This is an excellent 1953 article on the beginnings of forensic science. It covers the establisment of a forensic school at harvard, the switch from untrained coroners to skilled medical examiners and all sorts of modern forensic techniques. It also has pictures of amazingly detailed models made to recreate crime scenes for instructional purposes.

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Mysterious Death Their Business

By Richard F. Dempewrolff

Death from causes unknown is a phrase that will drop from its too frequent use in the nation’s homicide files if a new kind of investigator has anything to say about it.

Today, on en upper floor in a remote wing of the Harvard Medical School, an eerie atmosphere hangs over a certain laboratory headed by pathologist Dr. Richard Ford. Called the Department of Legal Medicine, its business is concerned with unexplained death.

Sightless eyes stare at intruders from a row of life-sized plaster heads of murder victims—one with slashed throat, another with a bullet hole drilled through one temple, trickling a painted red stream against its death-white cheek. Beneath them, rows of plaster chest sections are perforated with accurately simulated bullet holes and powder burns typical of wounds inflicted by various-caliber bullets at varying distances.

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Self-Administered Anesthetic
Medical and dental patients can administer a mild anesthetic to themselves with a bulb-operated instrument designed to relax nervous tension. The instrument fits over the patient’s nose. In his hand he holds the rubber bulb which administers the analgesic. When he relaxes he automatically stops pumping the bulb but can resume pumping at any time. The relaxed stage lasts from 1 to 1 1/2 minutes and leaves no ill effects.

Err… Great. Thanks. How’s work going on that new air conditioner. You know, the one that can freeze a person solid in half an hour?

Lamp Sunburns in 20 Minutes
A NEW kind of glass used for the bulbs of ultra-violet lamps makes it possible to get a sunburn in 20 minutes. Termed a “soft” glass it transmits 50 per cent more of the ultra-violet energy generated in the lamp. This new lamp has found immediate use in the medical field for the treatment of skin diseases and for the cure and prevention of rickets.

So says Charles Atlas.

If You Had Only 10 Days to Live
Suppose doctors said you had only ten days more to live! What would you give to have another ten YEARS of life? “Anything in the world !” you would say. Unfortunately, it would be too late. NOW, while you have many years more to live, is the time to fortify yourself against later troubles.

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Surgical Mask Made From Transparent Material
INVENTED by a well known doctor, a new type of surgical mask is constructed from transparent material and, due to its flexible metal frame, can be instantly adjusted to fit the contour of the face. By permitting lip reading, the transparent mask enables doctors and nurses to converse more conveniently during an operation. An opening in the bottom of the mask permits air to circulate.

Words I never thought I’d say: “Wow, that girl in the Iron Lung looks sexy!”

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Metal Lungs Give Life

DEATH stands at the hospital bedside, waiting. Beneath the covers, a gasping youngster rights for breath. He is a’victim of infantile paralysis. Slowly, cruelly, the dreadful fingers of paralysis clutch at the chest muscles which pump the breath of life through his body. Soon those muscles will cease to function and the youngster will cease to breathe.

But death has not reckoned with the mechanical ingenuity of man.

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Really interesting article from the 40’s about combating VD. Both in terms of medical treatment (the new wonder drug penicillin) and in terms of health education (removing the taboo from talking about VD). It’s also really interesting to see the how little has changed in regards to the balance between curing illness and “promoting sexuality”. This quote from the article:

Not all experts see this as an unmixed blessing. Dr. John Stokes, syphilologist of the University of Pennsylvania, is worried about the effect on morals. “If extramarital sexual relations,” he has said, “lead neither to significant illness nor unwanted parenthood, only a few intangibles of the spirit remain to guide children of the new era from an outmoded past into an unbridled future.”

Is very similar to this one regarding the recent HPV vaccine

“Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV. Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.” - Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council

The basic idea being that people should be punished for having sex outside of marriage.

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The New Attack On Venereal Disease

Tent shows, hill-billies and a new drug are some of the weapons which may relegate syphilis and gonorrhea to the text-books in a few years

A carnival tent show in a Michigan State Fair (top photograph and opposite page) and a little bottle of creamy white liquid (above) are the new shock troops in a two-front war against venereal disease. Between them, they may wipe out this scourge of mankind within the next ten or twenty years.

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Helmet Helps Smog Study

The lady under this plastic headpiece is getting a dose of smog, made up of smoke and fog. Photoelectric cells attached to glassless goggles record blinks due to eye irritation. She reads a book to produce uniform reactions. The test is part of a study being made by Stanford Research Institute to find out more about the smog that often blots out Los Angeles’ sunshine.

I’m not sure what’s scarier, the picture of children in gas masks, or the horse wearing one.
And I love that they insist that being exposed to mustard gas is really no worse then getting a bad sun burn.

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GAS MASKS FOR ALL

ENGLAND is manufacturing 30,000,000 gas masks for civilians at the rate of 250,000 per week. By the end of the year they will be stored at convenient centers available for instant use. Italy has decreed that every new house constructed must have a concrete anti-gas shelter in the basement in accordance with government specifications. Masks are sold in Rome on the installment plan.

French drug stores sell masks. Russia has devised special models for children and conducts gas as well as fire drills in schools. Germany and every other European country have provided masks and fume-proof shelters for civilians operating electric power plants and other vital services. A Czech manufacturer is marketing a mask with a telephone and microphone attachment for the conduct of business as usual in spite of gas.

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This reminds me of the playdough barber shop I had when I was a kid. The one where you stuffed a plastic head with playdough then rammed it through holes in the scalp like a pasta machine.

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Scalp specialists know that good, rich blood circulating in the deep-seated blood vessels of the scalp nourishes the hair roots, aids in arresting abnormal loss of hair, helps to produce hair growth. It is known that VACUUM and PRESSURE around scalp, applied intermittently and properly controlled, is highly effective for forcing fresh, stimulating blood deep into these blood vessels. One way to do it has been found in the regular use of Crosley XERVAC-that popular hair and scalp device used so successfully in barber shops and clinics.

Write for New Rental Plan Learn how you can RENT the new compact home model XERVAC and use it in your home for a small rental fee. Try it, watch results. Get the benefits of this amazing device on easiest possible terms. No obligation —just write

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Should you ever need one, here are detailed instructions on how to make your own
iron wooden lung.

Amazingly, in a later issue they have a little notice saying that due to the huge response the magazine got about this article they were offering a large set of blue prints and templates. I guess a lot of people actually built these.

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Emergency Wooden Respirator

Could a life have been saved in your community if a mechanical respirator had been at hand for immediate use? Often just a matter of minutes means the difference between life or death for a little child stricken with polio, or a victim of drowning or a paralyzing accident. Here’s a chance for every community to be ready at little expense for such emergencies. Members of clubs and civic organizations can do a great service by making one of these respirators and placing it in competent hands. Save a life — maybe your own.

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This is a surprisingly honest, un-biased and well researched article about marijuana from 1968. It’s kind of sad that essentially nothing has changed in this debate since this article was written.

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THE TRUTH ABOUT POT

• Is marijuana addictive?
• Does it have bad physical and mental effects on the user?
• Does its use tend to increase crime?

Here are the conflicting opinions of leading experts on this highly controversial subject.

By Robert Gannon

After reviewing Mr. Cannon’s article on marijuana, “The Truth about Pot,” a consultant for the American Medical Association had this to say: “This is an excellent article. The author has done a wonderful job of making some legislative zealots look ridiculous simply by quoting their exaggerated statements and reciting the disconcerting facts.”

The great debate about marijuana ranks closely behind Vietnam and civil rights as one of the top issues of our time. And as the number of pot users grows, so does the controversy in which marijuana is called everything from a menace to a harmless delight.

    What is the truth about this strange drug? Here is an in-depth report on the nation’s pot problem and what science has learned so far about its effect on those who use it.

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