The Walter Reed Army Medical Center that might have been

Here's a look at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center that might have been - all of these buildings were eventually built, oddly enough, between the 1920s and 1971. They looked different of course - let me know if there's any interest in the built versions.


REEVE 0002723
Army Medical Center. Army Medical Museum (sketch) proposed, ca 1917. [Architectural drawing.]


REEVE 0002897
Army Medical Center Chapel. Sketch (proposed). ca. World War 1


Reeve 003121A
Sketch of Army Medical School (proposed). Alaska Avenue Elevation. [Walter Reed General Hospital (Washington, D.C.). Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Architectural drawing.]


REEVE 0003146
Sketch of Army Medical Center. Nurses quarters training school. [Walter Reed General Hospital(Washington, D.C.). Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Architectural drawing.]

Walter Reed medical center and Army Medical School cartoon

Reeve 43604

Army Medical School, Walter Reed Hospital, Officer of the Day. [Illustration. Cartoon.]

 

This cartoon is  almost incomprehensible to us now, so I’ll do a quick read of what I think it means. The Walter Reed medical center baby is trying to reach a toy labeled for the Army Medical School Officer of the Day – implying I think that the hospital base wanted administrative control over the medical school, which had moved onto the campus in 1907. The school eventually became the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and will be our neighbor when we move up to Forest Glen, Md next year.

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research photographic collection

WRAIR~D1784Photo by HOCH, January 1977. BRAZIL~ANIMALS MARABA FISH.

In the 1960s and 70s (and possibly longer), doctors trained by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) were sent out to investigate tropical medicine while given cameras and film to document what they found. WRAIR had many photographs including film teams, all over the world including in Vietnam. The Vietnam still photos went to the National Archives when WRAIR moved into its current building, and the Medical Museum got 1/2 of the other still pictures that were left. We're now scanning WRAIR's third (thanks to their providing funding) and our third to create a digital collection that can be used by WRAIR and our researchers.


WRAIR D1783. Photo by HOCH, January 1977. BRAZIL - HIGHWAYS MARABA T-AM GOSLOS BRIDGE CONSTRUCTION.

I put these samples of the first test batch of scans on Flickr. The captions are limited because they're being taken from a printout of an early computerized catalogue. As you can see, not all of the pictures deal directly with medicine.


WRAIR D1762. January 1977. BRAZIL~UPPER TORSO MARABA BLACK FLY BITES CPT HOCH.