Evening star. [volume], May 16, 1948, Page 5, Image 94

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
"I never fall asleep here like in my physiology
class.”
Motto of the myth-debunking institution
is ‘‘Health Through Knowledge.” A Food
Facts and Fallacies exhibit asks such simple
questions as: ‘‘Is fish brain food?” “Are raw
eggs more digestible than cooked eggs?” If
you don’t already know, you lift a wooden
flap to learn why the answer in both cases is
“No.”
Near by, another nutrition game tells how
many calories some everyday foods contain.
One confused junior miss inquired, “How
many calories are there in a pound?” The
display is effective, though. Since it opened,
doughnut (400 calories) and pie-a-la-mode
(600 calories) sales slumped 40 per cent in a
near-by cafeteria.
Tw Cu Im Tknmgk Him
But the museum’s most popular exhibit is
the celebrated Transparent Man. A $25,000,
life-size model, its “skin” is clear plastic
through which you can plainly see bones,
blood vessels, shape and position of internal
organs, as well as the nervous system. Inter
nally illuminated by colored flashes in a dark
ened room, the Transparent Man holds visi
tors in awe at the human body’s magnificence.
Delighted children have nicknamed him the
Wonder Man. Skin Man, Cellophane Man
and even Superman.
European “born,” the Transparent
Man was brought here by the museum’s
guiding genius, Dr. Bruno Gebhard. A
dynamic, imaginative, 47-year-old naturalized
American, he was formerly curator of the
Dresden Hygiene Museum which was de
stroyed during a World War II raid. Dr. Geb
hard became a voluntary German exile in
1937 after refusing to join the Nazi Party.
Coming to New York as a World’s Fair tech
nical consultant, he designed most of the
exhibits in the Hall of Man.
Shortly afterward, Dr. Gebhard landed a
new assignment. The late Elisabeth Prentiss,
a fine-arts patron, donated her Cleveland
home and a half million dollars to start the
first U. S. health museum. Now supported by
two endowment funds, contributions and
memberships, the non-profit museum — since
opening its doors eight years ago — has been
Cleveland’s health conscience and clearing
house.
Behind the main stone-brick building lies
a bustling workshop where most of the wood
KWHT BMLDCI Matthew De Marco pat* fobbing toadies an a brand-new baby
en, plastic and cardboard models are designed
and constructed. A few are borrowed, like
the "Mechanical Quackery” display. This
shows how unsuspecting health seekers have
been swindled by such phony gadgets as
gas-pipe cures, dimple-makers, goiter neck
laces, tapeworm traps, poison extractors.
To inoculate as many people as possible
against ignorance and misinformation, ex
hibits are loaned to schools, factories, con
ventions, department stores, county and
state fairs. Duplicates of models have been
sold to grateful customers as far away as
China and South America. A “floating health
center” off the Alaskan coast recently re
quested some exhibits not requiring electric
ity. For every museum visitor, 10 persons are
reached outside its walls.
Of those who patronize the museum in per
son, two thirds are adults — an unusually
high figure for museums. But plenty of frisky
grade schoolers are intrigued by the trick
gadgets — to the chagrin of near-by skating
rink and soda-fountain owners. One nine
year-old confided, “I like the skeleton best
because he’s so ugly and dead-looking.”
Considering that all the exhibits are un
guarded, museum theft is negligible. The only
item regularly disappearing is the ten-penny
nail in the “What Are You Made Of” display.
Instead of containing “|ugar and spice and
everything nice,” the exhibit consists of a
lump of carbon, several quarts of water, a
tiny heap of yellow phosphorus and the irre
sistible nail (representing iron). Total pre
inflation worth: one dollar.
"PImm Tall M* — "
For people with health problems, the muse
um’s convenient Question Box answers every
thing — with the aid of the American Medi
cal Association’s Health Education Bureau.
Men ask: “How many ribs have I?” “Will
a tattoo give me an infection?” “Which
European families are bleeders?” Shortly after
Pearl Harbor an anxious male pumped:
"If I am cross-eyed in both eyes, have bad
teeth and smoke like a railroad engine, will
I be drafted?” After F.D.R. died many in
quired: “What is cerebral hemorrhage?"
Women’s questions run all the way from,
"How can I get rid of rats in my living-room
wall?” to “What causes snoring?”
Stork-minded women ask the knottiest
questions. “Send me all that's necessary to
know for having a baby,” ordered one.
Another pleaded: “1 am eighteen, a bride,
and have reason to believe I am going to
have a baby. Please tell me exactly what
is happening throughout my body.”
Another wrote: “I am pregnant. Should I
have my teeth pulled?”
Both men and women are fascinated by
the museum’s 100 original reproduction mod
els done by Obstetrician Robert L. Dick
inson and Sculptor Abram Belslrie. Plastic
replicas of these three-dimensional miracle
of-birth sculptures are sold to medical and
nursing schools, marriage counselors and
planned-parenthood groups.
1 o accommodate parents and teachers not
wishing to expose youngsters to the raw facts
of life, another floor shows the life processes
of the birds and bees.
The museum’s puberty exhibit portrays
sex glands, first menstruation and puppy love.
Psychologists contend it has helped many a
teen-ager over physical, mental and emo
tional hurdles.
Cleveland’s trail-biasing health muse
um has already been used as a pattern
for two others recently started in Dallas
and Mexico City. So contagious is the idea
that New York, San Diego, Pittsburgh and
other communities are seriously considering it.
But compared to Europe, which had a
dozen health museums before World War II,
the U. S. has been slow in getting started.
We would be a healthier nation if we had more
health museums, medical leaders point out.
Dr. Gebhard would like to see a chain of
them like dime stores'from coast to ooast.
“Every city with a 250,000 population should
have one,” he contends.
And why not? In the words of St. Augus
tine, emblazoned atop the Transparent Man’s
revolving pedestal: “Man wonders over the
restless sea, the flowing water, the sight of
sky; and forgets that of all wonders, man is
himself the most wonderful.” The End
FATHER AND SON test lung capacity. Father's going to cut down smoking
ftUMT EU shows not only how you (war, but how you hoop your bolonco