Who was Ten Broeck after whom the eponymous tissue homogenizer (Ten Broeck or Tenbroeck) is named?
For Dounce there is a Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Dounce).
But where does this design come from:
http://wheaton.com/1-ml-tissue-grinder-tenbroeck.html
Hi Michael,
I don't know :) However, I have a possible avenue to explore:
The name seems Dutch or Low German, which is claimed on genealogy site MooseRoots (at http://names.mooseroots.com/l/315588/Ten-Broeck), "Dutch (Ten Broek) and North German: topographic name for someone who lived by a marsh or swamp (to den broek ‘at the creek’), from Dutch, Low German broek."
Dutch ancestry is consistent with the centering of the Ten Broeck surname in the United States in New York (the city of New York was originally a Dutch colony). Colonization seems to have spread the name to the Southern United States (e.g. Alabama and Kentucky) 150-200 years after the surname arrived in New York.
Wikipedia's disambiguation page for the name at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Broeck_(disambiguation) lists one doctor famous enough to have a reference included, but no corresponding page exists. His name was P.G.S. Ten Broeck, reportedly a "mid-19th-century US Army physician and amateur ethnologist". Most other online sources I could find seem to have harvested that tidbit of information regarding P.G.S. Ten Broeck from Wikipedia.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has a photograph of P.G.S. Ten Broeck at http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101416196. He does look like a "mid-19th-century US Army physician" in the photograph.
Google Scholar shows the following article with a reference to P.G.S. Ten Broeck:
FJ Dockstader. Hopi History, 1850-1940. Handbook of North American Indians, 1979, http://www.azwater.gov/AZDWR/SurfaceWater/Adjudications/documents/Hopi2ndSuppIndex/HP19655-HP19657.pdf
Dockstader says, "During, the next decade, Americans are known to have entered Hopi country in increasing numbers. In 1851, Fort Defiance was established as an outpost to protect the region against the marauding Navajo; from it ventured various military personnel, either on official business or simply as early-day tourists. One such was Dr. P. G . S . TenBroeck, who is known to have made several visits in 1851-1852 (Schoolcraft 1851-1857, 4)."
Schoolcraft seems to be a reference to the the American anthropologist Henry Schoolcraft.
Search engine suggestions pointed me to a possible alternative spelling, "P.G.S. Ten Broecke". Google Scholar has the following citation using that spelling, which resolves the Schoolcraft reference:
PGS Ten Broeck. Manners and customs of the Moqui and Navajo tribes of New Mexico, in Information respecting the history, condition and prospects of the Indian tribes of the United States by Henry R. Schoolcraft, vol. 4, pp.72-91, 1852.
The following article, found via Google Scholar, claims that P.G.S. Ten Broeck was "Assistant Surgeon of the United States Army". A PDF of that article is available via JSTOR:
A Brief History of the San Juan Paiute Indians of Northern Arizona
ALLEN C. TURNER and ROBERT C. EULER
Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology
Vol. 5, No. 1/2 (Summer and Winter 1983), pp. 199-207
http://www.jstor.org/stable/27825143
Similarly, a PhD thesis from the University of Maryland referenced a letter to P.G.S. Ten Broeck complaining of the state of U.S. Army camp cleanliness:
Thomas Marshall Hunter. Medical service for the Yankee soldier, PhD thesis, UMD, 1952.
http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/17476/DP70129.pdf
So, was P.G.S. Ten Broeck the inventor of the tissue homogenizer? I still don't know.
Regards,
Dave
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Anatomy
- Tissue