A Repository for Bottled Monsters: Eye Prosthetics at Walter Reed

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center has a weekly newspaper, Stripe. This article is from last week's edition.

Who are we?

The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 during the American Civil War. After World War II, a parent-child relationship was inverted and the Museum became part of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Since then, the Museum has moved around Washington, stopping for years in Ford's Theatre, and on the National Mall where the building it shared with the National Library of Medicine once stood, until it was demolished in 1968 for the Hirshhorn Museum. Currently, the Museum is at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in northwest Washington, and is open 10:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. every day except December 25th. Visit the official Web site for more information.

More particularly - Mike Rhode is the archivist of the museum and can be reached at 202-782-2212 or rhode@afip.osd.mil if you've got questions, comments or would like to do research.

Kathleen Stocker is the assistant archivist and can be reached at 202-782-2210 or kathleen.stocker@us.army.mil.

Franklin Damann is the curator of Anatomical Collections of the museum and can be reached at 202-782-2208 or franklin.damann@afip.osd.mil.

Andrea Schierkolk is the public programs manager of the museum and can be reached at 202-782-2673 or andrea.schierkolk@afip.osd.mil.

Jim Curley is acting Historical Collections manager and can be reached at 202-782-2206 or james.curley@afip.osd.mil.

Information on other staff can be found at the Museum's website.

So what about that blog name?

It's historical. I found it in a quote from one of the former curators. World War II confirmed the Army Medical Museum's primary role in pathology consultation. James Ash, the curator during the war and a pathologist, noted, "Shortly after the last war, more concerted efforts were instituted to concentrate in the Army Medical Museum the significant pathologic material occurring in Army installations." He closed with the complaint, "We still suffer under the connotation museum, an institution still thought of by many as a repository for bottled monsters and medical curiosities. To be sure, we have such specimens. As is required by law, we maintain an exhibit open to the public, but in war time, at least, the museum per se is the least of our functions, and we like to be thought of as the Army Institute of Pathology, a designation recently authorized by the Surgeon General."

After the war, it evolved into the tri-service Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

A Repository for Bottled Monsters

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Eye Prosthetics at Walter Reed

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