by James Raia

Created on: November 13, 2009

One day about 25 years ago, Dr. Robert LaPerriere answered a 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

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>