Stories from collections
The ballpoint pen replaced the refillable fountain pen in popular use in the 1960s. Since then, many accessories for fountain pens, such as ink bottles, cartridges and blotters, have largely vanished from desks and offices, and fountain pens have become collector’s items. Our object of the month, a wooden ink blotter, dates back to a period when fountain pens were still widely used. Its original owner was President and Professor Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg.
Our object of the month in February is an embroidered piece of cloth from Eastern Karelia, brought over by Aino Ollila during the Continuation War between the Soviet Union and Finland (1941–44). Ollila was a craft teacher and member of the auxiliary paramilitary Lotta Svärd organisation for women, and this piece of cloth is part of a collection of Karelian embroidery samples. The object is a white linen cloth embroidered with a stylised bird in red thread and a folded and sewn hem at the bottom. On the right is the selvedge, the bound side edge of the fabric. The top and left edges have been cut with scissors. The embroidery threads have snapped at the left edge, which indicates that the embroidery was originally wider and the piece has been part of a larger cloth, possibly a rushnyk (in Finnish käspaikka), a long, narrow cloth common in the Karelian and Eastern Orthodox cultures. Although that is just about all we know about this particular piece, it can still tell us quite a bit about Finnish history.
This time our object of the month is a soda bottle. It has never contained a beverage, however. It has been used to store and transport blood for transfusions. In addition to a flip-top bottle, the set includes a needle, a rubber bulb syringe, and a metal cannula that branches into two detachable rubber tubes. Unfortunately, as is often the case with old objects, the rubber parts are perished and in quite bad condition.
“A love of flowers and children was one of Sophie Mannerheim’s defining features,” writes Tyyni Tuulio in a biography of Mannerheim. Upon her 60th birthday, Mannerheim received a photo album as a gift from the Children’s Castle hospital she had established. Enclosed within the album’s brown leather covers are 26 black-and-white photos of the old Children’s Castle and its patients and staff. This photo album is our object of the month.
This summer and autumn, the Helsinki University Museum reviewed its fascinating collection of over 2,000 chemical substances, including drugs, samples, analysis series, teaching collections and dental fillings.
To celebrate the end of this review, nicknamed the Poison Project, the object of the month in November is the liniment known as ‘Wise old woman’s ointment’, which intrigued the museum staff participating in the project. We would like to remind all readers that the drugs and recipe mentioned in this text are historical, and we do not recommend that you prepare or use them at home.
Viisaan muijan voide, or Wise old woman’s ointment, is a liquid medicine brushed or rubbed on skin. Liniments have been used for various ailments, such as rheumatism, sprains and burns. They were manufactured in pharmacies or on commission.
Continue reading “Wise old woman’s ointment: Highlights from the museum’s chemicals project”
Old objects are usually not to be touched in exhibitions, but the meteorite at Helsinki Observatory is an exception to the rule. Despite being far older than any other object at the Observatory, the public are expressly invited to touch it. To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Observatory’s permanent exhibition, our object of the month in October is the meteorite at Helsinki Observatory.
Continue reading “Heaven on Earth: The meteorite at Helsinki Observatory”
Henrik Gabriel Porthan (1739–1804), librarian and professor of rhetoric and verse at the Royal Academy of Turku (the predecessor of the University of Helsinki), was a popular figure during the period of national awakening in 19th-century Finland. He is considered the father of Finnish historiography. The University of Helsinki’s Galleria Academica portrait collection contains a large number of sculptures, including a marble bust of Porthan wearing a wreath and a toga – our object of the month. The artist who created this work is Swedish-born Carl Eneas Sjöstrand (1828–1906). The sculpture is fairly heavy, coming in at 82.5 cm in height, and is accompanied by a mahogany pedestal measuring 151 cm.
After the end of the Second World War in 1945, Yrjö V. Paatero, Doctor of Dental Science, worked at the University of Helsinki’s Institute of Dentistry, overseeing X-ray examinations and diagnostics. He longed to do research work, but had little time for it because his days were filled with routine tasks. At the time, dental X-rays were taken by placing a film in the patient’s mouth time and again because several X-rays had to be taken to determine the condition of the entire dentition. Paatero was keen to find a less time-consuming solution, and the seed of the idea of panoramic radiography began to germinate. However, the road to this point had been far from simple, and several stumbling blocks still remained.
Continue reading “Dental panoramic radiography – A Finnish invention”
This time, our object of the month is a farrier’s wooden toolbox, originally given as a present to Veterinary-Colonel Georg Öhman (1891–1957) in December 1941 – not for Christmas, but for his 50th birthday.
Tartu Ülikool saab 30. juunil 390-aastaseks. Tähtpäeva puhul on kuu eksponaadiks eestlaste esimese üliõpilasorganisatsiooni tekkel, aga juttu tuleb ka nõukogudeaegsest üliõpilasmütsist ja tudengite teklitraditsioonist laiemalt.
Continue reading “Eesti tudengite värvirikas teklitraditsioon”