Exploring the Midwest with Jody Halsted

Modern medicine is pretty incredible. But have you ever stopped to wonder how we got this far?

This episode features the Indiana Medical History Museum. Sarah Halter is Executive Director at the Museum.

Indiana Medical History Museum - Old Pathology BuildingClick here to add this to your Midwest Travel board on Pinterest!

About the Indiana Medical History Museum

Stepping into the Indiana Medical History Museum is like stepping back in time. The musuem has a long and interesting history and is a place where you can explore the beginnings of psychiatry and modern medicine in a historic setting.

Central State Hospital

Central State Hospital opened in 1848 as the Indiana Hospital for the Insane. It was the first state mental hospital in Indiana and covered 160 acres on the west side of Indianapolis.

The Indiana Hospital for the Insane was in line with the "moral treatment movement" -- that things like fresh air, sunshine, architecture, and daily structure were all therapeutic. This was in opposition to the previously dominant idea that people who suffered from mental illnesses were innately "bad" and were being punished by God for their moral failings and were not worthy of or beyond help. This movement helped replace the "asylum" movement that came before, where patients were basically treated like prisoners.

Autopsy Table in Amphitheater

Old Pathology Building

In 1893 the superintedent of the hospital came up with a radical idea for the time -- they could study the patients and their mental illnesses, like they did with other diseases, and find out what caused them and how best to treat them. The Old Pathology Building opened in 1896 as a cutting-edge research facility dedicated to researching the causes and treatments of conditions like schizophrenia, depression, general paresis, hysteria, alcoholism, senile dementia and epilepsy.

The building remained open as a working laboratory until 1968, when funds ran out to continue to run it. Within a year, it reopened as a musuem, with all of the equipment remaining just as it had been as a lab. The Old Pathology Building is the oldest surviving pathology facility in the nation and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Histology Lab

Visiting the Musuem

Visiting the Indiana Medical History Museum is literally like stepping back in time because the scientifically equipped interior of the building was left virtually intact and untouched when it closed as a working lab. The museum only offers guided tours because everything is out in the open. Nothing is behind glass or behind ropes. Visitors can get the full immersive experience of a pathology hospital.

Visitors can explore the:

* teaching amphitheater* laboratories for bacteriology, clinical chemistry, histology, and photography* library, reception room, and records room* autopsy room* anatomical museum, which houses preserved specimens -- mostly brains -- organized by pathology* exhibit dedicated to family physicians who practiced in the Hoosier Heartland, featuring the intact office of Dr. Marion Scheetz of Lewisville, Indiana

Learning Patient Stories

Since so much of the treatment of mental illness throughout history really dehumanized the patient, the Indiana Medical History Museum wanted to be able to tell the sto...

Not all museums are huge places with priceless works of art or historical revelation. Some museums begin with a passion and a collection. The Paul A. Johnson Pencil Sharpener Museum is one of those places.

Karen Raymore, Executive Director for Explore Hocking Hills, provides details about this fascinating, wee museum.

The Pencil Sharpener Museum

The Paul A. Johnson Pencil Sharpener Museum is located at the Hocking Hills Regional Welcome Center in Logan, Ohio. Logan is in the southeastern part of Ohio and sits along the Hocking River. It is just 48 miles southeast of Columbus.

History of the Museum

Reverend Paul Johnson began collection pencil sharpeners after his wife gave him a few. From there, his passion -- and his collection -- grew. People learned he loved pencil sharpeners and began giving them to him as gifts. He and his wife traveled internationally as missionaries, and some of the sharpeners came from those trips. In time, his collection began to overtake his house, so he built a shed on his property and created a tiny museum for his pencil sharpeners.

Rev. Johnson put up a sign in front of his museum with a phone number and said to call if you wanted a tour. He loved giving tours to visitors and showing off his collection. In fact, sometimes to add to his collection, he would have to buy a dozen or so of the same pencil sharpener to get one to put in his museum. He would give away the others to people who would come and visit.

About 10 years ago, the shed was moved to its current location at the Hocking Hills Regional Welcome Center. Before it was moved, Rev. Johnson and his wife, along with Karen Raymore from Explore Hocking Hills, photographed where every sharpener sat on every shelf so the museum was put back together exactly as it was originally.

Highlights of the Collection

The museum, which houses more than 3,500 different pencil sharpeners, is reputed to be the only museum of its kind in the world and the largest collection of its kind in the country. The museum contains one of the first pencil sharpeners ever invented, as well as the patent papers.

One of Rev. Johnson's most prized sharpeners was one depicting the Twin Towers. Being a veteran of World War II, he also had several military-themed pencil sharpeners. From farm implements to animals to surfboards, you can find just about any type of pencil sharpener in the museum.

Hours

The Paul A. Johnson Pencil Sharpener Museum and the Hocking HIlls Regional Welcome Center are open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.

Other Activities in Hocking Hills, Ohio

Hocking Hills is most known for Hocking Hills State Park, which is the most visited state park in Ohio. It's actually six non-contiguous sites that are under the umbrella of the Hocking Hills State Park.

* Ash Cave -- The largest recessed cave east of the Mississippi, Ash Cave has a horseshoe-shaped rim is 700 feet across as well as a runoff waterfall.* Cantwell Cliffs -- One of the most remote areas of Hocking Hills, Cantwell Cliffs offers hikers both high rim trails that showcase breathtaking vistas and a valley trail, where hikers can feel dwarfed by the high cliffs. * Cedar Falls -- With water plunging 50 feet, Cedar Falls is the most photographed waterfall in Ohio. Funny enough, it does not contain any cedar trees.

you may love it, or you might not be a fan, but it seems everyone has feeling about SPAM, Hormel's infamous canned meat.

Today's guest is Savile Lord, manager of the Spam Museum, Community Relations and Archives in Austin, Minnesota.

When you think about a coastal getaway you likely think of places on an ocean, or maybe the gulf. But Shelly Harms, Public Relations Director for Visit Sheboygan, is going to introduce you to the 'Malibu of the Midwest' - in Wisconsin!

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