Object of the Month: March 2020 Leyser Medical Thermometer High body temperature signals illness, usually an infectious disease. Today, thermometer is often the first instrument to detect COVID-19. Contactless digital thermometers and infrared cameras help recognize people who may be affected at airports or borders. First instruments for measuring body temperature emerged in Italy at […]
Object of the Month: February 2020 Coin-Catcher How best to remove a five franc coin stuck in the pharynx or the esophagus? Until the early 20 century, foreign objects were often removed from the throat without eye control. Instruments for such operations were often introduced centuries ago. “Coin catcher” after C. F. Graefe, an instrument in […]
Teplo-Fornax Winter is coming and staying. To heat both the bed and the body, hot bricks and stones had been used and in the 16 century metal hot water bottles were introduced in Europe. The early 20 century saw the birth of the electric blanket, which transforms electric current into heat. All these sources of […]
Object of the Month: December 2019 Pálava Ingha II Electric Blanket, 1960s The winter season asks for a source of warmth. In 2018, these pages showed an 18 century hot water bottle: this winter we looked for a more recent item to heat the bed and the body, an object that testifies to the growing role of […]
Object of the Month: November 2019 Biocard Electrocardiograph, Chirana Stará Turá, 1980-1990 The portable single channel electrocardiograph Biocard was developed by Chirana Stará Turá in the second half of the 1970s. The international competition and rapid privatization of industry after 1989 put a stop to many promising research and production programs: another project terminated in Stará […]
Object of the Month: October 2019 Stimul 3 Electroacupuncture device Much has been written about acupuncture: the method, avidly embraced by some and deprecated by others, remains a delicate and disputed subject. Acupuncture as a healing practice originatedin China and in the 17 century it was brought to Europe by missionaries. Since the early 20 century, […]
Object of the Month: September 2019 Bezoar Stone: Tricholith Bezoar forms in the hollow organs of the gastrointestinal system – mostly in the stomach, but also in the intestine, the rectum or the oesophagus – of ruminants and exceptionally of humans. Bezoars were extracted from the bowels for pharmaceutical use. The term can be traced […]
Object of the Month: August 2019 Marienbad Earthenware Mineral Water Bottle For the sultry August days we chose a vessel for distributing water: a commodity indispensable to life. Neither the interest in the medical properties of water, nor the enthusiasm for spas begins with modernity: we only need to recall the baths of the Roman era or […]
Bullet-drawer (Kugelzieher) after Garengeot, first half of the 18 century The velocity and force of missiles launched from long-distance weapons grew over the centuries. Fingers, mouth and smith’s tongs served well to pull a simple arrowhead out of the body, one that penetrated bone could be loosened by a drill or a chisel. Medical writers of the Antiquity […]
Diurocit urine testing kit, 1930s Urine testing, together with physical examination and palpation of the pulse, belongs to the oldest methods of medical examination. Uroscopy, diagnosis from observation of color, consistency and visible admixtures of urine, appears already in the 11 century BCE cuneiform “diagnostic textbook.” The method, familiar in antiquity, gained new currency in […]