AUA Summit - Behind the Scenes: The Western Section Donation to the Didusch Museum
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  1. Home
  2. The Scope of Urology Newsletter
  3. Issue 10 - Summer 2022
  4. Behind the Scenes: The Western Section Donation to the Didusch Museum

Behind the Scenes: The Western Section Donation to the Didusch Museum

We have written before in this newsletter about a donation of medical instruments from the Western Section of the AUA (issue-4-winter-2021/western-section-of-the-aua), and we are now in the slow process of examining and accessioning that donation.  We are finished with the first 6 boxes – 10 more to go!

Since the Development of the Resectoscope exhibit at AUA Headquarters is my absolute favorite display to show non-medical visitors (so comprehensible and so gory!), I was delighted to discover an early Braasch-Bumpus punch within the boxes. 

While the Didusch Museum has a wonderful display of punch instruments (many from a 2006 Western  section donation), including an early Braasch punch (see below, ca. 1918), I had never seen a Braasch-BUMPUS punch.

Museum Braasch Punch sections

Reading what I could find on the punch (Twelve Years’ Experience with the Braasch-Bumpus Resectoscope by Ben Massey and Improved Model of the Braasch-Bumpus Punch by Raymond Tyvand), I found myself confused.  Is this a Bumpus improvement?  Or a Braasch punch much like the one the Didusch Museum has on display?

I am hoping one of our readers can help with identifying this instrument.  Email archives@auanet.org if you have any suggestions to offer; I would love to know more. 

In the meantime, if you have not come across this excellent article (See One, Do One, Modify One: Prostate Surgery in the 1930s), I offer it here for your medical/historical enjoyment, as well as a quote from Dr. Massey’s article:

When Doctor Bumpus and I established practice in 1934, I shared his firm conviction that the cold knife resectoscope was the safest instrument, gave the patient the best result -with the lowest morbidity. The experiences of the past 12 years have strengthened these convictions.

Tupper Stevens, MLS
Manager, Museum and Archives