A Repository for Bottled Monsters: Washington

Showing posts with label Washington. Show all posts

Friday, May 10, 2013

Three rare photographs of the US Navy Museum of Hygiene

All three images are bound in a copy of "Catalogue of The Exhibits in the Museum of Hygiene. Medical Department of the United States Navy." Compiled by Philip S. Wales, Medical Director, U.S.N. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893 now held in BUMED's Office of Medical History.

The Museum. Present Home. 1707 New York Avenue, N.W. 1887-1893.
13-0103-003

The Museum. 2nd Home. S.E. Corner 18th & G Sts, NW. 1882-1887. 13-0103-002

The Museum. Birth-place. 18th + K Sts, N.W. 1879-1882. 13-0103-001

Friday, November 26, 2010

Letter of the Day: November 26

N.R. Moseley,
Surgeon U.S.V., in charge
U.S. General Hospital “Emory,”
Washington, D.C. Novr. 26th, 1864.

Sir:

I have the honor to transmit herewith One Pathological Specimen accompanied by Medical History.

Very Respectfully
Your Obedt Servt
NW. Moseley
Surgeon U.S.V.
In Charge

Brig. Genl J.K. Barnes
Surgeon General U.S.A.
Washington D.C.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

A couple of pictures

Nothing special about these. They just appealed to me.

CP4355, Travois Litter [in front of Capitol building, Washington, DC] by Capt JC McDonald, photograph by CM Bell.

Reeve 072203, Airplane, 1910. "Rhodes - Gosman aeroplane trial, 01/26/1910. Fort Barrancas, Florida."

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Map of Civil War DC hospitals

Pinpointing the location of Civil War hospitals is harder than you'd expect. I got a call looking for one in Southeast Washington today - I couldn't find it, but I did find this site with a list of hospitals. I don't know if it's complete and I wish the map was larger, but it's helpful.

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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