Carla Valentine

Carla Valentine Instagram – Slightly late (because of my exploding eyes…!) the Carlaween Countdown continues with this, an “X-Ray Phantom”, which is a gorgeous medical specimen of a fully articulated human foot set in lucite. Lucite is a plastic (poly methyl methacrylate) and when it was first created in the 40s/50s it became very popular in the manufacture of jewellery, accessories and furniture. It does go by the names acrylic, Plexiglass or Perspex and sheets of it make up our plastic ‘pots’ in the museum. This piece, however, utilises lucite as a resin which in that form is often used for animal preservation rather than humans. The above, however, is an X-ray phantom used for training and you can buy all sorts of these on the internet: hands, knee joints, pelvises etc. Before – once X Rays were discovered around 1896 – the techs used their own hands etc to train on (in fact Rontgen, who discovered them, used his wife…but that’s in another post.) This use of living humans to test the rays led to serious physical complications and if I’ve not posted the sad story of our own Ernest Harnack yet I will soon. That’s why these phantoms were created. In my opinion, if I could take every teaching specimen from my collection at the museum (by which I mean those which are more recent, and kept on the upper floors) and entomb them in lucite resin it would be wonderful! No crappy acrylic/Perspex ‘visijars’ which leak fluid (Kaiserling III) from the joints. No evaporations of fluid through micropores in the plastic, no cloudiness or globules of flat which need to be removed/cleaned and no spontaneous explosions (due to high internal pressure). I LOVE LUCITE!!! Also, am I the only one who thinks “X-Ray Phantom” is a fabulous superhero name? ☠
#humanremains #lucite #carlaween #acrylic #plexiglass #perspex #visijars #specimen #specimens #wetspecimen #severedfoot #specimenconservation #technicalcurator #pathology #medicalmuseum #anatomy #halloweencountdown #halloween2023 | Posted on 18/Oct/2023 15:27:12