Dermatome
date: label: date made
content: ca 1938
notes: label: Description
content: A dermatome produces thin slices of skin from a donor, for use in skin grafts. Earl C. Padgett, head of the plastic surgery department at the University of Kansas Medical Center, imagined such an instrument. George J. Hood, a professor of Engineering Drawing at the University, helped with the development. Hood applied for his first patent on the device in 1938. Padgett displayed an early model at a medical meeting in 1939. Hood’s son gave this example to the Smithsonian. An inscription reads in part: “THIS IS AN EXACT REPRODUCTION . . . MECHANICAL DERMATOME . . . AND INVENTED BY EARL CARL PADGETT . . . WITH THE TECHNICAL . . . GEORGE J. HOOD”
label: Description
content: Ref: George J. Hood, “Dermatome and Method of Excising Skin,” U.S. Patent 2,288,709 (July 7, 1942).
label: Description
content: “Athlete’s Foot of the Hand,” Newsweek 17 (May 19, 1941): 70.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.M-12233
label: catalog number
content: M-12233
label: accession number
content: 273847
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Dermatome
label: Object Name
content: dermatome
label: Other Terms
content: Dermatome; Medicine
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 3/4 in x 8 3/4 in x 5 5/8 in; 9.525 cm x 22.225 cm x 14.2875 cm