A Repository for Bottled Monsters: NARA on MSHWR

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

NARA on MSHWR

This was a bit of a surprise* when it was pointed out to me, but I'll be there.

National Archives
9th and Penn Ave, NW
Tuesday, October 27, at 11 A.M.
Room G-24, Research Center (Enter on Pennsylvania Avenue)
Civil War Medicine
Archives specialist Rebecca Sharp and reference librarian Nancy Wing discuss The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865. This published source contains details of Civil War medical and surgical procedures, and information about individual patients. (This lecture will be repeated at the National Archives at College Park, MD, in Lecture Room B, on Thursday, October 29, at 11 a.m.)

This one looks relevant too:

Tuesday, October 6, at 11 A.M.
Room G-24, Research Center (Enter on Pennsylvania Avenue)
Documenting Death in the Civil War
John Deeben, genealogy archives specialist at the National Archives, explores death records created during and after the Civil War by the War Department, examining how they documented personal circumstances of soldiers’ deaths in various situations, including the battlefield and military hospitals and prisons. (This lecture will be repeated at the National Archives at College Park, MD, in Lecture Room B, on Thursday, October 8, at 11 a.m.)

*The Army Medical Museum (ie us) wrote the book and we retain original records and specimens that were used to compile it.**

**We also scanned it for you all.

2 comments:

Paul S said...: Mike- How were the presentations?; October 9, 2009 at 10:08 PM
Mike Rhode said...: Didn't make it to the October 6th one, so you'll have to wait until late this month to hear about the MSHWR one.; October 9, 2009 at 10:23 PM

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Who are we?

Mike Rhode was the chief archivist of the Museum from 1989-2011, and is the founder of this blog. I maintain an interest in the course of the museum, and will be posting relevant information.

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. For 35 years it was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and now is in Silver Spring, MD.

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

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Wednesday, October 7, 2009

NARA on MSHWR

2 comments:

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