NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE ACQUIRES TWO NEW COLLECTIONS FROM 20th CENTURY PHYSICIANS

The National Museum of Health and Medicine has acquired two new collections to add to its more than 12,000 historical objects. The collections consist of the professional and personal effects of two very different physicians that practiced in America during the 20th century.

The two collections are the Rabkin collection and the Senseman collection. The Rabkin collection includes more than 200 objects related to cardiology and internal medicine from the last half of the 20th century, while the Senseman collection consists of hundreds of items related to the practice of homeopathic medicine during the early and middle part of the 20th century.

Boris Rabkin, a cardiologist and internist, gathered the items in his collection during his 50-years of practice in Silver Spring, Md. and donated them to the museum when he retired last year. He had not planned on making a large donation, but was pleased with the result.

"We were originally only going to take a wooden examination table that dates from the 1930s," said Jim Connor, Ph.D., the museum's assistant director for collections. "When we got to his office, we basically found a time capsule. Dr. Rabkin had apparently not thrown much out during his 50-year career. Since he did his own lab work, X-rays, and prescribing, his collection really gives a complete picture of private practice in America in the last half-century."

The collection includes documents, advertisements, lab equipment, X-ray equipment, and pharmaceuticals that span from the 1950s to the 1990s.

"Its not that any one of these pieces is particularly striking. Some of the items are 50-years old, while others are only a year old, but he used all of them at one time. The collection includes everything you can imagine from a doctor's office, which is very rare," said Mike Simons, the museum's registrar. "The most significant and interesting part is that the collection is so complete."

In addition to demonstrating the kinds of instruments purchased and utilized by doctors during the latter half of the 20th century, the Rabkin Collection also gives a social history of the United States during this time. Included in the collection are advertisements for prescription drugs and medical equipment that give insight into the status of gender and racial relations throughout Rabkin's career.

"These advertisements make it much easier to understand the trends in medicine, as well as trends in the social arena," said Mike Rhode, archivist of the museum's Otis Historical Archives. "When ads like this are brand new, they are useless. However, after several decades, they can become quite useful in understanding a particular time period."

Rabkin and his wife, Dorothy, both attended George Washington Medical School in Washington, D.C., and graduated in February 1943. After marrying, they went into practice separately. Dorothy Rabkin, a pediatric physician, spent much of her time raising their six children. Five of their children are now physicians. She did this while maintaining a small private practice and working fulltime for the D.C. Maternal and Child Health Department.

"Its funny how much stuff you can accumulate over the course of a career," Dorothy Rabkin said. "I'm just glad that the museum is able to use these things."

The second collection, which originally belonged to Mary Izetta Senseman, is analogous to Rabkin's, but at the same time, very different. Senseman, a homeopathic physician, practiced in Illinois from 1917 until 1967. The collection includes her correspondence, case histories, prescriptions, pharmaceuticals, and research, all of which were donated to the museum by her son, Payne Harris, M.D., a resident of Santa Fe, N.M., and her granddaughter, Rosemary Harris of Alexandria, Va.

"My grandmother started out as a school teacher, and then worked her way through medical school at Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital in Chicago by doing private-care nursing," Rosemary said. "Her collection contains so many interesting things that have real worth. Since my sister and I don't have children, we wanted to be sure that we preserved the integrity of our grandmother's things. We found that the museum was the best place for them."

Senseman was among the early female homeopathic doctors in the United States. Homeopathy, a branch of medicine developed in Germany in the early 19th century, was attractive to women because it allowed them entry into the medical profession, which at that time, was predominantly male.

"In some respects, the Senseman and Rabkin collections are very similar," Simons said. "They both left instruments, records, and equipment. However, Senseman's specialty, homeopathy, and her gender, given the time in which she lived, makes her very different."

Homeopathic medicine roughly equates to what people today might call "alternative" medicine. Homeopathic physicians differ from traditional physicians in several general ways. First, they heavily dilute medications with water and alcohol, because they believe that the body must take a primary role in healing itself. Second, they support the idea that "like cures like." For example, if a patient had a fever, the homeopathic doctor would treat him or her with a medication that induces fever. Finally, homeopathy combines psychological and physical symptoms during diagnosis, and requires that a physician take all circumstances surrounding illness into account.

"The Senseman Collection fits nicely in the museum as a whole," Connor said. "We have some other homeopathic artifacts as well. In fact, during the Civil War, homeopathic doctors were incorporated into the army because of soldier requests to be treated in that manner. In that context, homeopathy and the Senseman Collection documents late 19th century and early 20th century issues of health, military, and life in America, which is what the museum is really about. The Rabkin Collection is complementary because it represents the same issues, but in a different era."

The museum's historical 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.

The museum will place items from the Rabkin and Senseman collections on display in its recent acquisitions case, which includes newly acquired artifacts that do not fit into larger exhibitions. Other recent acquisitions now on display include the flag that flew over Dover Port Mortuary in Dover, Del., during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, World Trade Center dust, a food ration dropped by U.S. planes into Afghanistan, and anthrax medication.