A Repository for Bottled Monsters: food

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Letter of the Day: January 19 (1 of 2)

Microsoft continually corrected the spelling in this letter, and it was easier to go along with it.

Washington D.C. Jan 19^th 1887

Dr Yarrow assistant Surgeon U.S.A.

Sir

This is the list of things I can furnish for the lunch room in case no cooking is allowed in the Building

Cold ham

Bread & Butter

Tongue

Pies & cakes

Turkey

Puddings & milk

Corned Beef

Fruit

If I am allowed to have a gas stove I will have hot tea coffee & chocolate and hot soup and oysters.

And if I am allowed to cook in the Building I can furnish Beef steak, mutton chops, hot bread & cakes & omelets and vegetables if needed. And I wish to say that all the heaviest cooking will be done at my residence such as soup & pies, or other things that would be offensive. I can have a variety of other thins if I find that I can sell them.

Yours respct.

C.W. Procter

Friday, June 4, 2010

Letter of the Day: June 4 (2 of 3)

Government Printing Office,
Washington, D.C., June 4, 1887

Dr. Billings,

Dear Sir:

The bearer, Mr. J. Z. Rogers, who I have known for some time as the keeper of an eating house near the Government Printing Office, desires the privilege of serving lunch in the Medical Museum.

He has had years of experience in the Lunch business, and I have no doubt he would give satisfaction should you grant him the privilege he desires.

Very respectfully,
E.W. Oyster,
Foreman, Specification Room, G.P.O.

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

Pages

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Letter of the Day: January 19 (1 of 2)

Friday, June 4, 2010

Letter of the Day: June 4 (2 of 3)

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