Johns Hopkins Fetal Collection

Adolf Schultz, a leading 20th century primatologist and anatomist, worked at the Johns Hopkins Medical school from 1916 to 1951. He visited the Hamann Museum of Comparative Anatomy and Anthropology at Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) several times to examine the specimens in that collection of human skeletons.

One of his interests was human embryology, and he collected 112 human fetal skulls from still births of that era in Baltimore, Maryland.  When Schultz returned to his native Zurich in 1951 the collection of fetal skulls was left behind.

Another Hopkins anatomist, Dr. David Bodian, was a member of the Western Reserve University’s anatomy faculty during WW II.  While he was in Cleveland, he saw the collections held at the university. Later, Dr. Miguel Schön, a colleague of his at Hopkins, suggested that Schultz’s collection would fit in well and be better preserved at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. As Director of the Department of Anatomy at Hopkins, Bodian arranged with Dr. Harold Mahan (then the director of the Museum) to have the collection transferred to The Cleveland Museum of Natural History on a permanent loan basis in 1973.

The collection was promptly accessioned by Pat Helwig, and was the subject of further analysis by Dr. M. Y. El Najjar in 1976.  Recently it was the subject of a Master’s thesis by Jennifer Way in 2003.

Bibliography

Erikson, G. E. 1981. Adolph Hans Schultz, 1891-1976. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 56: 365-371

Way, J. L.  2003. Fetal and sub adult age estimation using the os temporal pars petrosa: Accuracy of quantitative and qualitative criteria. Department of Health Sciences, Cleveland State University: Cleveland, Ohio, 44115.