NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE LOANS
WWI ARTIFACTS AND PHOTO TO NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The National Museum of Health and Medicine has loaned three World War I artifacts and a copy of a photo to the National Library of Medicine for a temporary exhibition, “Strange Hells within the Minds War Made”: War and Trauma in the 20th century.” It will be on display at the library through May 31, 2005.

The museum loaned these WWI artifacts from its historical collection:

• a soldier’s helmet, showing the entry and exit point of the high explosive shell fragment that probably took his life during the Battle of St. Mihiel
• a 1- pound chunk shrapnel, with a piece of green wool from a soldier’s uniform, who had been injured by the exploding shell
• an individual first aid dressing packet, manufactured by Bauer & Black, in 1918, used by soldiers to stop bleeding from injuries incurred in combat

The museum also provided a copy of a photo from its archives, showing a soldier suffering the effects of shell shock during World War I in Courboin, France.

The NLM exhibit is designed to highlight the psychological trauma, commonly known as shell shock, experienced by many soldiers during and after World War I.

Symptoms included partial paralysis, convulsive movements, blindness, terrifying dreams and flashbacks, and amnesia that physicians determined were the result of psychological effects of battle conditions. Flooded, rat-infested trenches, exploding shells nearby and the constant threat of hand grenades contributed to the development of the disorder.

According to Carol Clausen, curator at the NLM, “the artifacts have been used to provide a suggestion of the conditions of trench warfare in the First World War. The no-man's-land scene shows a battlefield strewn with shrapnel, bomb fragments, and barbed wire,and the sort of items that soldiers might have abandoned there. The helmet lent by the NMHM is a particularly arresting object, with its large entrance and exit holes, bringing home to the viewer the damage that was done by shells (though this soldier is believed to have survived).”

The exhibit is mounted in the two wall cases outside the entrance to the NLM’s History of Reading Room and also in two display cases inside the room. It will be displayed until May 31 and is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except on holidays. Admission is free. The NLM, on the campus of the National Institutes of Health, is the largest medical library with books, journals, technical reports, manuscripts, microfilms, photographs, and images. For information, call 301-435-1908. Tours of the NLM leave at 1:30 p.m. Monday - Friday from the Visitors Center (Lobby of Building 38A - The Lister Hill Main Center). To arrange a tour, call 301-496-7771.

Alan Hawk, manager of the museum’s historical collections, selected the items that were borrowed from his collection by the NLM.

The historical collection documents changes in medical technology since the early 17th century and includes objects ranging in size from a suture needle to a two-ton MRI magnet, such as X-ray equipment, microscopes, surgical instruments, numismatics, and anatomical models. The collection is made available for the education of medical professionals, Department of Defense personnel, historians, and the public through exhibits in the museum, loans to other institutions, and individualized study.

Reproduction of the photograph of the soldiers suffering from shell shock was handled by Michael Rhode, archivist, and Tabitha Oglesby, assistant archivist of the Otis Historical Archives, which holds manuscripts, documents, archives, films, prints, slides, paintings, photographs, illustrations, and institutional records related to health and medicine. Material includes the records of the Army Medical Museum and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, but all material is not necessarily institutionally related.