Monday, July 20, 2026

2 new free Navy history books - 1 with chapter on Navy Medicine

This has an article by historian Andre Sobocinski on NM history -

On Course Through History: The U.S. Navy at 250

https://www.dvidshub.net/publication/issues/77185

This has very little on medicine but cool pictures –

America's Navy at 250: The Historic Collections of Naval History and Heritage Command (2026)

https://www.dvidshub.net/publication/issues/77304

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Book by Gurdon Buck, Army Medical Museum contributor, for sale

Buck donated his photos of Civil War plastic surgery to the museum, which also has a copy of his book, courtesy of Dr. Blair Rogers, who wrote about him in plastic surgery journals.

Contributions to Reparative Surgery: Showing Its Application to the Treatment of Deformities, Produced by Destructive Disease or Injury; Congenital Defects From Arrest or Excess of Development; and Cicatricial Contractions From Burns

By Gurdon Buck

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1876. First Edition. Octavo, viii, [1], 8-237, [3], 3-30, [2] pages. In Very Good minus condition.

Gurdon Buck (1807-1877) was a pioneering military plastic surgeon during the Civil War. He is known for being the first doctor to incorporate pre- and post-operative photographs into his publications. Buck's fascia and Buck's extension are both named after him.

$1,800

View Full Description Here

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

Military medicine history articles

From wagons to air ambulances: Medevac keeps the fight alive

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/569426/wagons-air-ambulances-medevac-keeps-fight-alive

Latest AMEDD Historian newsletter

The latest newsletter, No. 54, on the Civil War is online at https://auls.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/collectionDiscovery?vid=01AULS_INST:Stimson&collectionId=81240848270009191&lang=en.

or https://archive.org/details/amedd-historian-number-54-summer-2026

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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