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Showing posts with label Army Medical Museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Army Medical Museum. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

"The new and excellent method of skin grafting"


In this 1872 letter from George Otis to a soldier's lawyer that I found today, the Museum curator (and surgeon) recommends "the new and excellent method of skin grafting" if other methods of closing an ulcer fail. Otis goes on to note that he can't help with the man's pension, "and take only a scientific, and I trust humane interest in his case..."

George Otis was a good man, I think.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Did Daniel Sickles visit his leg in the Museum?

Someone emailed the question "Did Daniel Sickles visit his leg in the Museum?" in today.

Here's a bit I ran across a few years ago. A very old doctor wrote his reminiscences of people who knew in the US Army Medical Department in "Personal Recollections of Some Old Medical Officers" by Henry Crecy Yarrow, Military Surgeon January 1927, pp 73-74:

One day he [Curator George Otis] received a visit from a fine looking gentleman of military bearing, who announced himself as General Dan E. Sickles, and stated that he understood his leg, which had been amputated in consequence of a shell wound received in the battle of Chancellorsville, was on exhibit in the Museum. Dr. Otis replied that it was and with that courteous urbanity of manner for which he was celebrated, invited the General to accompany him to the main hall of the Museum. He pointed out several interesting specimens, but the General, apparently losing patience, said, Oh, yes, yes, but let us come to my leg!" They finally reached the case where the leg was exhibited and the General examined it very carefully for a few moments, when he turned to Otis and said with some harshness, "Where is my foot?" What have you done with my foot -- that should have been shown too." Otis replied that there seemed to be no necessity for saving the foot as the part saved showed why a surgical operation was necessary. The General became very angry and anathematized the museum very freely."

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Engravings du jour

This one's largely for Joanna of Morbid Anatomy. We had a researcher looking at the 19th Century Army Medical Museum this week so I pulled down a book I enjoy using - Mary Clemmer Ames, Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capital as a Woman Sees Them (Hartford, CT: A.D. Worthington & Co, 1874). This is from when a guidebook had opinions and was proud of them. Here's five plates that we've scanned from the book, because they relate to medicine or the Civil War.

NCP 000788

NCP 000787 "All that remains above ground of John Wilkes Booth..." - now that's a guidebook!

NCP 000786

NCP 000785 "The City of the Slain"! Talk about accurate!

NCP 000784

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Ford's Theatre renovation and reopening


A museum in Ford's Theatre is mentioned in passing in this article "The History Will Linger At Remade Ford's Theatre," By Michael E. Ruane, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, August 15, 2008; Page A01.

Ruane wrote, "The government bought the theater from Ford and used it over the years as a museum and as an office and storage building."

Well, that was the Army Medical Museum which was there for almost two decades, before it moved to a new bulding on the Mall (which was knocked down in 1968 for the Hirschorn). I wrote about the Museum there in Washington History (available from the Washington Historical Society) last year. Here's some relevant paragraphs edited down somewhat:

After President Lincoln's assassination in 1865, the federal government purchased and renovated the notorious Ford's Theatre to house the museum, the Surgeon General's Library, and the more than 16,000 bound volumes of the Records and Pension Division of the Surgeon General's Office. The move to Ford's Theatre in December 1866 permitted the museum to expand its collecting to include Native American weapons and “specimens of comparative anatomy.” Now the museum, with its larger exhibit space and broader scope, would become a well-known Washington-area landmark.

The museum had no difficulty attracting the public. Medical specimens, including many anomalies and curiosities, fascinated both lay and professional visitors alike. No doubt part of the fascination lay in the innate morbid curiosity of seeing human remains usually available in circus side-shows, but the Civil War had just ended, and the displays of specimens from maimed soldiers of both sides led visitors to see the museum as an unintentional national memorial. The glass cases of specimens were flanked by flags and standards of ambulances corps as well as Union and Confederate swords and sabers. While the displays were systematic, rather than artistic, they were nonetheless alluring, especially for thrill-seekers. A reporter for the popular Appleton’s Journal captured the atmosphere:

It is, indeed, not such a collection as the timid would care to visit at midnight, and alone. Fancy the pale moonlight lighting up with a bluish tinge, the blanched skeletons and grinning skulls — the same moon that saw, in many a case, the death-blow given, or the bullet pierce. The thought is not a comforting one, and those fancies would not be calculated, at such a time, to inspire courage. But in broad daylight, with the sun shining outside, and brightening up, with its tinge of life and activity, the tessellated floor, with the noise and traffic of the street outside, and the hum and murmur of numerous clerks and attendants inside, even those of timid proclivities do not then hesitate to inspect closely and with curiosity the objects which, twelve hours later, when the building is dark and deserted, they would scarce care to approach.

Opened to the public on April 16, 1867, the museum drew around 6,000 visitors by the end of the year. “It cannot fail to be one of the most absorbing spots on earth to the student of surgery or medicine,” opined guidebook author Mary Clemmer Ames in 1874, “but to the unscientific mind, especially to one still aching with the memories of war, it must remain a museum of horrors. . . . No! the Museum is a very interesting, but can never be a popular place to visit." In spite, or because, of Ames's concerns, by 1874, the number of visitors sometimes reached more than 2,600 per month, even the museum was only open from 10 am to 3 pm on weekdays, and on Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm. As early as 1866, the museum was well-known enough to be mentioned in Atlantic Monthly. In Dr. S. Weir Mitchell's fictional story, "The Case of George Dedlow," the hero, who lost both legs due to the war, was contacted by spirits during a séance. The spirits proved to be his amputated limbs, preserved in the Medical Museum: "A strange sense of wonder filled [Dedlow], and, to the amazement of every one, I arose, and, staggering a little, walked across the room on limbs invisible to them or me. It was no wonder I staggered, for, as I briefly reflected, my legs had been nine months in the strongest alcohol." Undoubtedly, readers of the story would have wished to visit the museum to look for the imaginary Dedlow's limbs.


As early as 1880, the Ford's Theatre building was proving inadequate for the expanding museum and library. In fact one exterior wall as falling away, and eventually the interior floors collapsed after the museum had moved out. In 1881 the museum attracted 40,000 visitors, while in 1888, the library had 5,000 readers. In his annual message to Congress, President Rutherford Hayes asked for an appropriation to replace the building. “The collection of books, specimens, and records constituting the Army Medical Museum and Library are of national importance. . . ,” Hayes wrote. “Their destruction would be an irreparable loss not only to the United States but to the world.”

Some congressmen opposed the idea of a new building, suggesting instead that the Army's medical records merge with the Pension Bureau's in their new building (now the National Building Museum), or amalgam the library with the Library of Congress and the museum with the Smithsonian Institution. Representative Clarkson Potter of New York objected on emotional grounds and opposed funding the museum and “preserving the relics and bones or wounds caused by the war at any place in our capital,” wishing instead that "they were all buried and covered all over with green grass and hidden from sight forever." On the other side, the more forward-thinking Representative Theodore Lyman of Massachusetts envisioned an institution something like today’s National Institutes of Health and "discern[ed] a hope that , , , germs may be used for inoculation and may protect us from . . . diseases, just as vaccination protects against smallpox.” Lyman deemed the museum’s studies “essential to the welfare of our people,” and the library “now the first in the world, and whose not less admirable collection of military pathology, are placed at the disposal of all investigators.”

The full article, "The Rise and Fall of the Army Medical Museum," has much more information in it of course.

To show that nothing really changes, we're currently scheduled to move off of Walter Reed Army Medical Center's DC campus due to the BRAC closure of the base, but no new home has been designated for us.

Ruane also wrote, "On the morning of June 9, 1893, the building was packed with 500 government clerks, occupying several floors of jury-rigged office space, when the interior collapsed, according to a Washington Post account the next day. Scores were killed and injured, and the theater's already altered interior was destroyed."

The space wasn't jury-rigged - actually it was built of cast iron, fireproof construction, but the space wasn't strong enough for all the tons of pension records that were being stored there.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Today is our birthday

So far the Museum's survived four name changes, at least 8 moves, several shutdowns for moves or wars, and is 146 years old today.
Today is our birthday.Surgeon General Hammond

In Circular No. 2, issued on May 21, 1862, Army Surgeon General William Hammond specifically stated "Medical Directors will furnish one copy of this circular to every medical officer in the department in which they are serving." (Henry p. 12) This circular established the Museum, stating:

As it is proposed to establish in Washington, an Army Medical Museum, Medical officers are directed diligently to collect, and to forward to the office of the Surgeon General, all specimens of morbid anatomy, surgical or medical, which may be regarded as valuable; together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed, and such other matters as may prove of interest in the study of military medicine or surgery.

These objects should be accompanied by short explanatory notes.

Each specimen in the collection will have appended the name of the medical officer by whom it was prepared.


Shortly after the initial circular letter was issued, Hammond recalled John Hill Brinton from duty on the western battlefields. Brinton arrived hoping to receive one of the newly-created medical inspectorships, a job for which he felt well-qualified. Instead, he was assigned to the examining board for surgeons, placed in charge of the Museum, and told to prepare the surgical history of the war. Brinton's colleague, Joseph Javier Woodward, had been assigned to the Surgeon General's Office on May 19, and was responsible for the medical (ie caused by disease) collections and history of the war.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Hirschhorn v. Army Medical Museum

Forty years ago, the Army Medical Museum was sent off the National Mall and its red brick building torn down to make space for the Hirschhorn Museum of modern art. Today's NY Times has an article, "An Identity Crisis? Hirshhorn Embraces It," By RANDY KENNEDY, May 10, 2008, which says, "...of the Hirshhorn’s 750,000 or so annual visitors, 58 percent reported being there for the first time. Sixty-four percent said they were at the museum as part of an adult group tour, following an itinerary that probably reflected little individual choice and low interest in contemporary art."

What's particular of interest in that statement is that in 1963, the Army Medical Museum had a similar number of visitors, while interest in museums and visitors to them has grown exponentially in Washington since then. Naturally our numbers on a guarded Army base five miles north of the Mall and a mile from a subway are in no way compatible. One does wonder how many people a National Museum of Health & Medicine on the Mall would be bringing in; I'm positive it would be more than the number we did in 1963 and that the Hirshhorn is doing now.

Monday, March 10, 2008

More downloadable books on Internet Archive

The two newest ones are:

Cantor Lectures: The Microscope (1888). Lectures on the history of the microscope by British collector John Mayall, Jr. excerpted from the Journal of the Society of the Arts, 1885-1888.

A History of the United States Army Medical Museum 1862 to 1917 compiled from the Official Records (1917) by Daniel S. Lamb

For those collecting them, here's the complete list although World War 1 #14 isn't actually working at the moment.

Museum history:

http://www.archive.org/details/TheArmedForcesInstituteOfPathology-ItsFirstCentury - The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology - Its First Century(1962)

http://www.archive.org/details/HISTORYARMYMEDICALMUSEUM - A History of the United States Army Medical Museum 1862 to 1917 compiled from the Official Records (1917) by Daniel S. Lamb

Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion

http://www.archive.org/details/MSHWRMedical1 - The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. (1861-1865) Part I. Volume I. Medical History. (1st Medical volume) (1870)

http://www.archive.org/details/MSHWRMedical2 - The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. Part II, Volume I. (2nd Medical volume) (1879)

http://www.archive.org/details/MSHWRMedical3 - The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. Part III, Volume I. (3rd Medical volume) (1888)

http://www.archive.org/details/MSHWRSurgical1
- The Medical and SurgicalHistory of the War of the Rebellion. (1861-1865.) Part I. Volume II.(1st Surgical volume) (1870)

http://www.archive.org/details/MSHWRSurgical2 - The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. (1861-1865.) Part II. Volume II.(2nd Surgical volume) (1876)

http://www.archive.org/details/MSHWRSurgical3 - The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. Part III, Volume II. (3rd Surgical volume)

The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV1 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 1: The Surgeon General's Office (1923)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV2
- The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 2: Administration American Expeditionary Forces (1927)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV3 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 3: Finance and Supply (1928)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV4
- The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 4: Activities Concerning Mobilization Camps and Ports of Embarkation (1928)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV5 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 5: Military Hospitals in the United States (1923)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV6 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 6: Sanitation (1926)

http://www.archive.org/details/W1ArmyMedDeptHistV7 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 7: Training (1926)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV8 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 8: Field Operations (1925)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV9
- The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 9: Communicable and Other Diseases (1928)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV10 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 10: Neuropsychiatry (1929)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV11-1
- The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 11:Surgery; Part One, General Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Neurosurgery (1927)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV11-2 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 11: Surgery; Part Two (1924)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV12 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 12: Pathology of the Acute Respiratory Diseases, and of Gas Gangrene Following War Wounds (1929)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV13 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 13: Part 1, Physical Reconstruction and Vocational Education; Part 2, The Army Nurse Corps (1927)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV14 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 14: Medical Aspects of Gas Warfare(1926)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV15-1 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 15: Statistics; Part One Army Anthropology (1921)

http://www.archive.org/details/WW1ArmyMedDeptHistV15-2 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War volume 15: Part 2, Medical and Casualty Statistics (1925)


http://www.archive.org/details/CantorLecuturesTheMicroscope - Cantor Lectures: The Microscope (1888). Lectures on the history of the microscope by British collector John Mayall, Jr. excerpted from the Journal of the Society of the Arts, 1885-1888.

Blumberg Collection:

http://www.archive.org/details/KennedyAutopsyReportWarrenCommissionReport - Autopsy of President Kennedy (February 01, 1965) by Pierre Finck, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology


General Medical Products Information (GMPI) Collection:

http://www.archive.org/details/CatalogueOfSurgeonsInstrumentsAirAndWaterBedsPillowsAndCushions - A Catalogue of Surgeons' Instruments, Air and Water Beds, Pillows, and Cushions, Bandages, Trusses, Elastic Stockings, Inhalers, Galvanic Apparatus, and Other Appliances Used by the Medical Profession, Maw and Son, 1866

http://www.archive.org/details/AnIllustratedDescriptionOfFirst-classAchromaticMicroscopesApparatus - An Illustrated Description of First-Class Achromatic Microscopes, Apparatus, Specimens, etc., Miller Brothers, 1879

Vorwald Collection:

http://www.archive.org/details/AMedicalSurveyOfTheBituminous-coalIndustry - A Medical Survey of the Bituminous-Coal Industry (1947), Coal Mines Administration, US Department of the Interior