Sacramento's Museum of Medical History: Not-So-Modern Medicine

One day about 20 years ago, Dr. Robert LaPerriere answered an newspaper advertisement for used glass and discovered pieces of his profession's history.

"I saw this little ad, 'Bottles For Sale' and I went out this desolate area in South Sacramento," LaPerriere recalled as if his find was last weekend. "This woman had gone up in the attic after her father died and there were boxes and boxes of old bottles. It was all or none . . . all or none."

Empty pint liquor bottles without labels and huge quantities of condiment bottles meant nothing to LaPierriere. But the now-retired Sacramento dermatologist also found four bottles bearing other physicians' words. The bottles provided permission for legal use of alcohol during Prohibition.

One of the labels reads: "One tablespoon if in distress."

"I had to buy a whole carload of bottles to get the four 'em, but I've never regretted it," LaPerriere said. "It's the only four bottles I've ever seen with the doctor's labels still on them."

The small bottles sit on rest inside one of many glass cased in the Museum of Medical History. It's located in a 1,200-foot square-foot extension of the Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society (SSVMA).

California's oldest medical association, SSVMA is located in a nondescript office complex at 5380 Elvas Ave. in Sacramento. The side of building faces the street, further hiding its identity to casual passersby. A few few months ago, however, a new modern building sign was erected. It includes, for the first time, the museum's name.

Despite its new identification, the Museum of Medical History is anything but conspicuous along East Sacramento's neighborhood speedway. Building visitors have to walk no farther than to the front glass-door entrance to get an abrupt indoctrination to medical history. That's the location of the museum's showcase iron lung and its resident dummy occupant. And it's the exact location of more than one new building guests' alarming reaction.

The iron lung, a massive steel respirator predominantly used prior to the invention of the polio vaccination, rests in the hallway. It's flanked by a few glass cases full medical history artifacts, including an exhibit on the history of quackery.

After a quick right turn and a few paces' walk through double doors, the museum proper unfolds in one open room. Its hundreds of objects offer a condensed yet thorough retrospective of the last century-plus of medicine.

Wooden wheelchairs to 100-year-old stethoscopes, person-to-person blood transfusion kits to 1920s x-ray machines, the museum is replete with startling reminders of medicine's evolution.

Civil War amputation kits, ether masks, wooden braces and mannequins in dressed in old woolen nurses' uniforms share space with dozens of doctors' instruments, elixir bottles and pill tins.

"It puts what's happening development-wise into perspective," explained LaPerriere, who often emerges from a small, crowded office to greet museum visitors. "It shows how rapidly the field of medicine is advancing.

"There were relatively few advancements up until the late 1800s, and then there was antibiotic era of the 1940s. But now you can look in the newspaper and every week or every couple of days and there's some new advancement of medicine. It makes people appreciate just how rapidly we're advancing and it makes people appreciate what people went through."

LaPerriere's collecting interests began with coins and stamps. He collected bottles for years, and as a physician had an early appreciation for the tools and history of his occupation. The museum includes a medical library and donations from many collections. Donations have increased since the museum's increased public exposure. But a good share of offerings are part of LaPerriere's personal collection.

Fifteen years ago, SSVMS's historical committee produced a medical history exhibit for the Sacramento Discovery Museum. When the exhibit ended, many of the artifacts were displayed throughout the association's office building.

In January 2000, the Paul Guttman Library closed, and its location was dedicated and remodeled as the Museum of Medical History. Open since November 2001, the museum is frequented by random individuals and by those LaPerriere calls "professional museum goers." Elementary and high school students often visit on school tours or as part of a medical study program at Encina High School.

"The children who visit really have no reference point," LaPierriere explained. "The may have heard of something like bleeding from their studies, but they've never seen the instruments or had a concept of how brutal medicine was back in the 1800s."

(The Museum of Medical History, 5380 Elvas Ave., is open weekdays (except holidays) 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. A docent is usually available 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday. Private and school tours are available by appointment. Donations are accepted. Telephone (916) 456-3152 or visit the web site: http://www.ssvms.org for more information.)