MEET THE COLLECTION
NEW Feature! Check back here for periodic updates. We will feature cool items from the IMHM Collections and post updates about related projects.
November 8, 2025: Kylie Barkley, Graduate Student Intern from IU Indianapolis
Object: Thwaites Dental X-ray Unit
Manufactured by: Thwaites X-ray Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A.
Significance: Professor Wilhelm Roentgen accidentally discovered X-rays on November 8, 1895. Roentgen, a physics professor in Wurzburg, Germany, experimented with cathode rays, which are electrons discharged from a vacuum tube when heat is applied to the tube’s cathode. During one of his experiments, he noticed that an unknown green light permeated through the tube. Later, Roentgen realized that the green light could pierce through most materials and it created shadows when it encountered solid objects. He referred to the green light as an “X-ray” since “X” often represented an unknown phenomenon during this period. Roentgen tested the X-ray on human tissue by taking a radiographic image of his wife’s hand. After seeing her bones and ring on the radiographic image, Anna Bertha Ludwig told her husband, “I have seen my death!.” After Roentgen’s discovery, X-rays were widely adopted in Europe and the United States. In 1901, Roentgen won the first Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the X-ray. The Thwaites Dental X-ray Unit was patented in 1920 and utilized Roentgen’s invention to perform dental exams.
Sources:
https://www.brownhealth.org/be-well/x-ray-day-and-evolution-diagnostic-imaging
https://columbiasurgery.org/news/2015/09/17/history-medicine-dr-roentgen-s-accidental-x-rays
https://medicalmuseum.health.mil/index.cfm/visit/exhibits/virtual/xraydiscovery/index
https://sindecuse.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/CAFDA0EF-94C1-4186-90B9-260751317600
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cathode%20ray
https://www.brownhealth.org/be-well/x-ray-day-and-evolution-diagnostic-imaging
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cathode%20ray
https://columbiasurgery.org/news/2015/09/17/history-medicine-dr-roentgen-s-accidental-x-rays
https://medicalmuseum.health.mil/index.cfm/visit/exhibits/virtual/xraydiscovery/index
https://columbiasurgery.org/news/2015/09/17/history-medicine-dr-roentgen-s-accidental-x-rays
https://sindecuse.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/CAFDA0EF-94C1-4186-90B9-260751317600
October 29, 2025: Kylie Barkley, Graduate Student Intern from IU Indianapolis
Object: Diseases of the Female Mammary Glands (1837) by Th. Billroth, M.D.
Published by: William Wood & Company (donated to Central Indiana Hospital for the Insane in 1896)
Significance: October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which has educated the public about breast cancer and raised funds for research since 1985. Notably, knowledge of breast cancer has been around for over two thousand years. In Ancient Greece, Hippocrate
s argued that breast cancer was a systemic disease, or a disease that affected the entire body rather than a specific part of the body. His ideas remained unchallenged until the eighteenth century. During this period, Henri Le Dran was the first physician to recommend surgical removal of tumors after discovering that breast cancer was not a systemic disease as posited by Hippocrates. Based on Le Dran’s work, William Stewart Halsted performed the first mastectomy (i.e., removal of the breast) towards the end of the nineteenth century. This method, known as the “Halsted mastectomy” would become one of the most popular treatments for breast cancer until later advancements in surgical methods, radiation, hormone therapy, and chemotherapy in the twentieth century. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, physicians often learned about breast cancer and treatment methods through books like Diseases of the Female Mammary Glands.
Sources:
https://www.brownhealth.org/be-well/breast-cancer-awareness-month-when-why
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9222657/
https://www.brownhealth.org/be-well/breast-cancer-awareness-month-when-why
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9222657/
September 28, 2025: Kylie Barkley, Graduate Student Intern from IU Indianapolis, commemorates the 97th anniversary of the discovery of penicillin, by sharing an object from our Pharmaceuticals Collection.
Object: Bicillin (Benzathine Penicillin G in Aqueous Suspension) Multiple-Dose Vial
Produced by: Wyeth Laboratories Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Significance: September 28th marks the 97th anniversary of the discovery of penicillin, which has saved millions of lives. Penicillin is an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, including strep throat, meningitis, syphilis, ear infections, and pneumonia. On September 28, 1928, physician and scientist Alexander Fleming observed that a mold from the Penicillium genus had developed on a Petri dish containing staphylococcal bacteria. He noticed that the mold destroyed the bacteria and later discovered that it worked against other diseases like scarlet fever and meningitis. The scientific community initially ignored Fleming’s findings; however, renewed interest in penicillin led to the mass production of the antibiotic in the 1940s. Fleming and his colleagues Howard Florey and Ernst Chain won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945.
