Letter of the day: January 26th

The Museum’s eventual transformation into a pathology institute is foreshadowed…

 

Numbered Correspondence 1956

 

January 26, 1897

 

Captain John L. Phillips,

Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Army,

Fort Walla Walla, Wash.

 

Dear Doctor:

 

The specimen of testicle referred to in your letter of January 9^th has been embedded and examined microscopically, with the following result: Marked fibroid thickening of the normal covering of the testicle together with such extensive interstitial change in the structure of the testicle proper as to render it extremely difficult to even make out any of the remains of the spermatic tubules, which are here and there seen as narrow crevices lined by low epithelium. The diagnosis, therefore, would be chronic interstitial orchitis, which may have had a syphilititic origin. There is no appearance, whatever, of any malignant disease.

 

A slide will be forwarded by to-day’s mail.

 

Very sincerely yours,

 

Walter Reed

 

Surgeon, U.S. Army,

Curator