Corey Fitzpatrick Blog #2: What could this be?

What is this object? A pharmaceutical? Maybe it's a food? Wait...is it actually quackery?

For the nearly 1500 uncatalogued artifacts that I had been assigned to process, I needed to ask that question first: What category does this object fit in?

The categories include: Pharmaceuticals (100); Biologics (200); Foods (300); Medical Devices (400); Cosmetics (500); Veterinary Products (600); Inspection Equipment (700); Laboratory Equipment (800); Quackery (900); Ephemera (1000); Pesticides (1100); Colors (1200); Consumer Products Safety Items, Child Health Items, etc. (1300); Tobacco (1400). Many of the categories also include sub-categories. For example, the 310s are Food Supplements like vitamins and dietary supplements. The 940s are specifically Quack Devices (like the Manhood Belt or the Relaxacizor) while the 910s are Quack Pharmaceuticals (the snake oil that enterprising gentlemen of all centuries continue to peddle without mercy). Some objects could fit into multiple categories. This came in question with a bottle of 1916 medicinal whiskey. Alcohol is a drug, so could it fit in the 100s (Pharmaceuticals). Maybe it should be in quackery (the 900s) because it did not exactly treat the illnesses as it had promised. In the end, I decided that it was a food (300s).

 

2016.300.78.426

The bulk of my internship begins with determining what category an object fits in. But that’s only the first step in getting each artifact accessioned into the FDA History Office’s collection. Eventually each object will earn its own individual classification number. The way a classification number is generated is:

Year Object Acquired.Object Category.Donor Code.Index Number.

So, for example, Bayer Cough Syrup for Children has a classification number of:

2017.100.62.1573

This means that the FDA History Office acquired the specific artifact in the year 2017. The object category is a 100 (Pharmaceutical). The Donor Code is 62 to show that it is one of the objects donated by a specific donor (in this case Linda Amendt, CBER). And the artifact is the 1573rd object in the Pharmaceutical category (the 100s).

The next steps include inputting all available information–physical description, researched background details, overall condition–about the artifact into the EMu Collections Management System. The artifact will then be photographed and tagged with its classification number, before getting stored in its proper locker. Once that’s done, it’s time to move to the next object.

 

My dungeon office!

Before transitioning to the EMu Collections Management System, the FDA History Office relied on spreadsheets to hold all the artifact information. By the time of my arrival, the spreadsheet printout was as thick as a 1950s law textbook (In the event of a robbery, I could do some serious damage defending the FDA’s collection!). Searching for a specific artifact was a cumbersome exercise–involving turning page after page and squinting one’s eyes until finding that exact classification number. But the transition to the online EMu program allows that search to be completed in a matter of moments–all with only the strike of a few keyboard letters and the click of a computer mouse. 

You want to see the artifacts acquired in 2012? Here you go. How about the quackery donated by the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices (donor code: 48)? No problem at all. What about all the pharmaceutical (100s and 910s) that include the ingredient of cocaine? Well, I could show you what we have but I might need to ask a follow up question or two!

As with any automated transition, there have been a few bumps in the road. Some of the artifact photographs were mislabeled. A few classification numbers got duplicated. An artifact’s information may have never made it into EMu. Whenever I run into any inconsistencies, I report the issue to my supervisor and we think of a remedy. Overall, the problems have been few and far between. By the time of this blog post, I have accessioned nearly all of the 1500 artifacts that my contract stipulated.

For my last post, I will give my final impressions about my internship–what I’ve learned and what I hope to take with me in my career going forward!