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Context.--In the early 1900s, it was common practice to retain, prepare, and display instructive pathologic specimens to teach pathology to medical trainees and practitioners; these collections were called medical museums. Maude Abbott, MD, established her reputation by developing expertise in all aspects of medical museum work. She was a founder of the International Association of Medical Museums (later renamed the International Academy of Pathology) and became an internationally renowned expert on congenital heart disease. Her involvement in the Canadian Medical War Museum (CMWM) is less well known. Objective.--To explore Abbott's role in the development of the CMWM during and after World War I and to trace its history. Design.--Available primary and secondary historical sources were reviewed. Results.--Instructive pathologic specimens derived from Canadian soldiers dying during World War I were shipped to the Royal College of Surgeons in London, which served as a clearinghouse for museum specimens from Dominion forces. The Canadian specimens were repatriated to Canada, prepared by Abbott, and displayed at several medical meetings. Abbott, because she was a woman, could not enlist and so she reported to a series of enlisted physicians with no expertise in museology. Plans for a permanent CMWM building in Ottawa eventually failed and Abbott maintained the collection at McGill (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) until her death in 1940. We trace the CMWM after her death. Conclusions.--Sadly, after Abbott had meticulously prepared these precious teaching specimens so that their previous owners' ultimate sacrifice would continue to help their military brethren, the relics were bureaucratically lost. doi: 10.5858/arpa.2017-0425-HP, Maude Abbott, MD (1869-1940) (Figure 1) is one of the best known Canadian physicians of the 20th century. (1-5) In addition to having important and well-known roles in the founding [...]

Recent historical research has analysed the Cold War as an 'imaginary war', an interpretation that poses specific challenges for displaying the conflict in museums. In contrast to well-established representations of the First and Second World Wars in exhibitions, we find that the nature of the Cold War in Europe and the North Atlantic has made it difficult to tell stories of victimhood, heroism and military valour. Moreover, the memory and heritage of the Cold War have often been presented as monolithic and lacking specific chronologies, adding to the difficulty of telling stories through objects. This article explores how selected museums and exhibitions in the UK and Germany have addressed this double challenge. We examine how the conflict is portrayed, how buildings, images, text and artefacts interact in selected museums and exhibitions, and how they generate specific interpretations. We show these interpretations to be diverse and fractured: each museum chose different paths to staging the Cold War. From their comparison, in the context of heritage studies, we make the case for a distinct museology of the Cold War. We argue for a reflective approach that encourages the engagement of museum and heritage professionals with diverse material culture, filling the 'empty battlefield'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the natural history of museums in England. Number of natural history museums; Forms and functions of the collections; Management of the collections by the civic elite.