Friday Foolery #46: What's an Eagle Dawg?

This entry tells the story but it's at the bottom. The original reason for this blog was to participate in a continuing education class that required one, thus I had to come up with a name for it.

Eagle

UNT EagleStatue by David@UNT

The eagle is the mascot of the University of North Texas, where I received my Master of Science in Information Science degree in December 2007. The Eagle not only sounds better first, but needs to be thanks to an overwhelmingly generous fellowship UNT awarded me for distance learning health informatics in conjunction with Texas A&M University (why I quoted the Aggie Honor Code on my Clinical Reader critique). I not only didn't pay a dime of my tuition but I received a stipend and funding to attend professional conferences. I was given so much that I am grateful for, and will give back the best I can to the field until I drop dead.

Dawg

Husky statue, University of Washington by cronnc

The dawg is my Seattle home, the University of Washington Huskies (DAWGs). I have been a UW employee continuously for eleven and a half years now, almost completely unheard of for a thirtysomething, and UW is also where I (finally) received my Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Sciences and Communication in 2005 thanks to the evening degree program. They believed in me to finish my undergraduate education when I did not fully believe in myself, yet the birth of our son made me realize I had to as an example for him even though I was scared out of my wits.

Friday Foolery #41: 150 years ago tomorrow

Oregon Trail mural Conestoga by mharrsch

In the words of her son, written sometime in the 1930s, a not-so-foolish but true story about my pioneer great-great-great grandmother. I don't have an ounce of her stamina.

I am now to record an event that was of common occurrence, but would no longer be considered possible among normal persons. William D. McIlroy and his wife Elizabeth had started the long journey into the wilderness with full knowledge of the fact that far out in that land of peril a child would be born to them. No physician was in the wagon train and no supplies such as we consider indispensable at the present time. There would be no place to go to for help or to purchase needed material or medicine. Among the pioneer people it was the custom to call in any woman of middle age who had been a mother to help the mother to be in the delivery of the baby. In older established settlements a regular midwife was generally available.

At Grass Springs, west of the summit of the Rocky Mountains, on July the 4th 1859, Sierra Ella McIlroy was born. She was their first child. The wagon train was delayed only one day because of the event, and still all went well with mother and child.

Can you imagine?

The family 1870 Bible page records Grass Springs as 8 miles west of Big Sandy River at Grass Springs then in what was known as Oregon Territory some 20 or 30 miles East of the East Fork of Green River on what was called Lander Cutoff on the road between the Mississippi River and Pacific Coast.

Sadly, the same Bible also records Sierra's death September 21, 1864 at about 4:00 PM at Hope Farm Prairie, Skookum Chuck, Lewis County, Washington Territory. Cause of death was diphtheria, she lasted about 5 hours and her throat closed. Age 5 years, 2 months and 17 days.


Happy 150th 4th of July birthday, great-great-great aunt Sierra. You were clearly way ahead of your current popularity and I wish DTap was around back then for you.

Remembering the US Army: the National Library of Medicine's beginnings

Did you know the National Library of Medicine (NLM) was created by and existed for the United States military for much longer than it currently has served the American people through a Congressional mandate in 1956?

In 1818 the first Surgeon General of the United States Army, Dr. Joseph Lovell, dedicated some shelf space to medical books, journals and pamphlets to serve as reference for surgeons under his command. This small collection was officially named the Library of the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army in 1836, although by the 1860s Joseph Woodward was not impressed and stated, "At the time the late Civil War broke out nothing deserving the name of a medical library existed in Washington."

Despite low beginnings the collection grew and by 1895 under the direction of John Shaw Billings it contained medical literature from nearly every era and nation. After President Lincoln's assassination in 1865, the government purchased Ford's Theater and the collection, medical records and an Army museum were housed there. There were additional moves and a few name changes to Army Medical Library in 1922, then Armed Forces Medical Library in 1952.

For much more detail see Milestones in NLM History, A Brief History of NLM, and FAQ: History of the National Library of Medicine.

On April 15th, I thanked American taxpayers for sustaining NLM. On this Memorial Day, I thank the American military for creating & curating it for so many years in addition to our country's freedom.

Friday Foolery #23: My total failure as a 19th century mom

I was having fun browsing the NCBI Bookshelf and came across this gem from The Care and Feeding of Children: A Cathecism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses by Dr. L. Emmett Holt, published by D. Appleton & Company in New York, 1894. This admonition is from the Miscellaneous section which is mostly focused on poop details (potty training at 3 months?!), just like many parents of babies are still 115 years later.