FROM CINCINNATI'S WESTERN MUSEUM TO
CLEVELAND'S HEALTH MUSEUM
by BRUNO GEBHARD, M.D.
Director, Cleveland Health Museum
Cleveland prides itself in having the
first health museum in
the United States, opened November 13,
1940. But in 1820 Cin-
cinnati established the first public
science museum west of the
Alleghenies, the Western Museum. Both
were started by physi-
cians, who seem to have a natural
affinity for museums. Perhaps
this is because a good physician must
be a keen observer. In the
days of pre-laboratory medicine they
depended nearly entirely on
what they saw, felt with their hands,
and heard; and a good doctor
might depend upon his nose for a snap
diagnosis, and if necessary
on his taste buds.
Physicians have been founders of many
museums since the
day of the inauguration of a museum of
natural history by Guy
de la Brosse and Dr. Herouard, both
physicians to King Louis
XIII. In 1626 the King of France
ordered them to secure a
building and a place where could be
installed a "jardin royal des
herbes medicinales." In 1650 the
public was first admitted, un-
der the protest of the faculty of
medicine, to what was later to
become the finest museum of natural
history in the world. Phy-
sician Hans Sloan's library of 50,000
books and manuscripts,
23,000 coins and medals, 3,000
antiques, and 16,000 natural
history specimens made up the main bulk
of the early collection
of the British Museum. For all this, in
1753 Parliament paid his
heirs the sum of £20,000.
I am speaking here only of those
museums devoted to the
education of the public. College and
university museums are a
different story, beginning with the
Ashmoleon Museum in Oxford
(1683), via the "Repository of
Curiosities" of Harvard College
(1750), to the "Cabinet" of
the American Philosophical Society
in Philadelphia (1770).
371
372 Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly
As to which had the honor of being the
first science museum
for the public east of the Alleghenies,
the contestants are the
"Cabinet" in Philadelphia and
the Museum of South Carolina
in Charleston, which was opened to the
public in 1773 by "the
library society of
Charles-Town." Here also two
physicians
played a leading role. They were the
doctors Alexander Baron
and Peter Fayssoux. "All letters
of intelligences, specimens of
the mineral, animal and vegetable
kingdom" were to be sent to
them by those who cared to be recorded
"as promoters of, and
contributors to, so useful a
work," according to an advertisement
in the City Gazette of January
6, 1785.
Dr. Daniel Drake was the prime mover of
the Western Mu-
seum in Cincinnati. Members of the
clergy and the medical pro-
fession in those days were also
naturalists, physicists, geogra-
phers, chemists, statisticians, and
explorers. Science and life, in
the early part of the nineteenth
century, were not yet separated
into specialized compartments. Doctors
were also farmers; they
might own a drugstore, or a grocery,
or, better yet, a bank. They
might run a brewery on the side or have
their fingers in politics
as did Dr. Edward Tiffin, the first
governor of Ohio, elected in
1803.
In his publications Daniel Drake
never--in so far as it was
possible for me to ascertain-refers to
the established eastern
museums. He must have heard of them
during his study in Phila-
delphia in 1805 and 1815, but the
pioneers of the Queen City
were a proud lot and thought of
themselves as making the world
anew in many respects.
Daniel Drake developed the program of
the Western Museum
in his "An Anniversary Discourse
on the State and Prospects of
the Western Museum Society,"
delivered on June 10, 1820:
At the expiration of the two years which
have been spent in the
collection and arrangement of
curiosities, when they are prepared for
public inspection, and the doors of the
Museum are about to be opened,
it is important that we should review
the design and labors of the
Society, and inquire what benefits they
are likely to produce. As the
arts and sciences have not hitherto
been cultivated among us to any
The Cleveland Health Museum 373
great extent, the influence they are
capable of exerting on our happiness
and dignity is not generally perceived,
and they have consequently but
few friends and admirers. It is,
therefore, proper that we should in-
stitute and continue to observe an
annual festival in celebration of the
origin of the Society.
Drake mentioned "the illustration
of our Natural History"
as the main objective of the museum,
"as people in our situation
have special need of an acquaintance
with their productions and
resources." Proudly he mentioned
also that Mr. Audubon, "one
of the excellent artists connected with
the museum, who has drawn
from nature several hundred species of
American birds, has in his
portfolio a large number that are not
pictured in Mr. Wilson's
work [American Ornithology] and
many which do not seem to
have been recognized by any
naturalist."
Dr. Drake described a collection of
Indian utensils, weapons,
and trinkets though he was not much
interested in the contempo-
rary Indians. To him their background
was more fascinating:
Our country exhibits older and nobler
monuments than the recent
vestiges of our Indian tribes. The
number, extent and regularity of our
mounds, and the implements of stone and
copper which they contain
afford incontestible proofs that a
people more numerous, enlightened
and social, than the wandering hordes
found on the discovery of this
continent, had previously been its inhabitants.
These monuments are our
only antiquities; and although they may
not, like the classical ruins of
Asia and Europe, awaken inspiration nor
infuse melancholy, they will
not, I hope, be thought altogether
unworthy of our admiration.
Drake, a member of the American
Philosophical and Geo-
logical societies and a counselor of
the American Antiquarian
Society, made some promises that these
subjects would get due
attention. He also put great emphasis
on the presentation of the
different branches of natural
philosophy. "Among the variety of
objects which it is designed to embrace
in the Museum, are several
kinds of philosophical instruments,
calculated to illustrate the
principles of magnetism, electricity,
galvanism, mechanics, hydro-
statics, optics, and the mechanism of
the solar system. The whole
of these can be fabricated by our
ingenious Curator, Mr. Best."
374 Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly
An advertisement in the Liberty Hall
and Cincinnati Gazette of
January 12, 1822, tells us:
"Robert Best--Curator of the West-
ern Museum--Will repair all kinds of
Philosophical and Mathe-
matical Instruments--all the higher
order of Time Keepers, and
in short, every species of delicate and
Complicated Machinery.
He may be applied to either at the
Western Museum, in the Cin-
cinnati College, or at his dwelling
nearly opposite, on Walnut
street."
Robert Best, born in England, was the
Rev. Elijah Slack's
assistant during the first session of
the Medical College of Ohio.
In 1823 he lectured on chemistry,
authored a book on the same
subject, received his doctor of
medicine in 1826 at Transylvania,
and according to Otto Juettner, died a
"nervous wreck" at the
age of forty in 1830.
Reading Dr. Drake, we find that he
apologizes for the ab-
sence of art objects in the Western
Museum. He states flatly:
We are too poor to encourage the fine
arts.... I will admit that
but few of our citizens have sufficient
wealth to become their individual
patrons; but this very circumstance
constitutes a strong argument for
confiding to a collective body, the
means and the duty of promoting
their introduction into this country.
This object has been assigned to
our Society, and I hope to see it
executed in a manner that will both
delight and refine the public taste.
Here Dr. Drake was definitely wrong.
Cincinnati had plenty
of money in those days. The museum
itself, according to Grove,
had funds exceeding $4,000.00. Those
were the days when a
dozen eggs could be bought for 9??
and beef for 61/4?? per pound.
The Western Museum was in effect a
stock company. Each mem-
ber owned shares worth $500. The price
of membership was
$50, which was transferable and which
admitted the subscriber
and his whole family. "Decent
strangers" were cheerfully ad-
mitted. New money was given liberally
in those days, Mansfield
tells us. In June 1818 the amount of
$29,000 was subscribed by
seven gentlemen during one week for the
Lancaster Seminary,
later known as Cincinnati College.
Regarding the financing of
the museum, Drake had expressed the
hope in a meeting of the
The Cleveland Health Museum 375
Western Museum Society (1818) "to
see from $5000 to $6000
contributed to that object next
week." To have $4,000 on hand
on the opening day was surely not an
indication of being poor in
those days when a family lived well on an
income of a thousand
dollars or less.
In the beginning there was no need for
a special building
since there were not enough exhibits
and space was at a premium
in that quick-growing city. The 1820
census tells of 9,642 resi-
dents living in 1,003 dwelling houses.
A dozen druggists were in
business and just as many doctors; five printing
offices were listed,
four book and stationery stores, and
seventeen taverns. The
number of churches was ten.
Dr. Drake in his "Anniversary
Discourse" points out that
having a museum and a college under one
roof was by choice,
and it was planned to be permanent.
In some degree they are necessary to
the success of one another,
and the interests of both would,
therefore, suffer by a separation. They
afford, in succession, all the aids that
are essential to a liberal educa-
tion. The College is principally a
school of literature, the Museum of
science, and the arts. The knowledge imparted
by one is elementary, by
the other practical. Without the former,
our sons would be illiterates;
without the latter, they would be
scholars merely-by the help of both,
they may become scholars and
philosophers.
An invitation to exchange materials "with
other societies and
individual collectors at a
discount" closes the discourse. Under
the materials offered are geological
and zoological specimens,
grinders of the mastodon and arctic
elephant, Indian implements,
and aboriginal relics taken from mounds
and tunnels. The
"wanted" list asks for
natural specimens from the eastern states
and Europe, trinkets from the islands
of the Pacific Ocean, coins
and medals and even paintings, casts
from statues, and finally
books. Prof. Silliman of Yale College
is listed as one to receive
foreign paintings. Prospective givers
are told that they would
experience "the noble satisfaction
of being instrumental in natu-
ralizing the sciences in a new
country," and that all would help
"the Institution of an extensive
and useful School of Art and
376 Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly
Nature." The exhibits were
actually limited to natural speci-
mens, with the exception of the human
organism. Man himself
was taken for granted. We are still in
the days before Lamarck.
Geology, botany, and zoology were the
main fields of interest.
The word "biology" did not
yet appear in the scientific literature
of the states.
Dr. Drake, who has been called "a
great organizer and dis-
organizer, a great founder and
flounderer," left the care of the
museum mainly to Robert Best until
1823. But Robert Best left
town, and after 1823 Joseph Dorfeuille
had run the show. The
stockholders of the Western Museum
could no longer pay for the
upkeep. They tried to sell, but there
was no buyer, and they
finally gave the exhibits to
Dorfeuille, the only condition being
that he must admit free the original
subscribers and their fam-
ilies. Originally planned as an
educational institution, under the
Dorfeuille techniques it dropped
gradually into the field of
entertainment.
The status of the museum as of 1824,
including a very com-
plete inventory, is published in the
Cincinnati Literary Gazette
of March 13, 1824, in the form of a
poem of ten eight-line stanzas
signed by "P," and titled
"The Western Museum, a New Song
after the old tune Songs of Shepherds
in Rustical Roundelays."
Wend hither, ye members of polished
society--
Ye who the bright phantoms of pleasure
pursue --
To see of strange objects the endless
variety,
Monsieur Dorfeuille will expose to your
view.
For this fine collection, which courts
your inspection
Was brought to perfection by his skill
and lore,
When those who projected and should
have protected
Its Interests, neglected to care for it
more.
The nine verses which follow describe
the exhibits as curiosities
procured from the red men, mummies of
early antiquity, panthers
and wolves, and teeth of mastodon; the
collection of fish and birds
gets a full stanza, and especially
mentioned are "things unnatu-
ral" such as young pigs with two
heads and lambs with eight feet,
The Cleveland Health Museum 377
bottled in spirits, while "the
mighty magician of these things
Elysian is plain to your vision."
Dorfeuille, originally Count
d'Orfeuille, was a nephew of
the Duchess de Richelieu and belonged
to the guild of itinerant
artists who were so typical of our
colonial and pioneer days. He
has been referred to as a "zealous
naturalist from Louisiana who
had made some collections and was
seeking a suitable place for
the establishment of a museum."
The success of a public museum
always depends on the combined work of
a scientist-educator and
an artist. Dorfeuille's main
contribution to the Western Museum
was the creation of a
"pandemonium, a representation of Dante's
Inferno." Hiram Powers, later to
become a world-famous sculp-
tor, was responsible for nearly thirty
life-size wax figures, some
of them having movable parts with clock
mechanisms, fifty years
before the Edison era. Cincinnati's
Western Museum was the
forerunner of the famous Mme. Tussaud
in London and the Musee
Grevin in Paris (1882).
Dorfeuille's "Hell," as it
became known, was, according to
Tom Trollope, "a representation of
not only the Inferno, but of
Purgatory and Paradise as well."
He claims that his mother, a
great lover of Dante, conceived the
plan for it. Mrs. Trollope
herself gives a very vivid description.
She says:
Dwarfs, that by machinery grow into
giants before the eyes of
the spectator; imps of ebony with eyes
of flame; monstrous reptiles
devouring youth and beauty; lakes of
fire, and mountains of ice; in
short, wax paint and springs have done
wonders. "To give the scheme
some more effect," he makes it
visible only through a grate of massive
iron bars, among which are arranged
wires connected with an electrical
machine in a neighboring chamber;
should any daring hand or foot
obtrude itself within the bars, it
receives a smart shock, that often
passes through many of the crowd, and
the cause being unknown, the
effect is exceedingly comic.
The "Inferno Regions" were
very popular. According to
the Cincinnati directory of 1834,
"They are open every night for
the accommodation of those who may wish
to make a call upon
his Satanic Majesty who is always ready
to see company."
378 Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly
We should not refer to these displays
as "Chambers of Hor-
rors." In those pre-Darwin days
the stories of the Bible were
ultima ratio. Readers of religious
fiction of our days, or the
viewers of DeMille's monumental films,
would have been willing
to pay the twenty-five cents admission
"without distinction of
age," meaning that children paid
the same entrance fee.
It is incidental but interesting to
note that the great con-
troversy between religion and science
found its expression in the
large number of people denouncing the
"Great Exhibition" in
London in 1851. "Large numbers of
religious folk denounced
the proposed exhibition as an arrogant
and wicked flaunting of
man's powers in the face of the
Almighty, and they declared it
would bring down upon Britain the
shattering wrath of God.
Worse still, a Colonel Sibthorpe,
actually went so far as to pray
that hail and lightning might destroy
it."
Not even Dorfeuille could keep the
Western Museum going.
Shortly before he moved to New York to
establish his "Inferno"
there, he offered, on February 17,
1837, to sell to Cincinnati's
Western Academy of Natural Science,
organized in 1835, the
10,000 specimens of natural history and
a large library of books.
It isn't certain what happened. Very
likely the scientific exhibits
were sold piece by piece to different
people or given to other insti-
tutions. We have no trace of the
distribution today.
Elizabeth R. Kellogg has given us a
detailed study of Joseph
Dorfeuille and the Western Museum and
has come forward with
an interesting explanation of the
falling off of interest in the
Western Museum:
The religious backing earlier given to
the study of natural science
as evidence of the handiwork of God
began to give way before the dis-
coveries and conclusions of Darwin,
Cuvier, Wm. Smith and other
epoch-making scientists. Again, the physicians who, for
their own re-
search as well as the education of the public had been
the most ardent
promoters of the Western Museum, began
to put their resources more
and more into developing the laboratory
work required by their pro-
fession.
The Cleveland Health Museum 379
The lifetime of the Western Museum was
too short to make
a lasting impression on the life of the city. Pioneer
days are full
of projects not always successful. Here
is just one example. An
ideal "City Set on the Hill,"
named "Hygia" was planned by a
J. B. Papworth. He proposed a model
city, about 1,000 acres of
land, built opposite Cincinnati, to
make that place a demonstra-
tion, with "horticultural and
agricultural gardens, places for the
landing of boats, a modern library,
churches for the various de-
nominations." Five years later the
project was dropped, accord-
ing to Bullock's Journey Through the
Western States.
Because Americans are basically not
"history-minded," but
"future-minded," science
museums have been slow in developing
in this country. It is deplorable but
true that museums in the
last century were not highly valued in
the United States as vehicles
"for the diffusion of
knowledge." It took more than a dozen
years for scientists and members of
congress to agree on plans
for a "National Museum,"
better known as the "Smithsonian In-
stitution," established in 1846,
but medicine and public health
were not exhibited before 1922. It was
Louis Agassiz, who had
studied medicine and geology in
Switzerland, Germany, and
France, who "made science a
national cause and charmed money
out of politicans for the founding of
museums as if they were
asylums for the blind." Van Wyck
Brooks refers in this way to
the sum of $200,000 Agassiz was able to
raise from the legislature
and citizens of Massachusetts for the
founding of his museum of
comparative zoology at Cambridge in
1860. This in turn led to
the generous gifts by George Peabody to
Harvard and Yale
(1867) for establishing museums. George
Peabody had been the
commissioner of the United States to
the great exhibition in Lon-
don in 1851. New York tried to copy the
London exhibition but
failed in many ways. The pre- and
post-Civil War years were not
helpful in the development of
educational and science institutions.
The Sanitary Fairs of those days were
mainly money-raising
affairs. The Great Western Sanitary
Fair in Cincinnati in 1863
reported the receipt of $260,000.
380 Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly
The year 1862 marks the beginning of
the Army Medical
Museum in Washington. Surgeon General
William A. Hammond,
M.D., is credited as its founder, but
this museum really got under
way when John Shaw Billings was its
director. In his paper
"Medical Museum," which was
the presidential address delivered
before the Congress of American
Physicians and Surgeons, Sep-
tember 20, 1888, he not only gave a
complete and detailed review
of that field in Europe and the United
States but also outlined
plans for an ideal institution:
"An ideal medical museum should
be very complete in the department of
preventive medicine, or
hygiene. It is a wide field, covering,
as it does, air, water, food,
clothing, habitations, geology,
meteorology, occupations, etc., in
their relations to the production or
prevention of disease, and
thus far has had little place in
medical museums, being taken up
as a specialty in the half dozen
museums of hygiene which now
exist." Note that what seems such
a modern term, "preventive
medicine," was already anticipated
by John Shaw Billings in
1888. What Dr. Billings asked for in
the United States had
already arrived in some degree in
England and Germany. Ed-
mund Alexander Parkes, M.D., holder of
the first chair of hygiene
at Fort Pitt in Chatham, the British
army training grounds, gave
his name to the first museum of hygiene
opened in 1876 in Lon-
don. It merged into the Royal Sanitary
Institute in 1888, which
still has about the greatest collection
of water closet equipment
one can imagine. I have always wondered
if the phrase "Going
to the John" is not the best
memorial to Sir John Harington for his
epochal invention in 1596.
A hygiene museum was opened in Berlin
in 1886, and in
1890 Paris opened a Musee de
l'Assainissement, mainly dealing
with water and sewage affairs, and
later on developing as the
Musee d'Hygiene de la Ville de Paris.
International exhibits have been the
most successful way to
acquaint the masses with the principles
and methods of healthful
living. Two hygiene expositions held in
London (1884 and 1888)
were both of international character.
The one of 1888 was espe-
cially successful, with four million
visitors from May 8 to October
The Cleveland Health Museum 381
30, in spite of being closed on
Sundays. Not less than nineteen
volumes were published under the title The
Health Exhibition
Literature on this undertaking by William Cowles and Sons, Ltd.,
London, in 1884. Robert Koch was the
general planner for the
German Hygiene and Life Saving
Exposition in Berlin in 1883.
The year 1911 witnessed a unique
experiment in health edu-
cation, the International Hygiene
Exposition in Dresden, Ger-
many. It can be said, without fear of
contradiction, that this
exhibition was the most successful to
date in bringing hygienic
instruction to the masses. The Dresden
exposition broke with the
tradition of hygiene expositions, which
had limited their displays
to environmental hygiene and
information on contagious diseases.
The center of attraction at Dresden was
the exhibit Der Mensch
("Man"). The exhibition had
an attendance of five and one-
half million in four months and was so
successful financially that
an endowment fund was created to
establish the German Hygiene
Museum, incorporated in 1912.
One year following the Dresden
Exposition in 1911, the
American Museum of Natural History in
New York, under the
guidance of Professor C. E. A. Winslow
of Yale, opened the first
permanent exhibit on medicine and
public health in America, in
order "to illustrate certain
important phases of man's relation to
his environment." This new
development had been preceded by
the very successful American
Tuberculosis Exhibit, which did
much to arouse the interest of lay
groups to participate in the
control of tuberculosis. Truby King,
M.D., in New Zealand, had
at that time demonstrated that infant
mortality could be reduced
to an unbelievable minimum if mothers
were better educated.
Health education became a real force,
and visual aids were added
to the spoken word. The American
Medical Association in 1907
appointed a special committee dealing
with education of the pub-
lic. The committee encouraged the
delivery of lectures given to
the general public and the publication
of pamphlets, and its activ-
ities lead to the council on health and
public instruction of the
American Medical Association. World War
I interrupted a prom-
ising development, with the one
exception that motion pictures
382 Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly
were first used in social hygiene
education in the army and navy.
The itinerant museums of former
centuries took on modern forms
and the "healthmobile"
appeared, just as railroad-car exhibits
had been used before.
A milestone in museum development after
World War I was
the International Hygiene Exposition in
Dresden in 1930, where
the "Transparent Man" was
first shown in the modern building
of the German Hygiene Museum. As the
author was connected
with these activities for ten years and
is, therefore, hardly fitted
to be objective, I prefer to quote Dr.
Arturo Castiglioni, who in
his A History of Medicine (2d
ed., p. 1134), states that "the
example set by the hygienic exhibits at
Dusseldorf in 1926, and
Dresden in 1930, has been followed in
the public museums and
exhibitions of other countries."
Health museums were established
during 1930 in Poland, Yugoslavia,
Roumania, and Egypt, and
especially in Russia.
The Hall of Medical Science at the
Chicago "Century of
Progress" in 1933 and 1934, under
the leadership of William
H. Pusey, M.D., and especially of Eben
F. Carey, M.D., showed
a great number of excellent medical
exhibits. Many of them
later made up the main core of the
medical exhibits at the Chicago
Museum of Science and Industry, with
Thomas H. Hull, Ph.D.,
from the American Medical Association,
as its curator. The Buf-
falo Science Museum under Carlos
Cumings, M.D., had included
health exhibits before and was the
first museum to display a
"transparent man" in the
United States. The medical and public
health exhibits at the New York World's
Fair in 1939, where the
author served as technical consultant,
were sponsored by the
American Museum of Health. To quote
again, "At the New York
World's Fair the Hall of Man contained
a number of accurate and
entertaining biological and medical
exhibits that were extremely
popular." Measured in terms of
attendance--seven and one-half
million people-this was the most
successful attempt in mass
health education.
For many decades, the Academy of
Medicine in Cleveland
has had an active health education
program, first mainly through
The Cleveland Health Museum 383
lectures, and since 1925 through the
radio. In 1927 the first
committee on health education was
appointed. In 1931 a special
Health Education Foundation was
established. Health education-
minded physicians felt that a
continuous, all-year-round, planned
program was needed. By the use of
visual means, such as exhibits
and films, not only larger groups would
be reached, but a more
penetrating educational effect would be
secured. These consid-
erations led to the incorporation of
the Cleveland Museum of
Health and Hygiene in 1936. This act
was definitely the expres-
sion of the organized medical
profession. No single individual
can be named as the "founder"
of the first health museum in the
United States. The author has only the
claim of being its first
manager.
The incorporators were H. C. King,
M.D., at that time presi-
dent of the Academy of Medicine; Howard
Whipple Green, sec-
retary of the Cleveland Health Council;
H. Van Y. Caldwell,
secretary of the Academy of Medicine;
Lester Taylor, M.D., past
president of the Academy of Medicine
and chairman of its
health education committee for many
years; and James A. Doull,
M.D., at that time professor of
preventive medicine at Western
Reserve University. The late Wingate T.
Todd served as chair-
man of a committee on scope. The museum
was incorporated on
December 28, 1936, and at the opening
in November 1940 about
eight hundred members of the medical
and dental profession and
interested lay persons had pledged
support to the museum through
memberships of ten dollars or more.
The first location of this museum was
the former home of
Mrs. Elisabeth S. Prentiss, 8811 Euclid
Avenue, where she had
lived for many years as Dr. Dudley P.
Allen's wife. The estab-
lishment of the Elisabeth S. Prentiss
National Award in Health
Education has aroused the interest of
many groups in modern
forms of museum education. Award
winners were: 1944, Evart
and Mary Routzahn; 1945, C. E. A.
Winslow; 1946, Mary Con-
nolly; 1947, W. W. Bauer, M.D.; 1948,
Donald B. Armstrong,
M.D.; 1949, Harry E. Kleinschmidt, M.D.
In 1946 the museum's
activities were transferred to a larger
site, with the main museum
384 Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly
building located at 8911 Euclid. Nearly
half a million people
have visited the museum. The present
membership is about 1,500.
Health museums in Mexico City and
Dallas, Texas, opened in
1942 and 1947, have more or less been
patterned after the Cleve-
land Health Museum. The museum's
workshops have duplicated
many health exhibits for other
organizations, including the famous
Dickinson-Belskie collection on human
reproduction, an important
part of the museum's exhibits.
The Cleveland Health Museum is a
distinct departure from
the traditional hygiene museums. The
emphasis is on education
and not on collection. It features
man's normal growth and de-
velopment. Its aim is better health for
more people, it being
understood that health is a state of
physical and mental ease. It
considers man not only as a biological
unit but as a social being.
It concerns itself with public health
just as well as with personal
health.
Future museum historians may refer to
the Cleveland Health
Museum as the first expression of a
group activity of the medical
profession, trail-blazing new methods
in order "to make health
visible," with emphasis on normal
growth and development of the
individual as well as of community
health to achieve "better
health for more people."
FROM CINCINNATI'S WESTERN MUSEUM TO
CLEVELAND'S HEALTH MUSEUM
by BRUNO GEBHARD, M.D.
Director, Cleveland Health Museum
Cleveland prides itself in having the
first health museum in
the United States, opened November 13,
1940. But in 1820 Cin-
cinnati established the first public
science museum west of the
Alleghenies, the Western Museum. Both
were started by physi-
cians, who seem to have a natural
affinity for museums. Perhaps
this is because a good physician must
be a keen observer. In the
days of pre-laboratory medicine they
depended nearly entirely on
what they saw, felt with their hands,
and heard; and a good doctor
might depend upon his nose for a snap
diagnosis, and if necessary
on his taste buds.
Physicians have been founders of many
museums since the
day of the inauguration of a museum of
natural history by Guy
de la Brosse and Dr. Herouard, both
physicians to King Louis
XIII. In 1626 the King of France
ordered them to secure a
building and a place where could be
installed a "jardin royal des
herbes medicinales." In 1650 the
public was first admitted, un-
der the protest of the faculty of
medicine, to what was later to
become the finest museum of natural
history in the world. Phy-
sician Hans Sloan's library of 50,000
books and manuscripts,
23,000 coins and medals, 3,000
antiques, and 16,000 natural
history specimens made up the main bulk
of the early collection
of the British Museum. For all this, in
1753 Parliament paid his
heirs the sum of £20,000.
I am speaking here only of those
museums devoted to the
education of the public. College and
university museums are a
different story, beginning with the
Ashmoleon Museum in Oxford
(1683), via the "Repository of
Curiosities" of Harvard College
(1750), to the "Cabinet" of
the American Philosophical Society
in Philadelphia (1770).
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