NIH buildings were named after retiring members of Congress. Building 50 was named for Louis Stokes, and Building 40 was named the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center.

In 1914, Dr. Walter L. Treadway conducted the first survey on mental health for the Hygienic Laboratory, precursor agency of #NIH. He studied the role of public and private agencies in ministering to social needs. In 1929, he became the founding chief of the Division of Mental Hygiene, a forerunner of the National Institute of Mental Health, in the Public Health Service (PHS). Treadway found that drug addiction and mental disorders are not limited to one class of people, and advocated for a medical, rather than law enforcement, approach to addiction. He helped to get PHS narcotics hospitals established in Lexington, Kentucky and Fort Worth, Texas in the mid-1930s.

Where’s this energetic woman going? Maybe she’s honoring National Women’s Health & Fitness Day, which is today. Let’s keep fit because we all have places to go, people to see, and things to do. Learn about women’s health @NIH_ORWH http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/CPOP/DBASSE_171620   @womenshealth

Bausch & Lomb launched the new and improved Dynazoon and Dynoptic microscopes 50 years ago. These versatile microscopes had several body types, nosepieces, objective types, eyepieces and eyepiece tubes, stage types, illuminators, and cameras. Each scope would be as individual as the individual using it. How do we know this? We have the informative and well-illustrated manual in our manuals collection.

An illustrious group dedicated the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center 15 years ago today by cutting a very large ribbon: (left to right) Sen. Paul Sarbanes, Susan Butler, Dr. John I. Gallin, Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, Sen. Mark O. Hatfield, DHHS Sec. Tommy Thompson, and Sen. Tom Harkin.  Hatfield (Oregon-R), who served for 30 years in the U.S. Senate. As chairman of the committee on appropriations for eight years, he helped to secure increased funding for NIH. Hatfield’s deep and abiding commitment to medical research is continued @NIHClinicalCntr https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/ocmr/history/hatfieldcrc/index.html

Developed 100 years ago by Pierre Lecomte du Nouy at the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, this tensiometer reliably measured the surface tension of liquids, or even between two liquids. The one in our NIH Stetten Museum collection is incomplete, but the advertisement shows the working instrument.

How do our brains know that we are seeing something that is moving as opposed to seeing something that is still but that our gaze is moving over? For example, how do our brains know the difference between our eyes moving to follow a car racing around a track and our eyes moving to search a row of parked cars for our car? By following and recording the eye movements of monkeys, Dr. Robert Wurtz @NatEyeInstitute found that single neurons in our brains are responsible for motion selectivity and orientation selectivity. He published two landmark papers 50 years ago this month, which are the forerunners of today’s research into how the brain processes vision, when he was @nimhgov (he joined NEI in 1979). His apparatus in is our museum collection. Read his autobiography https://bit.ly/2hLuG5F  

“Electricity is life,” declared the Renulife Electric Company. They claimed you could use their violet ray generator, patented in 1919, to treat yourself or family by controlled electrical stimulation for anything from brain fog and dandruff to arthritis and paralysis. This Deluxe Model C also provided pine-scented ozone for breathing treatments. By 1951, the last maker of violet ray generators in the U.S. was closed by law and its generators seized by the FDA. We’re not sure how this lovely specimen was used @NIH, but it was donated by an NIH glassblower.