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Activity 3.8.6 Exploring Medical Museums and Archives



Instructions

1. Watch the video on The Adler Museum of Medicine.

2. View the presentation on the Adler Museum of Medicine by Prof Catherine Burns.

3. Explore some of the links we have provided to global museums of medicine.

4. There are 3 questions in this worksheet. Answer the questions below.


Global Medical Museums Links

Below are several links to medical museums that you can explore:






Archive PDF’s for Points of Reference:


Find all resources in this folder, here.


Question 1

On what page of the Adler Inventory of the Archive will you find any information on Prof J M Watt?

(Note we have provided you with a PDFof this in this folder, here. -- but it is also available on the Adler Museum of Medicine website.)


- Editorial : Appreciation of the “Literary Expression” of the Adler Museum, An / Watt, J M (1975) Vol.1 No.2 : 1

- Memories of the Medical School of the University of the Witwatersrand - Part 1 / Watt, J M [Emeritus Professor] (1976) Vol. 3 no. 1 : 6-8

- Memories of the Medical School of the University of the Witwatersrand - Part 2 / Watt, J M [Emeritus Professor] (1976) Vol. 2 No. 3 : 11-18

- Professor John Mitchell Watt (1892–1980): Wits’ first Dean of Medical School and a pioneer of ethnopharmacology / Williams, VL; Watt, JM; Watt, JM (2012) Vol. 38, No. 2 : 18-26


Question 2

Scroll through the Adler Bulletin’s inventory -- this is a journal devoted to the history of medicine in South Africa. (Note: It is available online, but we have provided you with a pdf of this in this folder, here.)

When you have looked at some titles of interest, open up the journal edition from 2012, Volume 38. Look at the articles and locate the one on the life and work of Prof Watt. Read it and answer this question:

Who was the main co-author in his research and his laboratory as well as field studies -- through the 1930s and into the early 1960s -- of the pharmacology of Southern Africa's herbal and medicinal plants?


Dr Maria Gerdina Breyer-Brandwijk4 (1899–1994), initiated and co-authored the now world-famous book The Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of Southern Africa in 1932,5 and the revised and more comprehensive second edition The Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of Southern and Eastern Africa in 1962.


Question 3

On what page of the Adler Inventory of Official Publications -- SA and UK -- will you find a reference to the 1919 Public Health Act of South Africa?

Open up a link to the PDF of this Act and explore its Contents Page. Consider the relevance of the title of Chapters II and III of the Act to our situation today!


Vol. 14 7 GOVERNMENT OF SOUTH AFRICA Page.18

7.1 ACTS/BILLS.

1919 Public Health Act, 1919 (Public Health Act, 1919 as amendment by Act no. 57,

1935; 1940; 1946; no. 44, 1952; no. 60, 1956; no. 71, 1959, no. 33, 1961)


Question 4

Open up the PDF article about a herbalist called Louisa Mvemve.

Full citation:

Burns, C. (2006). , “The Letters of Louisa Mvemve,” in Africa’s Hidden Histories (ed) Karin Barber. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,pp. 78–112.

As you will see from the article, Louisa Mvemve was a healer and herbalist, born in the Eastern Cape, who came up to the Witwatersrand area during the post WWI era (after 1914). She lived and worked in and around Johannesburg and East Rand and met Prof Watt at this time. See if you can find a reference to Prof Watt in the article about Louisa Mvemve, and then quote the section that refers to him below, with the correct page number.

Watt,]" and M. Breyer-Brandwijk. 1932. The Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of Southern Africa. Edinburgh: Livingstone.

“After a period in the Eastern Cape in the 1920s, Mvemve quickly

reestablished herself on a farm in Hastings Road, Brakpan, where within a

short time she had cultivated a large herbarium, which was sought out by such experts in pharmacology as Professor Watt from the University of the Witwatersrand.” [page 103]
















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