My Blog
Graham Crackers to Suppress (Ahem) Sexual Urges??
Graham crackers in S’mores. Graham crackers and peanut butter, the perfect after-school snack. Teddy Grahams for toddlers. What could be more wholesome? Their origin was quite different from their current use. Let me tell you more. Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) is...
Angel Glow in the Civil War
In one of the first great battles of the Civil War, Grant’s Union Army was pitted against Johnston’s and Buell’s Confederate forces at Shiloh, in Tennessee. A now bucolic place in Tennessee, Shiloh is near the southern Tennessee border with Mississippi and Alabama, on...
Baby Teeth and World Peace
Do you still have your kids’ baby teeth in the back of the jewelry box somewhere? Does your mom still have yours? Do you know there was a time when baby teeth changed world political policy? It all goes back to the 1940s-1950s. The first nuclear bomb test blast was in...
Dangerous Toys, or How Did Boomers Even Grow Up?
People like to characterize present-day parents as helicopters, always hovering over their children, children who have every moment of their day scheduled and supervised. Those same people think of Boomer Babies as free-range kids, who were kicked out of the house in...
Premature Babies Were Once a Coney Island Side Show
The late 19th and early 20th Century was a time of optimism about many things, but not about premature babies. In an era that celebrated healthy babies, with Better Baby contests, awarding prizes to the biggest, fittest, best-looking babies, there was little to offer...
We’re All Depending on the Horseshoe Crab
Horseshoe crabs have been around for 450 million years. They’ve survived several mass extinctions and have outlived the dinosaurs. Arthropods more related to spiders than crabs, these primitive, resilient sea creatures are coastal dwellers, preferring the ocean...
More Medical Museums
Perhaps your travels are taking you abroad this summer. And you’re still looking for those unusual medical museums. I have more suggestions for you. More years ago than I want to admit, I was a hippie with a backpack, hitchhiking around Europe. Even then, I wanted to...
Unexpected Medical Museums
You’re going on vacation this summer, aren’t you? If you’re like me and enjoy medical history (the more obscure the better), be on the lookout for unexpected boutique medical museums. They are everywhere. Tucked inside big museums, on their own in tourist towns,...
Doctor Dan the Bandage Man
When I was a little girl, my favorite book was Doctor Dan the Bandage Man, a Little Golden Book. Do you remember it? Dan helps Mother, his sister, even the family dog, when they get cuts and need Band-Aids. I knew I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up, so this book...
A Southern Medical Device AND Courtship Aid
A Southern Medical Device AND Courtship Aid If you’re from the South, or have spent any time in Charleston, SC, you know what a joggling board is. We have one on our Atlanta patio, a gift years ago from my proper Southern in-laws. But I never knew it was originally a...