A Repository for Bottled Monsters: I'm done folks

Friday, September 9, 2011

I'm done folks

After 22 and 1/2 years of being in charge of the Archives and working at the Museum, today was my last day. I wish the best to my former colleagues and the Museum. I'll probably post my new contact information here when I have it, but the work of this blog should fall to other hands now.

Mike Rhode

4 comments:

Joanna Ebenstein said...: You will be well missed, Mr. Rhode. So sorry to see you go, and please keep in touch!; September 10, 2011 at 9:21 AM
Anthony Winston said...: Mike, Remember me, Anthony Winston. I worked with you on the donation of the Sully Painting of GAO to the Museum. Sorry to see you leave. I see that the Museum is moving. I hope they take good care of the painting. Would like to visit the new quarters sometime. Thanks for your long service. I wish you well.
Tony; September 14, 2011 at 7:09 PM
Fabio said...: Mike, I am sorry to see you leave. I hope you do well in your new job, whatever it is. It is sad to see the Musem moving and AFIP gone. Take care, Fabio Tavora.; September 24, 2011 at 3:18 PM
Mike Rhode said...: Thank you all for your comments. I'm not at the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Office of History.; October 29, 2011 at 10:47 AM

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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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Friday, September 9, 2011

I'm done folks

4 comments:

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