A Repository for Bottled Monsters: Seminole Negro Scouts

Monday, May 10, 2010

Letter of the Day: May 10

Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, May 10, 1875

Dr. George A Otis,
Army Med. Mus.

Dear Sir:

We have the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt of the Indian scalp referred to in your letter of the 4th of May. This will be placed in the Ethnological Museum of the Institution in connection with other objects of a similar character.

Truly yours etc
Joseph Henry
Sect. S.I.

This is in reference to these two letters:

May 4, 1875

General-

I am instructed by the Surgeon General to acknowledge the reception, through your headquarters, of a communication from the Seminole Negro Scout “Avann (?) his + mark Parino,” transmitting an Indian scalp and also a ferrotype picture of the scalper. These specimens have been numbered 703-704 Sect VI, (Miscellaneous Section) of the Army Medical Museum for transfer to the ethnological cabinet of the Smithsonian Institution.

I am, General, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
George A. Otis,
Asst. Surgeon, USA
Curator, A.M.M.

August, USA, Brig. General C.C.
Commanding Dept of Texas
San Antonio, TX

~~
May 4, 1875

Professor –

I have the honor to transmit for the ethnological cabinet of the Smithsonian Institution, in accordance with the arrangement between the two Museums, an Indian scalp with a ferrotype of the scalper, received by the Surgeon General with the letter copied on a succeeding page.

I am, Professor,
With the highest respects,
Your obedient servant,
George A. Otis
Asst. Surgeon, USA
Curator, A.M.M.

Henry, Professor Joseph
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC

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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Monday, May 10, 2010

Letter of the Day: May 10

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