#biomedical ephemera

Biomedical Ephemera, or: A Frog for Your Boils turned 3 today!

Or so my email tells me.

News: The Zarkster is getting his surgery at the end of the month, and we're still raising funds for that. Lot 1 went unclaimed so I'll be re-drawing that this weekend. Lots 2 and 3 will be posted in the coming week/s.

Posting should be back to its regular daily schedule after Memorial Day (May 26), but I have some half-finished posts that I'll finish up before then.

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Here are some much more interesting May 15 anniversaries than this blog's birthday:

296 years ago - In 1718, London lawyer James Puckle patents the first machine gun.

197 years ago - In 1817, the first private mental health hospital (it was called the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason. Hows that for a name?) opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was one of the first mental health hospitals that attempted to treat patients with respect and dignity, and is still open today as Friends Hospital.

145 years ago - In 1869, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the National Woman Suffrage Association, in New York City. It would take more than 50 years for all women in the United States to have the right to vote. 

51 years ago - In 1963, Project Mercury launches its final flight, making astronaut L. Gordon Cooper the first American to spend more than one day in space, and paving the way for the Apollo missions.

4 years ago - In 2010, 16-year-old Australian Jessica Watson completed her non-stop circumnavigation of the globe, becoming, by most record-books (though, due to technicalities, not all) the youngest skipper to do so.

Photos:

"National Sanitary Cake". 1865.

Birthday cake for Warren G. Harding's dog, "Laddie Boy". 1922.

*shrug* I get it. I post a LOT of natural history and biology and basic anatomy lessons and even just cute animals with old illustrations.

It's kind of the reason I've looked at breaking apart the two blogs for years, but in the end I decided I really like having them together. There's so much in the natural world that bled into medical history, and so much medical history that was discovered by the polymaths and zoology geniuses of the time.

We didn't know a ton about medicine back then. We didn't know a ton about the natural world back then. It was an age of discovery and I love every one of them.

But it's not everyone's cup of tea.

I tag most things to a point of near-excess. It makes things easy to find. If adding one more tag means making it easy to never find for some people, no big deal.

It's more a matter of me remembering or not. I won't for a while, most likely.

Hi Emily! This is Arallyn from Biomedical Ephemera.

I was reading old issues of Popular Science and came across this photo of Carl Akeley making the finishing touches on a guar before putting it on display at AMNH. The outline of his taxidermy process (linked on the photo) is fascinating, but familiar (I have two taxidermist friends ^_^), which struck me as odd for something that seems so old, until I remembered you mentioning Akeley being basically the father of modern taxidermy.

This is also actually one of the last specimens he prepared, sadly. Still, I felt this photo really captured the combination of art and science that was put into all of his creatures.

Keep on being your inspiringly enthusiastic self and DFTBA!

Heh, yeah, I suppose it is a "niche" interest. I do quite love it, though.

I have a page that explains how I got into it.

The natural history part of the blog is less interesting...I've always loved animals (I was originally in school to become a veterinarian), and my mom had an old Audubon book to identify the birds at our feeder, when I was a kid. From that book I learned about tons of other animals, and re-encountered old natural history illustrations in my quests for old medical illustrations. They were too awesome not to learn more about and subsequently share, so I did what I have here...and seek to do much more in the future ^^

The Drinker - From "The Dance of Death by Hans Holbein (Produced 1522-1526)," compiled by Dr. F. Lipman, 1886.

Big things are coming...

Ok, nothing huge, but a large makeover for the layout (don't worry, it's still gonna be easy to navigate), and inclusion of an "Ephemeral Scraps" Flickr stream link for all of you who have been looking for more content with less commentary. This blog won't be posting those pics (I like having my  sometimes-pointless commentary here!), but there have been enough requests that I figure it wouldn't hurt to have a place to upload related sets of images from time to time.

Expect everything to be finished by the New Year. I'm also working on some new scripting for Cabbaging Cove, but that stuff's a lot simpler.

The only blog that I'll be reliably updating during the next few days is my personal blog, but this blog's ask box is always open. There will be periodic "real" posts, too. See you in the new year!