The upstairs section of the Bowman Museum in Prineville feels like an old home. Warm wood tones complement the collection of antique furniture, clothing and artifacts. But stepping inside the room at the far end of the hall is a much different experience. The room feels cold and clinical, with linoleum tiles and stark white walls.

This look, explains collections care manager Brittany Shunk, is entirely intentional. The goal is for people to feel as if they have stepped back in time into a medical exam room from the 1940s.

The space houses the museum’s new permanent exhibit that focuses on Crook County’s medical history.

The collection is fascinating, featuring scary-looking medical instruments and interesting stories from the area’s earliest medical providers. Many of the items in the exhibit were featured in the museum previously, but they were easily overlooked, as there were no labels or descriptions attached to the artifacts.

But now items — like the chair where tonsillectomies were performed and the personal electric shock devices people used in the hopes of curing arthritis or straightening their hair — are given their proper due.

Early days

The first doctor who served in Prineville came to the area in the 1870s. The self-taught Dr. Larkin Vanderpool became famous for selling tonic throughout the region to help with coughs and croup. Shunk enjoys relaying fun stories about past doctors, like how Vanderpool made a special bargain with members of the community: If a family chose to name a baby that he delivered after him, Vanderpool would put $100 in the bank in the baby’s name.

Another doctor from that time liked to take the coroner with him on a lot of cases, “to kill two birds with one stone,” said Shunk, who referred to the era of gun fights and horse accidents as very Old West.

There are fascinating relics in the museum collection, including a quarantine notice from a smallpox outbreak in 1903. The local paper ran a list of everyone who was infected, who had died, and who in town might be able to help sick people. Shunk also pointed to an interesting plaque, which featured a young man named Ed Harbin who was immune to smallpox. Because of this, he served as the center of town life during the outbreak — he delivered mail and groceries and much more.

Artifacts

A video playing in the exhibit tells about the early medical conditions in Crook County. The video was produced in 1948 during a campaign to raise money to build a hospital. Until that time, patients were treated in homes that had been converted to hospitals. The video shows men carrying patients on stretchers up sets of stairs in front of the homes.

The baby boom at the time created another problem. The hospitals filled up with babies, and photos show babies in wooden crates stacked on top of one another.

“People did what they had to do with what they had,” said Shunk. She explains that the community raised all of the money to fund Pioneer Memorial Hospital alone, with no help from federal grants.

Dr. Raymond Adkisson was a doctor in the community for many decades, practicing from the 1920s to the 1970s, said Shunk. He purchased a home that was converted into a hospital. The museum features many artifacts from Adkisson, including some of his signs. “He was a huge influence in the medical community,” said Shunk.

One particularly interesting piece from Adkisson is a chair designed for tonsillectomies. Patients would sit in this metal chair to receive ether. Then the doctor would remove the tonsils.

“This kind of thing is terrifying,” said Shunk.

And there are plenty more terrifying things to consider. A display case shows off several electric shock machines from the late 1800s and early 1900s, which people voluntarily used on themselves. Accompanying pamphlets suggest the devices can be used to cure any number of ailments (and fix unruly hair). On a lower shelf is a device used on tuberculosis patients to collapse the individual’s lung, which was thought to be an effective treatment at the time.

There is also a drawer filled with creepy-looking obstetrics devices, which Shunk jokingly calls the “scary lady drawer.” Nearby is a mechanical urethral dilator. There is also a skull drill, catgut sutures, an abdominal retractor and a scalpel kit.

Shunk says people can appreciate “how far things have come.” She also thinks it’s impressive to think about one doctor using all of these tools — there were no specialists, so the man who delivered your babies also checked your eyesight.

Now the once state-of-the-art hospital, which the community so proudly built on its own in the 1950s, is becoming out of date. A new hospital is in the works. But while Prineville is moving forward with medical technology, it’s also preserving the very interesting past as well.

— Reporter: 541-617-7860, ajohnson@bendbulletin.com

“People did what they had to do with what they had.” — Brittany Shunk, collections care manager, Bowman Museum