The International College of Surgeons

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March 10, 2020  |  By Max Downham

EPI-WIN Update 15 on COVID-19

The International College Of Surgeons is a nongovernmental organization in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO). In that capacity, we have received and make available WHO’s latest release concerning COVID 19. Any questions concerning the information should be directed to WHO.

UPDATED: March 10, 2020

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About Us

The International College of Surgeons (ICS) is a global organization dedicated to bringing together surgeons and surgical specialists of all nations, races, and creeds to promote surgical excellence for the benefit of all of mankind and to foster fellowship worldwide.

 

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The International College of Surgeons (ICS) is a global organization dedicated to bringing together surgeons and surgical specialists of all nations, races, and creeds to promote surgical excellence for the benefit of all of mankind and to foster fellowship worldwide.

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LATEST INSTAGRAM POSTS

Happy Women's History Month! Take 20% off in our g Happy Women's History Month! Take 20% off in our gift shop through 3/31/21 with code WOMENSHISTORY ✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
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What strong women in your life are you celebrating this month? 🏋🏾‍♀️👸🏽👩🏻‍🔬
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Head to the link in bio and click “Museum Store” to shop! 🛍 
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#IMSSChicago #WomensHistoryMonth #Sale
Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, known as the first f Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, known as the first female Indigenous North American doctor, was born on the Omaha reservation in eastern Nebraska in 1865. Indigenous communities have long had their own systems of healthcare, so while Picotte was of course not the first Indigenous woman healthcare provider, she was the first to earn an institutionalized medical degree.
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At eight years old, Picotte watched over the sickbed of an elderly Indigenous woman who died in great pain because the white agency doctor never arrived. Picotte believed that this was because the sick woman was Indigenous and therefore “did not matter” to the doctor. This formative traumatic experience inspired her to become a licensed doctor so that she could serve her community’s medical needs herself.
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In 1886, Picotte was accepted to the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and won funding for her tuition and living expenses from the “Women’s National Indian Association,” a group that aimed to “civilize” Indigenous communities through matron missionaries. Susan graduated medical school at the top of her class in 1889.
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Picotte returned to the Omaha reservation where she was born and became responsible for the health of over 1,200 people. She carried on working even after the birth of her children, whom she would often bring on house calls. She was particularly dedicated to preventing the spread of tuberculosis, which killed hundreds within the Omaha community, including her husband. Picotte also raised money to build a hospital, which subsequently was named after her—it was the first hospital on any reservation not funded by government money.
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While Picotte’s story is groundbreaking, it is important to recognise the sacrifices she made in order to serve her community. In order to advocate for her people, she had to conform to powers that sought to eradicate her culture and impose their own. Although Picotte died over a 100 years ago, Indigenous North American people still face these same challenges today.
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#IMSSChicago #SusanLaFleschePicotte #IndigenousHistory #WomensHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #HistMed #MedicalHistory
Did you know that one of America’s first pediatr Did you know that one of America’s first pediatricians also became the world’s oldest doctor? Leila Denmark (1898–2012) practiced medicine until she was 103, when deteriorating vision forced her to retire. Denmark started her career in 1928, the same year that Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean and Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. At the time of her death, aged 114 and 2 months, she was the 3rd oldest verified person in the US and the 5th in the world.
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However, Dr. Leila Denmark’s longevity was not even the most interesting thing about her! Leila was born in 1898 to a large farming family in Bulloch County, Georgia. Initially Leila pursued a career as a science teacher, but quickly felt that her vocation lay in practicing medicine. Despite facing misogyny and prejudice, she graduated from the Medical College of Georgia in 1928 — she was the only woman in her cohort of 52 students.
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After completing various internships and residences in the field of pediatrics, Dr. Denmark opened her own practice in Atlanta. She gained a reputation for being dedicated to her community. She was always accessible to those who needed her help: she kept her practice either in her home or close by so she could be available quickly whatever the hour, she forwent hiring receptionists and nurses in favour of keeping her fees at an affordable price, she donated her time to the Central Presbyterian Church’s charity baby clinic, and was known to be generous with her time when new mothers needed her expert advice.
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She was also a straight talker, admitting that “when a mother asks, 'Doctor, what makes my baby so bad?'" she was likely to get the answer, ‘Go look in the mirror. You get apples off apple trees.’” In 1932, an epidemic of whooping cough spread through Atlanta. Denmark, moved by witnessing the suffering of so many children in her community, conducted research into the disease and codeveloped the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine with Emory University and pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly. She was awarded the Fisher Prize in 1935 for this work.
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#IMSSChicago #WomensHistoryMonth #WomenYouShouldKnow #WomenInSTEM
NOW OPEN! Kioto Aoki: Breathe, Fibres of Papers Pa NOW OPEN! Kioto Aoki: Breathe, Fibres of Papers Past
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Breathe, Fibres of Papers Past is a solo exhibition by Fall 2020 Artist-in-Residence Kioto Aoki (@photoandkioto) constructed in conversation with the collections of the International Museum of Surgical Science. The exhibition intertwines the histories of medical imaging, anatomy, physiology, the Museum’s origin and physical architecture through the technological studies and processes of analogue photography. Adjacent explorations of the physicality of the body and the photographic image proposes Aoki’s work as a sinew that negotiates the poetic ambiguities of embodied time – whilst considering the notion of fibre in biological, material, conceptual and historical contexts.
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The exhibition will run through June 13, 2021.
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#IMSSChicago #ArtistInResidence #KiotoAoki #Photography #ContemporaryArt #MedicalImaging #Architecture #anatomy #Physiology #Film
Happy birthday to the founder of the International Happy birthday to the founder of the International Museum of Surgical Science, Dr. Max Thorek! Dr. Thorek (1880-1960) was born in a small town in Hungary to two physicians. His father was a general practitioner and his mother a midwife. In the late 1800s, when the persecution of Jewish communities began in Hungary, he and his parents fled to America and settled in Chicago. He always knew that he wanted to be a physician like his parents, and attended the University of Chicago and Rush Medical College. He went on to found the International College of Surgeons, the parent body of the International Museum of Surgical Science. When the Museum first opened in 1954, it was called the International College of Surgeons Hall of Fame.
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While Dr. Thorek was a successful surgeon, he also possessed talents as a scientist, musician, and author, and was an internationally acclaimed amateur photographer. He established the Photographic Society of America in 1934, which still exists today, and wrote two books on photography. Copies of his books “Creative Camera Art” and “Camera Art as a Means of Self-Expression” will be on display beginning this Friday as part of our Artist-In-Residence Kioto Aoki’s (@photoandkioto) solo show “Breathe, Fibres of Papers Past.”
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#IMSSChicago #MaxThorek #HistMed #KiotoAoki #ContemporaryArt
OPENING FRIDAY! Kioto Aoki: Breathe, Fibres of Pap OPENING FRIDAY! Kioto Aoki: Breathe, Fibres of Papers Past
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Breathe, Fibres of Papers Past is a solo exhibition by Fall 2020 Artist-in-Residence Kioto Aoki (@photoandkioto) constructed in conversation with the collections of the International Museum of Surgical Science. The exhibition intertwines the histories of medical imaging, anatomy, physiology, the Museum’s origin and physical architecture through the technological studies and processes of analogue photography. Adjacent explorations of the physicality of the body and the photographic image proposes Aoki’s work as a sinew that negotiates the poetic ambiguities of embodied time – whilst considering the notion of fibre in biological, material, conceptual and historical contexts.
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The exhibition will run March 12-June 13, 2021.
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#IMSSChicago #ArtistInResidence #KiotoAoki #Photography #ContemporaryArt #MedicalImaging #Architecture #anatomy #Physiology #Film
In honor of Women’s History Month, we are shinin In honor of Women’s History Month, we are shining the spotlight on surgeon and astronaut Rhea Seddon. Growing up in the 1950s in Tennessee, Rhea figured she would become a stay-at-home mom, just like her own mother. However, her life diverged from that path when she decided to pursue a degree in physiology from the University of California. She was 1 out of 6 women in her class of 100 students, and was the only woman in her surgical residency.
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Some years later, when she was a practicing surgeon, one of her medical colleagues asked her, ”What would you be doing if you weren’t taking care of sick people?” She replied, “I would be an astronaut.” Unbeknownst to her at the time, this colleague had done some research for NASA.  A week later he approached her and told her that NASA was planning to train a new group of astronauts to fly the Space Shuttle, including women for the first time. Rhea saw her opportunity and jumped at it.
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She applied to NASA’s astronaut program and was accepted. She attributes part of her success as an applicant to her medical background and the fact that she held a private pilot’s license. She undertook 7 years of training and embarked on her first mission in 1985 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. In 1993, as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, she performed many scientific and medical experiments including the first ultrasound of a human heart in space. Her NASA career afforded her three Space Shuttle missions, logging of 722 hours in space and orbiting the Earth 480 times.
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While working for NASA, she met a fellow astronaut by the name of Robert Gibson and married him in 1981. They had 3 children together. She retired from NASA in 1997 and was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2015.
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Photo courtesy of the Tennessean.
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#IMSSChicago #WomensHistoryMonth #RheaSeddon #Surgeon #Astronaut #WomenInSTEM
Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951) was a tobacco farmer a Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951) was a tobacco farmer and mother of five who loved her family and community, going dancing with her cousin Sadie, and painting her naiIs her signature red color. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks presented at Johns Hopkins Hospital complaining of a ‘knot’ on her cervix, bleeding, and pain. A biopsy of the tumor was taken by surgeon Howard W. Jones and was found to be cervical cancer. Henrietta died of her cancer the same year.
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Without Henrietta's permission, samples of her cancer were sent to cell biologist George Gey who discovered that the cells could survive and continue to divide outside the body, thus being termed the first ‘immortal cell line’. The HeLa cell line has been a vital component of many scientific advancements, such as polio eradication, genome sequencing, and space microbiology. Lacks’ family had no knowledge of this until decades later when researchers contacted them asking if they would provide DNA samples themselves, causing the family a great deal of pain.
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Despite the advancements achieved through the use of HeLa cells, there are still issues of informed consent and power dynamics to be considered. Her surgeon Jones had been quoted saying that "due to the large indigent Black population, [the hospital] had no dearth of clinical material" and biologist Gey was a self-confessed "vulture." It is clear that staff at the segregated hospital positioned themselves so that they had access to Black bodies. Whilst Henrietta’s cells launched a billion dollar industry, the Lacks family continued to live in poverty. The ethical argument that the propagation of the HeLa line was for the greater good is less persuasive considering that Black people continue to have less access to care and face discrimination in the medical field. The Henrietta Lacks Foundation was founded not only to help the Lacks family and descendants of the members of the Tuskegee experiments pursue careers in medicine, but also to help them gain access to medical care such as dental care and cataract surgery.
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#IMSSChicago #HenriettaLacks #BlackHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #HistMed #MedicalEthics
Did you know that Chicago is home to the first Afr Did you know that Chicago is home to the first African American-owned and operated hospital in America? Provident Hospital was founded by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, who was noted for his work within the cardiology field and in 1913 was elected as the only African-American charter member of the American College of Surgeons.
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Provident Hospital was founded in 1891 as a response to the racism African-American patients experienced when they tried to access medical care. The community envisioned a new concept: a facility that would accept all patients, regardless of race, creed, or ability to pay — a truly visionary institution when we think of both the financial and racial inequities that still inhibit access to healthcare today. The hospital and many of its later endeavors were directly funded by Chicago’s Black community themselves through collecting donations, organising rallies, and garnering support from public officials, church leaders, and civic leaders. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass notably gave a donation to support the hospital’s expansion in 1896.
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Provident Hospital was the first private hospital in the state of Illinois to provide internships, postgraduate courses, and residencies for Black physicians, the first institution to establish a school of nursing for Black women, and the first Black-owned hospital to be approved by the American College of Surgeons for full graduate training in surgery.
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Fun Fact:  Provident Hospital was also the birthplace of first lady Michelle Obama in 1964!
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Due to financial difficulties the hospital closed in 1987, but was reopened in 1998 as part of the Cook County Hospital System. The hospital is now known as Provident Hospital of Cook County.
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For more information on Provident Hospital, visit imss.org and click on Online Exhibitions. Image courtesy of the Provident Foundation.
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#IMSSChicago #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackHistory #ProvidentHospital #DanielHaleWilliams #HistMed
On March 11th, IMSS is doing a virtual program in On March 11th, IMSS is doing a virtual program in partnership with @atlasobscura! See below for details on Tales From the Museum w/ Kylie & Zak: The International Museum of Surgical Science.
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"Join Kylie Holloway and Zak Martellucci for an insider experience of the museums you miss the most. On each show, we’ll celebrate an incredible museum and the people who work to make it great. We’ll explore the strange, sublime, and secret stories behind the work on display and we’ll close out the show with an exclusive conversation with a guest expert about the collection and how the museum world is coping with this uncertain time. Since we can't get to most museums in person at the moment, we're bringing you their amazing stories via a virtual presentation!
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For this experience, we'll be exploring the stories from The International Museum of Surgical Science and talking with Miranda Pettengill, Manager of Education and Events!"
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Visit our website (link in bio) and click "Programs" to find the ticket link.
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#IMSSChicago #AtlasObscura #TalesFromTheMuseum #MuseumFromHome
Only one week left to see 𝑯𝒀𝑺𝑻𝑬𝑹 Only one week left to see 𝑯𝒀𝑺𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑰𝑨! The exhibit will be open through Thursday, February 25th.
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𝑯𝒀𝑺𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑰𝑨 is a solo exhibition by Spring 2020 Artist-in-Residence Selva Aparicio (@selvaaparicio) designed in conversation with the collections and exhibitions at the International Museum of Surgical Science. With a focus on the fragility of life and the implications of gender, race, and power dynamics in medicine, Aparicio draws on her own experiences to explore the innate power of liminal objects like the gynecological exam table and an assortment of forceps and specula at the heart of her exhibition. 𝑯𝒀𝑺𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑰𝑨 centers both the memories imbued within and the imprints of past patients upon these enduring pieces to explore the nature of womanhood as a condition defined by conflict, pain, and transition, constantly positioned at the very precipice of life and death.
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𝑯𝒀𝑺𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑰𝑨 invites viewers to consider the effects of the institutionalization of medicine and subsequent imposition of strict boundaries in relation to gender, race, and authority in its most basic practice. The professionalization of gynecology in particular is a central theme in Aparicio’s work as it saw women removed from centuries-old positions of authority in favor of their textbook-educated male counterparts and the exploitation of marginalized women in the name of advancement and innovation.
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Like curtains in an examination room, Aparicio juxtaposes historical artifacts and natural materials to manifest these boundaries in the reflective process and represent the limitations of medical practice and long-standing social conventions. Utilizing thorn stems and ligature, the ephemerality of nature is contrasted with the rigidity of western medical practice and the unyielding conventions that inform consent, agency, and bodily autonomy.
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Photo by @robertchaseheishman.
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#IMSSChicago #SelvaAparicio #ContemporaryArt #ChicagoArtist #Thorns #Gynecology
The Museum is closed again today due to the severa The Museum is closed again today due to the several feet of snow currently blanketing the city. It’s like a freezer out there, which is great for dead body preservation, but not awesome for living people.
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During the Renaissance, chilly weather was perfect for performing public dissections. These popular events usually took place in the winter in order to prevent the bodies from decomposing too quickly. This is a scale model of the anatomical theatre in Padua, Italy, the first permanent anatomical theatre in the world. Imagine this theatre full of spectators crowded into each balcony level, each peering intently downward to watch a body being dissected. There was no Netflix in 1595, so public dissections were the next best thing.
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Socially distanced public dissection image by Jackie Guataquira.
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#IMSSChicago #SnowDay #PublicDissection #Anatomy #HistMed
Due to the mountains of snow currently overtaking Due to the mountains of snow currently overtaking Chicago, the Museum is closed today, 2/15/21. Stay safe and warm! ☃️❄️🌨
Happy Valentine’s Day! Did you know that the fir Happy Valentine’s Day! Did you know that the first condoms were made to prevent syphilis, not pregnancy? They also only covered the head of the penis, meaning that they didn’t prevent much of anything at all.
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Syphilis is a horrible disease. It is often called “the great imitator” because its symptoms mimic so many other diseases. 
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Because it’s also Black History Month, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention one of the true horrors with syphilis at its center: the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.”
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In 1932, a study began on 600 Black men—399 with syphilis, and 201 without. These men, from rural backgrounds, whose parents had been enslaved, were told that they were getting treatment for “bad blood”. In fact, they weren’t being treated at all, and instead scientists were studying the natural progression of syphilis.
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The study had no process for informed consent, and it went on for 40 years, only ending in 1972. The men who were a part of this study didn’t know that they were infectious, and passed on the disease to their partners, who sometimes had children born with syphilis as well.
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So today we want to remind you to wrap it up, make sure you get tested for syphilis and other STIs frequently, and remember that it is thanks to 600 Black men that there is mandatory informed consent in medicine (just like there should be if you’re engaging in any romantic activities tonight). 💖
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Photo courtesy of the National Archives.
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#IMSSChicago #ValentinesDay #HistMed #Syphilis #Tuskegee
Some people want buns of steel, but here at IMSS w Some people want buns of steel, but here at IMSS we’ve got lungs of iron! They may not be as healthy as buns of steel, but they are a useful tool.
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This iron lung, in a gorgeous seafoam green (the next color trend for medical equipment, we’re pretty sure), helped those who suffered from loss of muscle control and became unable to breathe on their own.
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Though commonly used for polio survivors, negative pressure ventilators are also used in cases of botulism and cases of poison. There were even conversations about using iron lungs to supplement the number positive pressure ventilators in our current pandemic! A potent reminder that understanding modern medical decisions requires an understanding of the past.
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#IMSSChicago #IronLung #Polio
Treat yourself! Whether you're spending Valentine' Treat yourself! Whether you're spending Valentine's Day socially distanced or snuggled up with a loved one, the time is always right to snag some goodies.
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USE CODE VDAY21 FOR 20% OFF! CODE VALID THROUGH 2/14/21.
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Hit the link in bio to shop! Discount does not apply to products under "Local Artists."
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#IMSSChicago #ValentinesDay #ValentinesDaySale #MuseumStore
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