Headquarters National Guard
of Pennsylvania
Adjutant General's Office,
Harrisburg, Pa., Jany 14" 1896
Daniel L. Foster, Esq.
Washington, D.C.
My dear Sir:
I wish you would call at the Government Museum, sometime at your leisure, and ascertain if possible, whether or not my leg is there. It was amputated at Alexandria, Va. Jany 30, 1864, and I learned at that time it would be sent to Washington, D.C. for examination, after which it would be placed Medical Museum.
By making some inquiry you may be able to ascertain where it is.
Very Truly Yours
A.L. Crist
x c/o
[verso]
Washington, D.C.
No. 19 Iowa Circle
Jany 18" 96
Respectfully referred to the Surgeon General U.S.A. with the request that reply be made direct to Mr. Crist.
I would add that he was a member of Company A 5th Pa. Reserve Vols. Infantry
Respect'yDaniel C. Foster
[Contextual Note: The Museum does not have Mr. Crist's leg, but given the information in his letter and in Foster's note, I was able to find Crist in the National Park Service's Soldier and Sailors Database, which tracks Civil War servicemen, from both the Union and Confederacy. Mr. Crist was very likely Corporal Abram L. Crist. He served in the 5th Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry, Company A, on the Union side. He entered as a Private and left a Corporal. From the letterhead on which he wrote his letter to Foster, Crist may have gone on to work for the Pennsylvania National Guard.]
Friday, January 14, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Two Vietnam War-era military medicine films online now
The Limbo Minutes on medical evacuation and Introduction to Combat Medicine, two short films by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research dating from the Vietnam War, have been loaded up to the Internet Archive.
Letter of the Day: January 13
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 01193
Fort Yates, N.D.
January 13, 1896.
Dear Doctor Reed:
Although I know how very busy you must be I have been so much puzzled that I am going to take the liberty of appealing to you for help in my difficulty. I have not been able to stain the diphtheria bacillus satisfactorily with Loeffler’s Methyllene [sic] Blue solution since my return from Washington and cannot imagine what is wrong. Dr. Swift even sent to Merck some of the dye thinking perhaps there was something wrong with the material we had on hand. I have made the solution from one to three percent in 1-10000 solution of caustic potash over and over and tried it from time to time on fresh blood serum cultures of the bacilli, sometimes staining for ten minutes, sometimes heating the solution. It always gives the same very faint stain so that I cannot use it for diagnosis. It is so much different from the beautiful mounts that I made under your direction and which are still deeply and properly stained as a standard of what ought to be.
Again I know you kept on hand as stock solution a saturated alcoholic solution using 30cc of that to 100cc solution of caustic potash. Now the dispensatory gives the solubility of methyllene blue as only 1.50 % in alcohol and that is all I can make it dissolve so of course cannot make a watery solution strong enough from that. I am satisfied there must be something wrong somewhere with my method and that a few lines of advice from you can straighten it out. I have given up using methyllene blue in despair and by using gentian violet very rapidly am able to detect the bacillus though the stain is not as satisfactory as Loeffler’s Solution ought to be.
I make cultures from every throat that presents any opportunity and have made a great many examinations this winter. It is so much satisfaction to be able to do this work and I appreciate more every day that advantages I had under your kind instruction last winter. Have found the germs in three throats this winter, - on in the throat of a child of crylian [?] parents post mortem, attended by a civilian for tonsillitis. I was called in after the sudden death of the child to verify the diagnosis and to allay any scare about diphtheria. Fortunately a public funeral was prevented.
Yesterday afternoon I used my first injection of antitoxin upon a soldier, after six hours inoculation from his throat upon blood serum. No visible colonies had grown but by swabbing [sic] the loop over the surface of the serum many bacilli were collected.
Thanking you in advance, I am
Very Sincerely yours,
Henry C. Fisher
Fort Yates, N.D.
January 13, 1896.
Dear Doctor Reed:
Although I know how very busy you must be I have been so much puzzled that I am going to take the liberty of appealing to you for help in my difficulty. I have not been able to stain the diphtheria bacillus satisfactorily with Loeffler’s Methyllene [sic] Blue solution since my return from Washington and cannot imagine what is wrong. Dr. Swift even sent to Merck some of the dye thinking perhaps there was something wrong with the material we had on hand. I have made the solution from one to three percent in 1-10000 solution of caustic potash over and over and tried it from time to time on fresh blood serum cultures of the bacilli, sometimes staining for ten minutes, sometimes heating the solution. It always gives the same very faint stain so that I cannot use it for diagnosis. It is so much different from the beautiful mounts that I made under your direction and which are still deeply and properly stained as a standard of what ought to be.
Again I know you kept on hand as stock solution a saturated alcoholic solution using 30cc of that to 100cc solution of caustic potash. Now the dispensatory gives the solubility of methyllene blue as only 1.50 % in alcohol and that is all I can make it dissolve so of course cannot make a watery solution strong enough from that. I am satisfied there must be something wrong somewhere with my method and that a few lines of advice from you can straighten it out. I have given up using methyllene blue in despair and by using gentian violet very rapidly am able to detect the bacillus though the stain is not as satisfactory as Loeffler’s Solution ought to be.
I make cultures from every throat that presents any opportunity and have made a great many examinations this winter. It is so much satisfaction to be able to do this work and I appreciate more every day that advantages I had under your kind instruction last winter. Have found the germs in three throats this winter, - on in the throat of a child of crylian [?] parents post mortem, attended by a civilian for tonsillitis. I was called in after the sudden death of the child to verify the diagnosis and to allay any scare about diphtheria. Fortunately a public funeral was prevented.
Yesterday afternoon I used my first injection of antitoxin upon a soldier, after six hours inoculation from his throat upon blood serum. No visible colonies had grown but by swabbing [sic] the loop over the surface of the serum many bacilli were collected.
Thanking you in advance, I am
Very Sincerely yours,
Henry C. Fisher
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Letter of the Day: January 12
United States National Museum
Under direction of
The Smithsonian Institution
Washington
Jan. 12. 1884
My dear Dr. Shufeldt:
Prof Mason is anxious to have for his lecture this afternoon “four exaggerated specimens of head deformation” Chinook + crania, etc. We have none in this museum. There is not time left to make formal application. If you could let them come informally by bearer Prof Mason and the lecture committee will be greatly obliged. If you can’t, please don’t hesitate to say so.
Yours very truly,
G. Brown Goode
Dr. Billings sent over the specimens.
Under direction of
The Smithsonian Institution
Washington
Jan. 12. 1884
My dear Dr. Shufeldt:
Prof Mason is anxious to have for his lecture this afternoon “four exaggerated specimens of head deformation” Chinook + crania, etc. We have none in this museum. There is not time left to make formal application. If you could let them come informally by bearer Prof Mason and the lecture committee will be greatly obliged. If you can’t, please don’t hesitate to say so.
Yours very truly,
G. Brown Goode
Dr. Billings sent over the specimens.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
OTIS HISTORICAL ARCHIVES 2010 Annual Report
With the Pathology Institute closing in the spring, there's no official requirement to do an annual report this year, but I feel that people should be able to find out what we did. Annual Reports for the time I have run the Archives, 1989-2009 are available on the Museum's website.
OTIS HISTORICAL ARCHIVES 2010 Annual Report
STAFF:
Michael Rhode, Chief Archivist
(A) Laura Cutter, Assistant Archivist
(D) Kathleen Stocker, Assistant Archivist
(D) Jasmine High, Archives Technician
(D) Donna Rose, IMC Supervisor Archivist
(D) Amanda Montgomery, IMC Contract Archivist
(D) Johanna Medlin, IMC Contract Archivist
(D) Emilia Garvey, IMC Contract Archivist
(D) LaFonda Burwell, IMC Contract Archives Technician
(D) Karen West, IMC Contract Archives Technician
(D) Anna Korosec, IMC Contract Archives Technician
(D) Erissa Mann, student volunteer
2010 was the last year of almost-normal life in the Archives, although BRAC planning began to take a large amount of time. The year saw a large staff turn-over which affected the amount of work the Archives could accomplish. Jasmine High left early in the year for the Smithsonian’s Natural History museum and the Archives technician position has not been filled due to BRAC restrictions on hiring. Kathleen Stocker left in early summer and was replaced in October by Laura Cutter. All of the IMC staff were transferred off the Museum’s project in September 2010 when the scanning contract was stopped for Museum records. A significant amount of time was also spent in planning for the BRAC move of the Museum, and the new storage systems that will be needed.
Substantial requests for information were handled, frequently regarding sensitive topics. Of the requests that we tracked, we had at over 100 substantial reference requests this year. Rhode presented “Cancer in the Comics: No Laughing Matter,” “The National Museum of Health and Medicine’s History As Seen Through Its Archives,” and moderated “Panel discussion on Use of Social Media to Promote Digital Collections,” while continuing working on the AFIP historical volume. In addition to providing scans of photographs of the Institute and personnel, they also wrote captions while contributing to the layout and editing of the publication. The book featured many photographs from the Archives.
The Medical Illustration Service Library, through the IBM (formerly NISC, formerly IMC) scanning project, ended with approximately 1,250,000 images digitized. Rhode was the Task Order Manager for the MIS part of the project; he and the assistant archivists and technicians selected material for scanning, reviewed the material, and recommended accepting the work on behalf of the government. The assistant archivist provided quality control. The members of the NISC team processed and cataloged the images prior to scanning so the records of the images are complete upon their return. Slightly over 400,000 images were scanned last year. Collections cumulatively scanned are the Reeve collection, HDAC’s Carnegie collection photographs, Arey-Dapena lantern slides, parts of the Blackburn-Neumann, Welker and Yakovlev files, part of the A-Bomb collection, Anatomical’s Orthopathic Pathology collection records, teaching slides from AFIP’s VetPath dept. (given MIS Library numbers and returned), the Army Medical Museum photographs from the Spanish-American War, American Expeditionary Forces (WWI autopsies), Atlas of Tropical Extraordinary Diseases [ATED], Swan and Hansen collections (Vietnam War surgery), Korean War Ballistics photographs, Museum and Medical Arts Service’s WWII photographs, Signal Corps photographs, part of the Medical Illustration Service Library, New Contributed Photographs collection, the unpublished 7th Saranac Silicosis Symposium from the Vorwarld Collection, Hollister Collection dental education photographs, an AFIP Study of 58 Combat Deaths from Vietnam, various museum publications including the Medical & Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, captured Vietcong medical manuals, the Museum’s 19th century curatorial logbooks, one half of John King’s 35mm veterinary slides, AFIP Public Affairs Office photographs (which were given MIS Library numbers), the Spanish-American War photographic collection, WRAIR 1960s-1970s photographs (under a shared contract), WRAMC DPW department photographs (given MIS numbers and returned), the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) photographs (given MIS numbers and returned), Surgical Photographs, Contributed Photographs, and Specimen CDVs. As a reminder, the scanning project did not get through all the accession files. AFIP 657,675-2,372,287 (end of the AFIP-assigned numbers) are not done. Some departmental catalogue records are really displaced accession files. Catalogue records in Anatomical were partly done and integrated into the Accession files. Historical collection catalogue records were not done at all. A few straggling projects continue – the Records Repository is digitizing the microfilm of atomic bomb casualties, and the Radiology Pathathology department is scanning x-rays from the MIS Library. WDMET Vietnam War-era wounding data is also being worked on, and remains in West Virginia.
Computerized cataloguing on the collection has continued on both the collection and item level. Cataloguing of new material coming into the museum was done for the General Medical Products Information Collection, Medical Ephemera, New Contributed photographs, Audiovisual Collection, AFIP Historical Files, WRAMC Historical Collection and other artificial collections. Implementation of a comprehensive computer catalogue for the entire Museum continued with data from the archives added to KE Software’s EMU database. New cataloguing is now done directly into EMU, unless a traditional archival-style finding aid is done. Tens of thousands of records were created or modified for the Archives after the initial data load, and in 2011, all of the IMC records and images will be added into the database.
New material acquired included the Kindred Collection (housed in HDAC), the Miller (Cecil) Collection] of Dr. Cecil R. Miller, who was the NCOIC of the 430th AAFRTU ("Army Air Force Replacement Training Unit," a convalescent center for battle fatigue), Richard Satava’s DARPA Videotape Collection and the Leach Scrapbook, a World War I album of photographs of World War I facial case reconstructions and other surgical injuries. Newly-catalogued as a separate collection was Curatorial Records: Army Medical School Sanitary Chemistry Instruction Cards, 1905. As 2011 began, and AFIP started shutting down the Museum has received a pallet of videotapes from the Radiology dept. and 5 pallets of books and journals from Ash Library which will close at the end of February.
The Archives has a significant presence on the Internet including the Guide to the Collections of the Museum on the museum website which remains the main way researchers begin to use the archives. Cutter did finding aids for St. Elizabeths Hospital collection and American Board of Forensic Odontology (ABFO) records and inventoried videotapes from Richard Satava. No more archival collections were listed in the Library of Congress' National Union Catalogue of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC); however, finding aids should still be sent to NUCMC in the future for the different audiences it reaches.
In fall 2006, archives staff began adding interesting photographs to Flickr’s website. By December 31, 2009, we wrapped up the year with slightly under a million views - 906,255 for approximately 1800 images. As of the first week in January 2011, 1,515 people had chosen to be contacts of the Museum’s Flickr site. This number had increased drastically in December when the web post “Candid photographs of Civil War battlefield injuries” by Maggie Koerth-Baker (Boing Boing Dec 27, 2010; http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/27/candid-photographs-of-civ.html) picked up the Archives posting of Civil War images from the Contributed Photographs collection. The Flickr daily view statistics for roughly ~250 images were December 27, 2010: 327,779; December 28: 245,041; December 29: 83,579; December 30: 30,834; December 31: 14,260; January 1: 8,268 and January 2: 10,569 for a 7-day total of 720,330 views. The entire Flickr group of photographs had 3,281,103 views of about 2,600 images by December 28th. A Repository for Bottled Monsters, an unofficial blog for the museum, continues to attract a worldwide audience. The notice about sharing the Civil War images was first posted to the blog and picked up from there. Since January 19, 2010, transcriptions of a ‘Letter of the Day’ from the Archives files have been posted to the blog with only July 4th not having a letter found for it.
Books and documents scanned by IMC were uploaded to the free Internet Archive, where they are available for downloading. Titles uploaded included a score of scans of the Museum’s nineteenth century logbooks, the three 1866 printed Catalogues of the Museum, captured handwritten medical manuals from the Vietnam War, the Medical Report of the Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan vol 6 (manuscript), Carry On: a Magazine on the Reconstruction of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors (08/1918) and audio recordings from the AFIP Oral History Project.
Rhode served on the AFIP's Institutional Review Board and HIPPA committees as well as Museum committees including the Admin group, the collections committee (as did Stocker and Cutter), and the database committee (as did Stocker).
Research and historical material, mostly on military medicine, was provided to AFIP, especially the Public Affairs Office for which High in particular has pulled scores of photographs for a new history of the AFIP. External users included the following institutions: NYU Langone Medical Center Office of Communications & Public Affairs, National Library of Medicine Dept of History of Medicine, University of Virginia Center for Bioethics, Alaskan Heritage Bookshop, University of Queensland Centre for the History of European Discourses, Dept. of Justice ATF Historian, National Park Service’s Fort Scott National Historic Site, Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History’s Repatriation Office, The New York Times Magazine, Pictures on the Waves, McGraw-Hill, William P. Didusch Center for Urologic History, History Works, Inc., Society for the History of Navy Medicine, LaGuardia Community College’s LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, Oakland University, Walter Reed Army Medical Center Directorate of Public Works, Ritsumeikan University’s College of Policy Science, National Institutes Of Health’s NAIAD, New York State Museum, University of Pennsylvania’s Dept. of History and Sociology of Science, WRAMC Historian’s Office, Weider History Group, Inc., Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, University of Western Ontario, Fort Buford State Historic Site and Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center, Washington Post, Burns Archive, USAF School of Aerospace Medicine, Ft. Baird Historic Preservation Society, Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History’s Dept. of Anthropology, Gina McNeely Picture Research, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History, Oxford University Press Medical Books, University of Illinois, Case Western University’s Dittrick Medical History Center, Walter Reed Army Institute Of Research, US Navy Group 2, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), United States Army Medical Research Institute for infectious diseases’s Visual Information Office, Kaplan Fuller Group, National Library of Medicine Prints and Photographs division, Thompson Rivers University Dept. of Philosophy, Food and Drug Administration, Loopline Film, Rutgers University Dept of American Art and Visual Culture, Brera Fine Art Academy, Quercus Books, Elsevier Publishing Services, Anker Productions, Inc., Clement Railroad Hotel Museum, Texas Military Forces Museum, PRI Healthcare Solutions, Papers of Abraham Lincoln, North State Forensic Psychiatry PLLC, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island’s The Stroke Center, The Valley Hospital’s Diagnostic Imaging, Longwoods Publishing, University of Maryland Baltimore County UMBC Honors College, Sam Weller Books, Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center (AFHSC), U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, University of Delaware Dept. of History of American Civilization, Virginia Historical Society, Universidad Nacional’s Dept. of Anthropology, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Field Museum’s Dept. of Anthropology, Auckland Hospital, Université de Picardie’s Faculté d'Histoire, University of Michigan’s Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry, O&P Business News, Open University of Israel, Writing and Editorial Services, and American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy.
PRESENTATIONS
1. Rhode, M. moderator, “Panel discussion on Use of Social Media to Promote Digital Collections,” Archivists and Librarians in the History of the Health Sciences & Medical Museums Association joint meeting, (April 29)
2. Rhode, M. “Cancer in the Comics: No Laughing Matter,” American Association for the History of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, (May 1, 2010),
3. Rhode, M. “The National Museum of Health and Medicine’s History as Seen through Its Archives,” Society of American Archivists’ Government Records Section, (August 13, 2010)
OTIS HISTORICAL ARCHIVES 2010 Annual Report
STAFF:
Michael Rhode, Chief Archivist
(A) Laura Cutter, Assistant Archivist
(D) Kathleen Stocker, Assistant Archivist
(D) Jasmine High, Archives Technician
(D) Donna Rose, IMC Supervisor Archivist
(D) Amanda Montgomery, IMC Contract Archivist
(D) Johanna Medlin, IMC Contract Archivist
(D) Emilia Garvey, IMC Contract Archivist
(D) LaFonda Burwell, IMC Contract Archives Technician
(D) Karen West, IMC Contract Archives Technician
(D) Anna Korosec, IMC Contract Archives Technician
(D) Erissa Mann, student volunteer
2010 was the last year of almost-normal life in the Archives, although BRAC planning began to take a large amount of time. The year saw a large staff turn-over which affected the amount of work the Archives could accomplish. Jasmine High left early in the year for the Smithsonian’s Natural History museum and the Archives technician position has not been filled due to BRAC restrictions on hiring. Kathleen Stocker left in early summer and was replaced in October by Laura Cutter. All of the IMC staff were transferred off the Museum’s project in September 2010 when the scanning contract was stopped for Museum records. A significant amount of time was also spent in planning for the BRAC move of the Museum, and the new storage systems that will be needed.
Substantial requests for information were handled, frequently regarding sensitive topics. Of the requests that we tracked, we had at over 100 substantial reference requests this year. Rhode presented “Cancer in the Comics: No Laughing Matter,” “The National Museum of Health and Medicine’s History As Seen Through Its Archives,” and moderated “Panel discussion on Use of Social Media to Promote Digital Collections,” while continuing working on the AFIP historical volume. In addition to providing scans of photographs of the Institute and personnel, they also wrote captions while contributing to the layout and editing of the publication. The book featured many photographs from the Archives.
The Medical Illustration Service Library, through the IBM (formerly NISC, formerly IMC) scanning project, ended with approximately 1,250,000 images digitized. Rhode was the Task Order Manager for the MIS part of the project; he and the assistant archivists and technicians selected material for scanning, reviewed the material, and recommended accepting the work on behalf of the government. The assistant archivist provided quality control. The members of the NISC team processed and cataloged the images prior to scanning so the records of the images are complete upon their return. Slightly over 400,000 images were scanned last year. Collections cumulatively scanned are the Reeve collection, HDAC’s Carnegie collection photographs, Arey-Dapena lantern slides, parts of the Blackburn-Neumann, Welker and Yakovlev files, part of the A-Bomb collection, Anatomical’s Orthopathic Pathology collection records, teaching slides from AFIP’s VetPath dept. (given MIS Library numbers and returned), the Army Medical Museum photographs from the Spanish-American War, American Expeditionary Forces (WWI autopsies), Atlas of Tropical Extraordinary Diseases [ATED], Swan and Hansen collections (Vietnam War surgery), Korean War Ballistics photographs, Museum and Medical Arts Service’s WWII photographs, Signal Corps photographs, part of the Medical Illustration Service Library, New Contributed Photographs collection, the unpublished 7th Saranac Silicosis Symposium from the Vorwarld Collection, Hollister Collection dental education photographs, an AFIP Study of 58 Combat Deaths from Vietnam, various museum publications including the Medical & Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, captured Vietcong medical manuals, the Museum’s 19th century curatorial logbooks, one half of John King’s 35mm veterinary slides, AFIP Public Affairs Office photographs (which were given MIS Library numbers), the Spanish-American War photographic collection, WRAIR 1960s-1970s photographs (under a shared contract), WRAMC DPW department photographs (given MIS numbers and returned), the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) photographs (given MIS numbers and returned), Surgical Photographs, Contributed Photographs, and Specimen CDVs. As a reminder, the scanning project did not get through all the accession files. AFIP 657,675-2,372,287 (end of the AFIP-assigned numbers) are not done. Some departmental catalogue records are really displaced accession files. Catalogue records in Anatomical were partly done and integrated into the Accession files. Historical collection catalogue records were not done at all. A few straggling projects continue – the Records Repository is digitizing the microfilm of atomic bomb casualties, and the Radiology Pathathology department is scanning x-rays from the MIS Library. WDMET Vietnam War-era wounding data is also being worked on, and remains in West Virginia.
Computerized cataloguing on the collection has continued on both the collection and item level. Cataloguing of new material coming into the museum was done for the General Medical Products Information Collection, Medical Ephemera, New Contributed photographs, Audiovisual Collection, AFIP Historical Files, WRAMC Historical Collection and other artificial collections. Implementation of a comprehensive computer catalogue for the entire Museum continued with data from the archives added to KE Software’s EMU database. New cataloguing is now done directly into EMU, unless a traditional archival-style finding aid is done. Tens of thousands of records were created or modified for the Archives after the initial data load, and in 2011, all of the IMC records and images will be added into the database.
New material acquired included the Kindred Collection (housed in HDAC), the Miller (Cecil) Collection] of Dr. Cecil R. Miller, who was the NCOIC of the 430th AAFRTU ("Army Air Force Replacement Training Unit," a convalescent center for battle fatigue), Richard Satava’s DARPA Videotape Collection and the Leach Scrapbook, a World War I album of photographs of World War I facial case reconstructions and other surgical injuries. Newly-catalogued as a separate collection was Curatorial Records: Army Medical School Sanitary Chemistry Instruction Cards, 1905. As 2011 began, and AFIP started shutting down the Museum has received a pallet of videotapes from the Radiology dept. and 5 pallets of books and journals from Ash Library which will close at the end of February.
The Archives has a significant presence on the Internet including the Guide to the Collections of the Museum on the museum website which remains the main way researchers begin to use the archives. Cutter did finding aids for St. Elizabeths Hospital collection and American Board of Forensic Odontology (ABFO) records and inventoried videotapes from Richard Satava. No more archival collections were listed in the Library of Congress' National Union Catalogue of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC); however, finding aids should still be sent to NUCMC in the future for the different audiences it reaches.
In fall 2006, archives staff began adding interesting photographs to Flickr’s website. By December 31, 2009, we wrapped up the year with slightly under a million views - 906,255 for approximately 1800 images. As of the first week in January 2011, 1,515 people had chosen to be contacts of the Museum’s Flickr site. This number had increased drastically in December when the web post “Candid photographs of Civil War battlefield injuries” by Maggie Koerth-Baker (Boing Boing Dec 27, 2010; http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/27/candid-photographs-of-civ.html) picked up the Archives posting of Civil War images from the Contributed Photographs collection. The Flickr daily view statistics for roughly ~250 images were December 27, 2010: 327,779; December 28: 245,041; December 29: 83,579; December 30: 30,834; December 31: 14,260; January 1: 8,268 and January 2: 10,569 for a 7-day total of 720,330 views. The entire Flickr group of photographs had 3,281,103 views of about 2,600 images by December 28th. A Repository for Bottled Monsters, an unofficial blog for the museum, continues to attract a worldwide audience. The notice about sharing the Civil War images was first posted to the blog and picked up from there. Since January 19, 2010, transcriptions of a ‘Letter of the Day’ from the Archives files have been posted to the blog with only July 4th not having a letter found for it.
Books and documents scanned by IMC were uploaded to the free Internet Archive, where they are available for downloading. Titles uploaded included a score of scans of the Museum’s nineteenth century logbooks, the three 1866 printed Catalogues of the Museum, captured handwritten medical manuals from the Vietnam War, the Medical Report of the Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan vol 6 (manuscript), Carry On: a Magazine on the Reconstruction of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors (08/1918) and audio recordings from the AFIP Oral History Project.
Rhode served on the AFIP's Institutional Review Board and HIPPA committees as well as Museum committees including the Admin group, the collections committee (as did Stocker and Cutter), and the database committee (as did Stocker).
Research and historical material, mostly on military medicine, was provided to AFIP, especially the Public Affairs Office for which High in particular has pulled scores of photographs for a new history of the AFIP. External users included the following institutions: NYU Langone Medical Center Office of Communications & Public Affairs, National Library of Medicine Dept of History of Medicine, University of Virginia Center for Bioethics, Alaskan Heritage Bookshop, University of Queensland Centre for the History of European Discourses, Dept. of Justice ATF Historian, National Park Service’s Fort Scott National Historic Site, Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History’s Repatriation Office, The New York Times Magazine, Pictures on the Waves, McGraw-Hill, William P. Didusch Center for Urologic History, History Works, Inc., Society for the History of Navy Medicine, LaGuardia Community College’s LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, Oakland University, Walter Reed Army Medical Center Directorate of Public Works, Ritsumeikan University’s College of Policy Science, National Institutes Of Health’s NAIAD, New York State Museum, University of Pennsylvania’s Dept. of History and Sociology of Science, WRAMC Historian’s Office, Weider History Group, Inc., Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, University of Western Ontario, Fort Buford State Historic Site and Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center, Washington Post, Burns Archive, USAF School of Aerospace Medicine, Ft. Baird Historic Preservation Society, Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History’s Dept. of Anthropology, Gina McNeely Picture Research, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History, Oxford University Press Medical Books, University of Illinois, Case Western University’s Dittrick Medical History Center, Walter Reed Army Institute Of Research, US Navy Group 2, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), United States Army Medical Research Institute for infectious diseases’s Visual Information Office, Kaplan Fuller Group, National Library of Medicine Prints and Photographs division, Thompson Rivers University Dept. of Philosophy, Food and Drug Administration, Loopline Film, Rutgers University Dept of American Art and Visual Culture, Brera Fine Art Academy, Quercus Books, Elsevier Publishing Services, Anker Productions, Inc., Clement Railroad Hotel Museum, Texas Military Forces Museum, PRI Healthcare Solutions, Papers of Abraham Lincoln, North State Forensic Psychiatry PLLC, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island’s The Stroke Center, The Valley Hospital’s Diagnostic Imaging, Longwoods Publishing, University of Maryland Baltimore County UMBC Honors College, Sam Weller Books, Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center (AFHSC), U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, University of Delaware Dept. of History of American Civilization, Virginia Historical Society, Universidad Nacional’s Dept. of Anthropology, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Field Museum’s Dept. of Anthropology, Auckland Hospital, Université de Picardie’s Faculté d'Histoire, University of Michigan’s Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry, O&P Business News, Open University of Israel, Writing and Editorial Services, and American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy.
PRESENTATIONS
1. Rhode, M. moderator, “Panel discussion on Use of Social Media to Promote Digital Collections,” Archivists and Librarians in the History of the Health Sciences & Medical Museums Association joint meeting, (April 29)
2. Rhode, M. “Cancer in the Comics: No Laughing Matter,” American Association for the History of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, (May 1, 2010),
3. Rhode, M. “The National Museum of Health and Medicine’s History as Seen through Its Archives,” Society of American Archivists’ Government Records Section, (August 13, 2010)
Dr. Chevalier Jackson in NY Times
The NMHM also has a collection of material from Dr. Jackson, similiar to that from the Mutter Museum and discussed here...
Down the Hatch and Straight Into Medical History
By AMANDA SCHAFFER,
From brain tissue to gallstones, doctors have long preserved specimens from their patients — sometimes as trophies, sometimes as teaching tools, sometimes as curiosities or even art. But Dr. Chevalier Jackson went much further than most.
A laryngologist who worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he preserved more than 2,000 objects that people had swallowed or inhaled: nails and bolts, miniature binoculars, a radiator key, a child's perfect-attendance pin, a medallion that says "Carry me for good luck."
January 22: Lecture on Walter Reed radio show in WW2
Michael Henry of the University of Maryland's Library of American Broadcasting has let me know about a lecture he's doing:
Parks Johnson's radio show Vox Pop visited Walter Reed on March 15, 1943. Co-host Warren Hull specifically refers to the fact that they are broadcasting from the "Red Cross Recreation Hall". On Saturday January 22, I will be giving a presentation about the broadcast at the Radio & Television Museum in Bowie, MD. The event is free and open to the public. The presentation will start at 2pm. The museum is located at 2608 Mitchellville Rd in Bowie.
Pictures of the show being done at Walter Reed are online.
Letter of the Day: January 11
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 01948
January 11, 1897
Dr. L. Campbell,
Slatington, Pa.
Dear Sir:
I answer to your letter of the 7th inst. I would state that we have several specimens of the effect of scorbutus on the jaw of grown persons, but none in a child. and I should, therefore, be pleased to receive the specimen referred to.
If you conclude to donate it to the Museum, please have it packed in a box marked: Army Medical Museum, Cor. 7th and B sts, S.W., Washington, D.C., and send it by Adams Express, which has authority to receive and forward it and collect freight charges here.
Very respectfully,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army
In charge of Museum and Library Division
January 11, 1897
Dr. L. Campbell,
Slatington, Pa.
Dear Sir:
I answer to your letter of the 7th inst. I would state that we have several specimens of the effect of scorbutus on the jaw of grown persons, but none in a child. and I should, therefore, be pleased to receive the specimen referred to.
If you conclude to donate it to the Museum, please have it packed in a box marked: Army Medical Museum, Cor. 7th and B sts, S.W., Washington, D.C., and send it by Adams Express, which has authority to receive and forward it and collect freight charges here.
Very respectfully,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army
In charge of Museum and Library Division
Monday, January 10, 2011
We're still sending Civil War pictures to Flickr.
Visit us!
Contributed Photograph 0936
PATTERSON, JAMES
GUNSHOT WOUND OF ARM. SAME MISSILE WOUNDING ABDOMEN ALSO.
PVT, Company H, 5th Pennsylvania CAVALRY
Wounded NEAR RICHMOND, 2 APR 1865
Dr RB BONTECOU, HAREWOOD HOSPITAL
See also CP 628
BOUND IN HAREWOOD, VOL. I. HISTORY ON VERSO.
CIVIL WAR
Contributed Photograph 0936
PATTERSON, JAMES
GUNSHOT WOUND OF ARM. SAME MISSILE WOUNDING ABDOMEN ALSO.
PVT, Company H, 5th Pennsylvania CAVALRY
Wounded NEAR RICHMOND, 2 APR 1865
Dr RB BONTECOU, HAREWOOD HOSPITAL
See also CP 628
BOUND IN HAREWOOD, VOL. I. HISTORY ON VERSO.
CIVIL WAR
Letter of the Day: January 10
All communications to this Office should be addressed "To the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, Washington, D.C."
Subject: Repairs of heating apparatus.
War Department
Surgeon General's Office,
U.S. Army Medical Museum and Library
Corner of 7th and B Streets S.W.
Washington, D.C. January 10, 1895
To the
Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Washington, D.C.
Sir:
I have the honor to request authority to have repairs made to the heating apparatus in this building, at the estimated cost of $15.00, and to be paid for from the Museum appropriation as an emergency purchase.
Very respectfully,
JS Billings
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Army Medical Museum and Library.
Subject: Repairs of heating apparatus.
War Department
Surgeon General's Office,
U.S. Army Medical Museum and Library
Corner of 7th and B Streets S.W.
Washington, D.C. January 10, 1895
To the
Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Washington, D.C.
Sir:
I have the honor to request authority to have repairs made to the heating apparatus in this building, at the estimated cost of $15.00, and to be paid for from the Museum appropriation as an emergency purchase.
Very respectfully,
JS Billings
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Army Medical Museum and Library.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Letter of the Day: January 9
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1956
Fort Walla Walla Washington
Saturday, January 9th 1897
Major Walter Reed
Surgeon U.S. Army
Washington, D.C.
My dear Doctor
I have sent you by mail today a piece of a testicle, the organ having been removed about five weeks ago. I will be very much obliged a microscopical examination as well as for a mounted slide if not too much trouble. The former owner, a man about forty years of age denies and I think honestly as far as he knows any syphilitic history, he dates his trouble from an injury received while riding about nine years ago. During the past year the organ has increased very much in size + has been painful. The surrounding lymphatic were not markedly enlarged nor tender, tho there has been a gradual loss of flesh[,] general weakness and cachexia.
On examination there was found an eggshaped tumor adherent in one place to the scrotum, much larger than the other testicle and quite solid with severe pain on pressure.
The diagnosis was a toss up between syphilitic and sarcoma with a leaning toward the latter. Trusting that I am not giving too much trouble I am with best wishes for the New Year
Very sincerely yours
John Phillips
Capt + Asst Surgeon A.S.U
Fort Walla Walla Washington
Saturday, January 9th 1897
Major Walter Reed
Surgeon U.S. Army
Washington, D.C.
My dear Doctor
I have sent you by mail today a piece of a testicle, the organ having been removed about five weeks ago. I will be very much obliged a microscopical examination as well as for a mounted slide if not too much trouble. The former owner, a man about forty years of age denies and I think honestly as far as he knows any syphilitic history, he dates his trouble from an injury received while riding about nine years ago. During the past year the organ has increased very much in size + has been painful. The surrounding lymphatic were not markedly enlarged nor tender, tho there has been a gradual loss of flesh[,] general weakness and cachexia.
On examination there was found an eggshaped tumor adherent in one place to the scrotum, much larger than the other testicle and quite solid with severe pain on pressure.
The diagnosis was a toss up between syphilitic and sarcoma with a leaning toward the latter. Trusting that I am not giving too much trouble I am with best wishes for the New Year
Very sincerely yours
John Phillips
Capt + Asst Surgeon A.S.U
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Advances in military medicine featured in good newspaper article
The Washington Post has been doing an excellent series on this, and is now joined by the NY Times.
By C. J. CHIVERS,
January 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/world/asia/08wounded.html
In Wider War in Afghanistan, Survival Rate of Wounded Rises
By C. J. CHIVERS,
January 7, 2011http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/world/asia/08wounded.html
Letter of the Day: January 8
Museum of Hygiene
Bureau of Medicine & Surgery,
Cor. 18th & G. Streets, N.W.
Washington Jany 8 1883
D.L. Huntington,
Lt. Col. + Surgeon, U.S.A.
+c +c
Sir:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communications of the 5th + 6th instant.
I gratefully acknowledge the receipt of the following articles for the Museum of Hygiene, viz:
1. A model of Tompkins wheeled stretcher.
2. A full sized folding hand-litter with telescopic handles, made at Watervliet Arsenal.
3. A model of an ambulance wagon made at Watervliet Arsenal, accompanied by a copy of Report of a Board of Officers to decide upon a Patter of Ambulance Wagon for Army Use, etc.
4. A model of a ward of a hospital.
5. A model of Hick’s Hospital, with table.
6. A set of Microscopical photographs by Surgeon J.J. Woodward, U.S.A.
7. A set of Centennial photographs with explanatory pamphlets.
Very respectfully,
Your obd’t servant.
J.M Browne
Med. Director, U.S.N.
In charge
Bureau of Medicine & Surgery,
Cor. 18th & G. Streets, N.W.
Washington Jany 8 1883
D.L. Huntington,
Lt. Col. + Surgeon, U.S.A.
+c +c
Sir:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communications of the 5th + 6th instant.
I gratefully acknowledge the receipt of the following articles for the Museum of Hygiene, viz:
1. A model of Tompkins wheeled stretcher.
2. A full sized folding hand-litter with telescopic handles, made at Watervliet Arsenal.
3. A model of an ambulance wagon made at Watervliet Arsenal, accompanied by a copy of Report of a Board of Officers to decide upon a Patter of Ambulance Wagon for Army Use, etc.
4. A model of a ward of a hospital.
5. A model of Hick’s Hospital, with table.
6. A set of Microscopical photographs by Surgeon J.J. Woodward, U.S.A.
7. A set of Centennial photographs with explanatory pamphlets.
Very respectfully,
Your obd’t servant.
J.M Browne
Med. Director, U.S.N.
In charge
Friday, January 7, 2011
Letter of the Day: January 7
See Dr. Huntington's reply on January 11, 1897
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 01948
Established 1870
Treating and Filling
Crowns in Porcelain and Gold
Artifical Teeth
Bridge Work, etc.
Dr. L. Campbell's
Dental Rooms
Slatington, Pa., Jan 7th, 1867
Dr. D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General
Washington
D.C.
My Dear Doctor
I am in receipt of the Report of the Committee on the National Dental Museum + Library and certainly am in sympathy with such a grand movement and will do all I can for the sucess of it I have a case of "Scorbutus" in a child 2 yrs old a rare case although I do not like to part with it still I may send it I have the teeth of lower jaw all mounted on a plaster cast shape of jaw and set are the same as in the mouth let me know if you have any such case at the Museum
Respectfully
L. Campbell
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 01948
Established 1870
Treating and Filling
Crowns in Porcelain and Gold
Artifical Teeth
Bridge Work, etc.
Dr. L. Campbell's
Dental Rooms
Slatington, Pa., Jan 7th, 1867
Dr. D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General
Washington
D.C.
My Dear Doctor
I am in receipt of the Report of the Committee on the National Dental Museum + Library and certainly am in sympathy with such a grand movement and will do all I can for the sucess of it I have a case of "Scorbutus" in a child 2 yrs old a rare case although I do not like to part with it still I may send it I have the teeth of lower jaw all mounted on a plaster cast shape of jaw and set are the same as in the mouth let me know if you have any such case at the Museum
Respectfully
L. Campbell
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Navy World War 2 cartoon by Hotchkiss online now
MIS 09-7914-1
"He had his heart set on pate de foie gras. Navy chow is the best!
Take all you can eat, eat all you can take! Don't be finicky!"
[Nutrition.] [Propaganda.] [World War 2.] [Illustration by: "Hotchkiss
USNR".] World War II. Cartoon.
1944; Bureau of Supplies and Accounts: Navy; U.S. Government Printing
Office; U.S. Navy BUMED Library and Archives
Letter of the Day: January 6
This is one of the earliest letters in the collection that documents the acquisition of the Gibson collection. Other letters regarding the purchase of the Gibson collection arrive two years later, in 1868: April 22, May 1, and August 16.
Office Medical Surveyor,
Richmond, Va., January 6th, 1866
Doctor
In accordance with your note of Dec 29th, 1865, I visited in company with Dr Gaillard of this city + Col. I Simons U.S.A Mw.[?] Director of the Dept. the collection of the late Dr. C. B. Gibson + now offered for sale I have the honor to transmit herewith a catalogue of the same. The great bulk of this collection was made by Prof William Gibson Emeritus Professor of Surgery University of Penn. + which for a long time was used by him in his lectures + well known for its completeness + great value.
The forty two (42) oil paintings aside from their professional are of great value as works of art.
The osteological part of the collection I consider unique. Enhancing I think every known fracture + disease of bone + showing the powers of nature in the repair of the same. A number of specimens are from Waterloo -
I think that this part of the collection would be of great value in filling a gap in the Army Museum which must necessarily exist (ie) showing reunion after fracture, sabre cuts, + repair from disease. The wax preparations are elegant specimens of art the leather ones though not much used now are the finest that I have ever seen.
The whole collection is in good state of presivation [sic] - specimens well mounted + enclosed in upright cases-
The college at N.O. and at this place + some parties in Philadelphia have been asking about the price +c. Mrs. Gibson proposes in regard to price the following which I consider very liberal. She will appoint one professional man the other party to appoint one + they to appoint a third + she agrees to be bound by the decision of the three.
I have the honor
Very Respectfully I am
Your Obedient Servant
John H. Janeway
Bvt. Maj. + Asst Surgeon, U.S.A
[To] Bvt. Maj. + Asst Surgeon
A.A. Woodhull U.S.A.
Surgeon Generals Office
Washington
D.C.
Office Medical Surveyor,
Richmond, Va., January 6th, 1866
Doctor
In accordance with your note of Dec 29th, 1865, I visited in company with Dr Gaillard of this city + Col. I Simons U.S.A Mw.[?] Director of the Dept. the collection of the late Dr. C. B. Gibson + now offered for sale I have the honor to transmit herewith a catalogue of the same. The great bulk of this collection was made by Prof William Gibson Emeritus Professor of Surgery University of Penn. + which for a long time was used by him in his lectures + well known for its completeness + great value.
The forty two (42) oil paintings aside from their professional are of great value as works of art.
The osteological part of the collection I consider unique. Enhancing I think every known fracture + disease of bone + showing the powers of nature in the repair of the same. A number of specimens are from Waterloo -
I think that this part of the collection would be of great value in filling a gap in the Army Museum which must necessarily exist (ie) showing reunion after fracture, sabre cuts, + repair from disease. The wax preparations are elegant specimens of art the leather ones though not much used now are the finest that I have ever seen.
The whole collection is in good state of presivation [sic] - specimens well mounted + enclosed in upright cases-
The college at N.O. and at this place + some parties in Philadelphia have been asking about the price +c. Mrs. Gibson proposes in regard to price the following which I consider very liberal. She will appoint one professional man the other party to appoint one + they to appoint a third + she agrees to be bound by the decision of the three.
I have the honor
Very Respectfully I am
Your Obedient Servant
John H. Janeway
Bvt. Maj. + Asst Surgeon, U.S.A
[To] Bvt. Maj. + Asst Surgeon
A.A. Woodhull U.S.A.
Surgeon Generals Office
Washington
D.C.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Letter of the Day: January 5
War Department,
Surgeon General's Office,
Washington, D.C., Jan. 5th, 1870
Sir:
I have the honor to report that the four (4) blank- books, furnished last January, to be used as registers for Visitors at the Museum, will be completely filled in a few days, and others will be required.
I, am, Sir, very respectfully,
Your obt. servant,
Robt. E. Williams
Hospl. Stew'rd
U.S.A.
[To] Brt. Lt. Col. Geo. A. Otis,
Assistant Surgeon, N.S.A.
Curator of the Army Med. Museum.
Surgeon General's Office,
Washington, D.C., Jan. 5th, 1870
Sir:
I have the honor to report that the four (4) blank- books, furnished last January, to be used as registers for Visitors at the Museum, will be completely filled in a few days, and others will be required.
I, am, Sir, very respectfully,
Your obt. servant,
Robt. E. Williams
Hospl. Stew'rd
U.S.A.
[To] Brt. Lt. Col. Geo. A. Otis,
Assistant Surgeon, N.S.A.
Curator of the Army Med. Museum.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Letter of the Day: January 4
[Historian of medicine Bert Hansen has written on the early days of vaccination in NYC, and tells me this is probably a cowpox cultivated in calves and used to immunize people against smallpox. Reed had written to the Health Department a week earlier asking about the failure after several months of two samples of bovine vaccine he had made himself. Here’s two relevant photographs - http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cowpox&w=99129398%40N00 One further note – by the end of the nineteenth century, it was known that something smaller than bacteria could cause disease, but the first actual virus was isolated by Martinus Willem Beijerinck in 1898; hence the terminology used in this letter is imprecise to modern readers.]
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1903
Health Department,
Centre, Elm, White & Franklin Streets,.
(Criminal Court Building)
Office of the Pathologist, and Director of the Bacteriological Laboratory.
New York, Jan 4th, 1897
Walter Reed, M.D.,
Curator U.S. Army Museum,
7th and B. Streets S.W.,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Doctor:-
Your communication of the 28th ult. To Dr. H.M. Biggs has been received, and he has requested me to reply to the same. With reference to the statement made on the printed directions accompanying the package of vaccine virus sent you on Dec. 24th, I would say that this label was prepared at a time when the keeping quality of the vaccine virus produced by this Department had not yet been fully ascertained. As a matter of fact, we find that the virus preserves its potency unchanged for fully six months; not only does it not deteriorate in strength during this period, but its quality with regard to the number of bacteria present is improved. We have found it impossible to produce a virus absolutely free from bacteria, although we are able to assure the absence of pathogenic organisms. The bacteria originally present in the virus diminish as time goes on, and the age of the virus is, therefore, an important factor with relation to the number of bacteria contained.
Respectfully,
Alfred L. Beebe
Asst. Director, Diagnosis Bacteriological Laboratory
Monday, January 3, 2011
Meet Joshua
Joshua was a rhesus macaque born in a "monkey colony" maintained for research on primate development and reproduction. The monkey colony was part of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Embryology from 1925-1971, and the collections are now housed at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Researchers were able to use data on how monkeys develop to better interpret data on how another primate, humans, develop.
The rhesus macaque species has served as a useful animal model for research on human physiology and disease, including the discovery of the namesake Rh factor in blood.
Flickr statistics after Boing Boing's link to Civil War photos
Flickr daily view statistics for roughly ~250 images*.
December 27, 2010: 327,779
December 28: 245,041
December 29: 83,579
December 30: 30,834
December 31: 14,260
January 1: 8,268
January 2: 10,569
7 day total: 720,330 views
*images were added on a daily basis and some previous uploads not identified as Civil War were moved into the set.
Burns Archive blog
Dr. Stanley Burns is one of the most prolific collectors of history of medicine photographs, and he’s got a blog at http://www.theburnsarchive.blogspot.com/ which has some very neat images.
Dr. Burns is about to wrap up a book on Dr. Reed Bontecou, a Civil War doctor, based in Harewood Hospital in DC, who was a strong supporter of the Museum and donated many photographs here, some of which have been appearing on our Flickr site recently. Dr. Burns has albums of the pictures that were returned to Dr. Bontecou’s son in 1915 and will be drawing on them for the book.
Museum Administrator Donna White retired December 30
Museum Administrator Donna White retired on December 30, 2010, after 11 years in the Museum and over 40 years of government service. Donna handled the nuts and bolts behind the scenes, working on personnel, contracts, payroll, supply orders and the like - not glamorous, but vitally important work.
Here's Donna's profile from the Museum's website:
Donna R. White is the museum's administrator. Her background includes experience in human resources and equal opportunity counseling and instruction. She has worked extensively with the military, having spent five years in Germany working at various military bases in a human resources capacity. During this time, she had the opportunity to travel extensively and to learn the German language.
Speaking personally, Donna's been my supervisor for years, and I appreciate both her support and her forbearance.
Letter of the Day: January 3
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 00409
January 3, 1895
Messrs Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & co.,
Paternoster House,
Charing Cross Road,
London, W.C., England.
Gentlemen:
Please purchase for the Army Medical Museum,
1 Arteriometer, and
1 Pulse-pressure gauge,
devised by Dr. George Oliver and figured in his work "Pulse-Gauging. A clinical study of radial measurement and pulse pressure." London, 1895, pp. 3 and 95.
The instructions can be obtained of the maker, Mr. Hawkesley, 357 Oxford St., London.
Have the kindness to send the articles with separate bill in the usual manner.
Very respectfully,
J. S. Billings
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Director Army Medical Museum and Library.
January 3, 1895
Messrs Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & co.,
Paternoster House,
Charing Cross Road,
London, W.C., England.
Gentlemen:
Please purchase for the Army Medical Museum,
1 Arteriometer, and
1 Pulse-pressure gauge,
devised by Dr. George Oliver and figured in his work "Pulse-Gauging. A clinical study of radial measurement and pulse pressure." London, 1895, pp. 3 and 95.
The instructions can be obtained of the maker, Mr. Hawkesley, 357 Oxford St., London.
Have the kindness to send the articles with separate bill in the usual manner.
Very respectfully,
J. S. Billings
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Director Army Medical Museum and Library.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Letter of the Day: January 2
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 00376
[handwritten notation] Note: These histories relate to specimens received Dec 17 + Dec 21, 1894. See Record Cards nos. 376 + 383
Lt. Colonial W. H. Forwood
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Attending Surgeon, Soldier's Home,
Near Washington, D.C.
Dear Doctor:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the histories of the cases of John King, "D", 1st Cavalry, and of John Engel "H", 8th Infantry, which furnished specimens contributed by you to the Army Medical Museum, and to thank you for these additions to the Museum records.
Very respectfully,
Walter Reed
Major and Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Curator, Army Medical Museum
[handwritten notation] Note: These histories relate to specimens received Dec 17 + Dec 21, 1894. See Record Cards nos. 376 + 383
Lt. Colonial W. H. Forwood
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Attending Surgeon, Soldier's Home,
Near Washington, D.C.
Dear Doctor:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the histories of the cases of John King, "D", 1st Cavalry, and of John Engel "H", 8th Infantry, which furnished specimens contributed by you to the Army Medical Museum, and to thank you for these additions to the Museum records.
Very respectfully,
Walter Reed
Major and Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Curator, Army Medical Museum
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Letter of the Day: January 1
Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology,
Harvard University
F.W. Putnam,
Curator of Museum
Lucien Carr,
Assistant Curator
Cambridge, Mass., Jan 1 1886
Dr. Billings
Dear Sir
I have the material for five hundred skull stands abd partly made up shall I finish them up and send them to you
Truly yours
Edw. E. Chick
PS I'm in no hurry about the miny [money] if you have not got the appropriation yet
Harvard University
F.W. Putnam,
Curator of Museum
Lucien Carr,
Assistant Curator
Cambridge, Mass., Jan 1 1886
Dr. Billings
Dear Sir
I have the material for five hundred skull stands abd partly made up shall I finish them up and send them to you
Truly yours
Edw. E. Chick
PS I'm in no hurry about the miny [money] if you have not got the appropriation yet
Friday, December 31, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 31
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 01920
December 31, 1896
Dr. Bailey K. Ashford,
Children's Hospital,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Dr. Ashford:
Dr. Adams has kindly consented to allow me to vaccinate a few children in your hospital, but requested me to consult you as to time, etc. I would be under many obligations if you could place at my disposal on Monday afternoon, at about 2 p.m., four children, two of these to be vaccinated hypodermically with glycerinated lymph, and the remaining two in the ordinary way, as controls. If this is agreeable to you please telephone on Monday morning.
Very sincerely yours,
Walter Reed
Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Curator
December 31, 1896
Dr. Bailey K. Ashford,
Children's Hospital,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Dr. Ashford:
Dr. Adams has kindly consented to allow me to vaccinate a few children in your hospital, but requested me to consult you as to time, etc. I would be under many obligations if you could place at my disposal on Monday afternoon, at about 2 p.m., four children, two of these to be vaccinated hypodermically with glycerinated lymph, and the remaining two in the ordinary way, as controls. If this is agreeable to you please telephone on Monday morning.
Very sincerely yours,
Walter Reed
Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Curator
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 30 [mystery diagnosis, part 4]
December 30, 1896
Lieut. P. C. Fauntleroy
Assistant Surgeon, U. S. Army,
Fort Niobrara, Nebraska
Dear Doctor:
I have examined the cover slips and urine which you recently sent, but have been unable to get any information from them as to the cause of your case of purulent urethritis. I think it more than likely that the peculiar bodies I referred to in my former letter are, after all, altered white blood cells. Certainly your case appears to be unique in one respect, namely, the apparent entire absence of bacteria from the discharge. Although I would not, as a rule, place much confidence in the statements of an individual who had been dancing and drinking, still, as far as the evidence goes in this particular case, you can probably exclude the gonococcus as the cause.
Very sincerely yours,
Walter Reed
Surgeon, U. S. Army,
Curator
Lieut. P. C. Fauntleroy
Assistant Surgeon, U. S. Army,
Fort Niobrara, Nebraska
Dear Doctor:
I have examined the cover slips and urine which you recently sent, but have been unable to get any information from them as to the cause of your case of purulent urethritis. I think it more than likely that the peculiar bodies I referred to in my former letter are, after all, altered white blood cells. Certainly your case appears to be unique in one respect, namely, the apparent entire absence of bacteria from the discharge. Although I would not, as a rule, place much confidence in the statements of an individual who had been dancing and drinking, still, as far as the evidence goes in this particular case, you can probably exclude the gonococcus as the cause.
Very sincerely yours,
Walter Reed
Surgeon, U. S. Army,
Curator
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 29
Attorney at [document torn]
And Notary Public
Lake Crystal, Minn., Dec 29, 1883
Surgeon General U.S.A.
Dear Sir.
Nineteen years ago Dec 15-last-Surgeon AJ Bartlett 33d Mo Vols, now of Virdeu Ill removed the head of the humerus from my left-arm. Hee [sic] writes me that he sent the bone with a minie ball sticking in it to the Army Medical Museum at Washington and it is numbered 6599 surgical section. I have never seen the piece removed and as I had taken a photograph of myself showing the wound taken + sent to the Medical Museum, will you kindly have the bone with the ball in it photographed + sent to me. I will be glad to incur all necessary expense.
I hope you will do this as it will be a valuable war relic to me.
Yours truly,
Lonnie Cray
And Notary Public
Lake Crystal, Minn., Dec 29, 1883
Surgeon General U.S.A.
Dear Sir.
Nineteen years ago Dec 15-last-Surgeon AJ Bartlett 33d Mo Vols, now of Virdeu Ill removed the head of the humerus from my left-arm. Hee [sic] writes me that he sent the bone with a minie ball sticking in it to the Army Medical Museum at Washington and it is numbered 6599 surgical section. I have never seen the piece removed and as I had taken a photograph of myself showing the wound taken + sent to the Medical Museum, will you kindly have the bone with the ball in it photographed + sent to me. I will be glad to incur all necessary expense.
I hope you will do this as it will be a valuable war relic to me.
Yours truly,
Lonnie Cray
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 28
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 01900
December 28th, 1896
Dr. S.S. Adams,
1 Dupont Circle,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Dr. Adams:
Surgeon General Sternberg is very anxious that I should try the hypodermic injection of vaccine virus on a few children. His idea is that one may make use of the virus free of pathogenic bacteria in this way and obtain complete vaccinal immunity without the formation of any vesicle. He has recently obtained from the Health Department of New York City a glycerinated vaccine virus for this purpose. I write to ask if you would be willing to place at my disposal a few children, say half a dozen, upon whom I could practice this method.
Very sincerely yours,
Walter Reed.
Surgeon, U.S.A.
Curator.
December 28th, 1896
Dr. S.S. Adams,
1 Dupont Circle,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Dr. Adams:
Surgeon General Sternberg is very anxious that I should try the hypodermic injection of vaccine virus on a few children. His idea is that one may make use of the virus free of pathogenic bacteria in this way and obtain complete vaccinal immunity without the formation of any vesicle. He has recently obtained from the Health Department of New York City a glycerinated vaccine virus for this purpose. I write to ask if you would be willing to place at my disposal a few children, say half a dozen, upon whom I could practice this method.
Very sincerely yours,
Walter Reed.
Surgeon, U.S.A.
Curator.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Self-referential post, OR, many thanks to Boing Boing
Boing Boing linked to my post about Civil War pictures on Flickr driving our normal traffic from 1500-2000 views per day to 327,779. Thanks!
Read more about Civil War photography
Shooting Soldiers: Civil War Medical Images, Memory, and Identity in America
by J.T.H. Connor and Michael G. Rhode
Invisible Culture no. 5, 2003
by J.T.H. Connor and Michael G. Rhode
Invisible Culture no. 5, 2003
CWMI013
'Blackman's Successful Amputation at the Hip Joint', illustration by Hermann Faber. This operation was rarely successful. The patient is Private Woodford Longmore, Confederate soldier. He was wounded June 11, 1864 at Cynthiana, KY.
(CWMI 013)
sp093
Deathbed of Lincoln by Hermann Faber
Civil War letters on Bottled Monsters blog
Transcribed letters that have been tagged with "Civil War" can be read here.
Letter of the Day: December 27
Personal
Richmond Medical Journal,
Richmond, Va., Dec. 27th 1866,
Major Gen JK Barnes
Dear Sir - On returning home, I devote a portion of my earliest leisure to thanking you and (through your self) the officers immediately around you for courtesies extended to me in Washington, such polite attention has been fully and pleasurably appreciated.
The Museum is a monument of scientific research and most successful labor - For Professional and (and Editorial) reasons, I should be glad to indicate the features and subjects (past and prospective)of greatest interest and, with the necessary faits allowed in my profession, I will, if it be acceptable, comprehensively allude to the gigantic labours characterizing all departments of the Museum and offering, to all scientifically interested, material for profitable study and reformations. I desire it to be understood that, in this manifestation of what is being done and has been done by you , for the practical improvement and development of medical science, I am actuated by professional motives exclusively - I seek the good of the profession and will irrespectively of all other objects -
Respectfully Yr Obdt Srvt,
E.L. Gaillard
Richmond Medical Journal,
Richmond, Va., Dec. 27th 1866,
Major Gen JK Barnes
Dear Sir - On returning home, I devote a portion of my earliest leisure to thanking you and (through your self) the officers immediately around you for courtesies extended to me in Washington, such polite attention has been fully and pleasurably appreciated.
The Museum is a monument of scientific research and most successful labor - For Professional and (and Editorial) reasons, I should be glad to indicate the features and subjects (past and prospective)of greatest interest and, with the necessary faits allowed in my profession, I will, if it be acceptable, comprehensively allude to the gigantic labours characterizing all departments of the Museum and offering, to all scientifically interested, material for profitable study and reformations. I desire it to be understood that, in this manifestation of what is being done and has been done by you , for the practical improvement and development of medical science, I am actuated by professional motives exclusively - I seek the good of the profession and will irrespectively of all other objects -
Respectfully Yr Obdt Srvt,
E.L. Gaillard
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 26
Hammond General Hospital
Point Lookout, Md.,
Decem. 26th 1862
Dear Doctor,
I am very desirous to furnish cases + any information for the Surgical History of the War, that may be in my power. I am having notes of all cases of gun shot wounds that are of interest taken, + the cases written out carefully. If you have any suggestions or instructions to give it will afford me great pleasure to carry them out.
Very truly
Yr st.
C. Wagner
Dr. J.H. Brinton
Surg. US Vols.
Washington.
Point Lookout, Md.,
Decem. 26th 1862
Dear Doctor,
I am very desirous to furnish cases + any information for the Surgical History of the War, that may be in my power. I am having notes of all cases of gun shot wounds that are of interest taken, + the cases written out carefully. If you have any suggestions or instructions to give it will afford me great pleasure to carry them out.
Very truly
Yr st.
C. Wagner
Dr. J.H. Brinton
Surg. US Vols.
Washington.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 25
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1122
58 Washington St
Newport, R.I.
25 Dec. 1895
Dear Dr. Huntington,
I have received [?] German Swiss list. As [? ? ?] :
Dr. Charles Albert. Do you know his locality, + dates of birth + death?
Scholae Regiae Chirurg. 1775.
In one of my specimens of this, there is upon the book which rests against the column: L. VERO CONT | Q VIXAN and nine medals with the vase. In another, upon the book: XP (in monogram [?]) BR MUTAE | BQ VIXIT.D and nineteen medals. Which is yours? And what the explanation of these inscriptions? In both of mine the female leans her right arm on pedestal, and has wreath in right hand and roll in left. You give the contrary.
The 1690 medal was new to me. There is another of that date, but quite different.
Verein Deutscher Aerzte in Paris. You have “Gegrundad”. Is it not gegrundet? Is the Nunquam otiosus in quotations, as you give it?
Apoticaires et Epiciers. You say mortar + pestle “surrounded” by a crown. Did you mean this, or surmounted? There is another medal, somewhat similar.
Vaccination. Petit-Mangin. Is all with the wreath struck? or engraved?
Cholera. H. Ponscarme. Is the inscr. On tablet struck? or engraved?
Dr. F Chabaud. Is field of rev. struck? or engraved? I enclose rubbing of own of my own (silver) with obv. apparently similar, save CAQUE F. + with reverse save field, seemingly identical. These struck fields I presume to be separate, + inserted into the body of the medal. You say “bust” on obverse, mine has only head.
Emmerez. Dirigit [?] ut Prosit. Is it “Pharmacopoea” as you have it, or Pharmacopoea? At right, is there YCR in monogram, or is your Baron Pare? + is there any date in exergue?
With best wishes of the season,
Sincerely yrs
H.R. Storer
58 Washington St
Newport, R.I.
25 Dec. 1895
Dear Dr. Huntington,
I have received [?] German Swiss list. As [? ? ?] :
Dr. Charles Albert. Do you know his locality, + dates of birth + death?
Scholae Regiae Chirurg. 1775.
In one of my specimens of this, there is upon the book which rests against the column: L. VERO CONT | Q VIXAN and nine medals with the vase. In another, upon the book: XP (in monogram [?]) BR MUTAE | BQ VIXIT.D and nineteen medals. Which is yours? And what the explanation of these inscriptions? In both of mine the female leans her right arm on pedestal, and has wreath in right hand and roll in left. You give the contrary.
The 1690 medal was new to me. There is another of that date, but quite different.
Verein Deutscher Aerzte in Paris. You have “Gegrundad”. Is it not gegrundet? Is the Nunquam otiosus in quotations, as you give it?
Apoticaires et Epiciers. You say mortar + pestle “surrounded” by a crown. Did you mean this, or surmounted? There is another medal, somewhat similar.
Vaccination. Petit-Mangin. Is all with the wreath struck? or engraved?
Cholera. H. Ponscarme. Is the inscr. On tablet struck? or engraved?
Dr. F Chabaud. Is field of rev. struck? or engraved? I enclose rubbing of own of my own (silver) with obv. apparently similar, save CAQUE F. + with reverse save field, seemingly identical. These struck fields I presume to be separate, + inserted into the body of the medal. You say “bust” on obverse, mine has only head.
Emmerez. Dirigit [?] ut Prosit. Is it “Pharmacopoea” as you have it, or Pharmacopoea? At right, is there YCR in monogram, or is your Baron Pare? + is there any date in exergue?
With best wishes of the season,
Sincerely yrs
H.R. Storer
Friday, December 24, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 24
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 01890
Claim for services
December 24, 1896
Lieut. Colonial D. L. Huntington,
Deputy Surgeon General, U. S. Army,
In charge of Museum and Library Division,
Surgeon General's Office
Sir: In regard to the claim of Dr. D. Percy Hickling for $92.00 for services rendered myself and family, I beg leave to make the following statement: For any services rendered my family I have paid Dr. Hickling and hold his receipts. For the treatment of myself I must refuse to to pay anything whatever, for the reason that his treatment has not only not benefited me, but, on the contrary, has retarded my recovery, and that I am still, at the present day, more than a year after the injury suffering serious inconvenience from his improper treatment.
Very respectfully,
Michael Flynn
Assistant Messenger, S. G. O.
Claim for services
December 24, 1896
Lieut. Colonial D. L. Huntington,
Deputy Surgeon General, U. S. Army,
In charge of Museum and Library Division,
Surgeon General's Office
Sir: In regard to the claim of Dr. D. Percy Hickling for $92.00 for services rendered myself and family, I beg leave to make the following statement: For any services rendered my family I have paid Dr. Hickling and hold his receipts. For the treatment of myself I must refuse to to pay anything whatever, for the reason that his treatment has not only not benefited me, but, on the contrary, has retarded my recovery, and that I am still, at the present day, more than a year after the injury suffering serious inconvenience from his improper treatment.
Very respectfully,
Michael Flynn
Assistant Messenger, S. G. O.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
John Wilkes Booth's contested identity?
Here's an article that mentions specimens held in the Museum - Navy medical historian Jan Herman will appear on Brad Meltzer's Decoded tonight at 10 pm on the History Channel to discuss it
Booth descendants agree to brother's body ID tests
By Edward Colimore
Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 23, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 23
Hammond General Hospital
Point Lookout, Md.
December 23rd, 1862
Dear Doctor,
Your letter requesting me to preserve specimens for the Museum has been rec'd. I received last week eleven hundred wounded, I have already performed a number of interesting operations, resections, amputations etc[?] - I have more in prospect - the specimens in each case has been preserved- I intend keeping them until the results in each case is known. I would suggest that yyou have a circular issued giving us instructions as to the manner of preparing them whether wet or dry - rest assured I will do all in my power to enrich you collection.
Very truly,
Yours, &c.,
C. Wagner
Asst. Surg., U.S.A.
[To] Dr. J. H. Brinton
See above
Contextual Note: Hammond General Hospital was built in 1862 to care for Union soldiers wounded during the Civil War. It was built on the site of the Point Lookout lighthouse, which was constructed in 1825 to warn ships away from the shoals and mark the entrance of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. A few months after today’s letter was written, the first Confederate prisoners were assigned to the hospital and its ground were expanded, transforming the site into Camp Hoffman, the largest prison camp of the Civil War. Conditions in the camp were terrible and by 1864 the prison, with an original capacity of 10,000, had a population that exceeded 20,000 men. The suffering of the prisoners, primarily enlisted men, was terrible as the ground became filthy, the wells became contaminated and inadequate tents and blankets caused death from exposure. By the end of the war between 3,000 and 8,000 men had died at the camp and were buried on the lighthouse grounds.
The terrible conditions of Camp Hoffman are still felt today. Point Lookout State Park now encompasses the camp and lighthouse , which is considered to be the “most haunted” lighthouse in America. The Point Lookout Lighthouse Preservation Society holds nighttime "paranormal investigations" to raise funds for preservation and restoration activities and the site has been featured on segments of Mystery Hunters, Weird Travels and Haunted Lighthouses.
Sources: Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Point Lookout Lighthouse Preservation Society, Maryland Online Encyclopedia, Lighthouse Friends
Point Lookout, Md.
December 23rd, 1862
Dear Doctor,
Your letter requesting me to preserve specimens for the Museum has been rec'd. I received last week eleven hundred wounded, I have already performed a number of interesting operations, resections, amputations etc[?] - I have more in prospect - the specimens in each case has been preserved- I intend keeping them until the results in each case is known. I would suggest that yyou have a circular issued giving us instructions as to the manner of preparing them whether wet or dry - rest assured I will do all in my power to enrich you collection.
Very truly,
Yours, &c.,
C. Wagner
Asst. Surg., U.S.A.
[To] Dr. J. H. Brinton
See above
Contextual Note: Hammond General Hospital was built in 1862 to care for Union soldiers wounded during the Civil War. It was built on the site of the Point Lookout lighthouse, which was constructed in 1825 to warn ships away from the shoals and mark the entrance of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. A few months after today’s letter was written, the first Confederate prisoners were assigned to the hospital and its ground were expanded, transforming the site into Camp Hoffman, the largest prison camp of the Civil War. Conditions in the camp were terrible and by 1864 the prison, with an original capacity of 10,000, had a population that exceeded 20,000 men. The suffering of the prisoners, primarily enlisted men, was terrible as the ground became filthy, the wells became contaminated and inadequate tents and blankets caused death from exposure. By the end of the war between 3,000 and 8,000 men had died at the camp and were buried on the lighthouse grounds.
The terrible conditions of Camp Hoffman are still felt today. Point Lookout State Park now encompasses the camp and lighthouse , which is considered to be the “most haunted” lighthouse in America. The Point Lookout Lighthouse Preservation Society holds nighttime "paranormal investigations" to raise funds for preservation and restoration activities and the site has been featured on segments of Mystery Hunters, Weird Travels and Haunted Lighthouses.
Sources: Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Point Lookout Lighthouse Preservation Society, Maryland Online Encyclopedia, Lighthouse Friends
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Frederick News-Post columnist likes the Museum
Anna O'Brien: The Hoof Beat
A medical history primer
Originally published December 22, 2010
Last week, I visited the National Museum of Health and Medicine in D.C. I love those types of museums; you know, where there are antique glass jars filled with unknown carcinogenic liquid surrounding internal organs or long-forgotten severed limbs. In my humble opinion, a museum is just not a museum unless it's got a jar containing Siamese twins. To my delight, the National Museum of Health and Medicine does indeed have a set.
Click here to read more.
A medical history primer
Originally published December 22, 2010
Last week, I visited the National Museum of Health and Medicine in D.C. I love those types of museums; you know, where there are antique glass jars filled with unknown carcinogenic liquid surrounding internal organs or long-forgotten severed limbs. In my humble opinion, a museum is just not a museum unless it's got a jar containing Siamese twins. To my delight, the National Museum of Health and Medicine does indeed have a set.
Click here to read more.
Civil War images posted to Flickr
I'm posting all the Civil War pictures from the Contributed Photograph collection to Flickr, in numerical order, unless we've already put them online there in the past. However we're missing large parts of the collection for various reasons, so if there's a gap between CP 543 and CP 572, it's because we no longer have the intervening 29 photographs.
Most of these photographs have never been seen by the general public. I think the level of interest shown in the largely anonymous photographs recently donated to the Library of Congress shows that there is an interest in seeing the people that fought 150 years ago.
Some of the pictures are disturbing due to either violence or exposed genitalia, and I’ve thought twice about posting them. The Flickr site is open to anyone and photographs of genitals are not something everyone wants to see. However, the first hernia picture we have was by Dr. Reed Bontecou, one of the more famous Civil War medical photographers (or it was commissioned by him). Additionally, due to the draft and volunteerism, not everyone who fought in the Civil War was young and healthy, and problems like hernias resulted, but were less easily treated surgically than they are now. Finally, as we get a little farther along in the series of Civil War pictures, there will be many gruesome physical injuries with exposed viscera, and they should be just as troublesome to modern viewers. When I get done with these pictures, I’ll work through the 400 Surgical Photographs that the museum published between 1862 and 1881.
Letter of the Day: December 22
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1888
December 22, 1896
Mr. A. R. Harper
Ruston, La.
Dear Sir:
Your letter of the 15th inst., with photograph of human monster has been referred to me by the Smithsonian Institution. If you will forward it for inspection, I will examine it and let you know what its value to the Museum would be. I will add, however, that under no circumstances, it is worth more than $12.00 to $15.00, as such specimens are not rare.
Should you decide to forward it, you may send it properly boxed by Adams Express, which has authority to receive and forward it and collect freight charges here. Address: Army Medical Museum, Cor. 7th and B Sts., S.W., Washington, D.C.
Very respectfully,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Museum and Library Division.
[the photograph was kept as CP 2276, but is now missing]
December 22, 1896
Mr. A. R. Harper
Ruston, La.
Dear Sir:
Your letter of the 15th inst., with photograph of human monster has been referred to me by the Smithsonian Institution. If you will forward it for inspection, I will examine it and let you know what its value to the Museum would be. I will add, however, that under no circumstances, it is worth more than $12.00 to $15.00, as such specimens are not rare.
Should you decide to forward it, you may send it properly boxed by Adams Express, which has authority to receive and forward it and collect freight charges here. Address: Army Medical Museum, Cor. 7th and B Sts., S.W., Washington, D.C.
Very respectfully,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Museum and Library Division.
[the photograph was kept as CP 2276, but is now missing]
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 21 [mystery diagnosis, part 3]
Fort Niobrara, Neb.
December 21st, 1896
Major Walter Reed
Surgeon U.S. Army
Curator Army Medical Museum
Washington, D.C.
Dear Doctor:
Your letter of the 9th of December in reference to slides, from a gonorrhoea case, which I had sent you was duly received. There has been considerable delay in getting other specimens as you directed as the party was away from fort. I send you by this mail slides + a specimen of morning urine to which I added a little chloroform - not having any formaline. he was directed to stop using a Sol I-2000Mn O4 for three days before attempting to spread the slides. He writes the discharge had decreased very much since I last saw him: so I am afraid the specimens sent are apt to be of little value.
The patient still denies exposure to specific contagion + declares discharge due to irritation by drink + cold and excitement of dancing + adds that at no time he did not know what he was doing.
Very respectfully yours,
P. C. Fauntleroy
December 21st, 1896
Major Walter Reed
Surgeon U.S. Army
Curator Army Medical Museum
Washington, D.C.
Dear Doctor:
Your letter of the 9th of December in reference to slides, from a gonorrhoea case, which I had sent you was duly received. There has been considerable delay in getting other specimens as you directed as the party was away from fort. I send you by this mail slides + a specimen of morning urine to which I added a little chloroform - not having any formaline. he was directed to stop using a Sol I-2000Mn O4 for three days before attempting to spread the slides. He writes the discharge had decreased very much since I last saw him: so I am afraid the specimens sent are apt to be of little value.
The patient still denies exposure to specific contagion + declares discharge due to irritation by drink + cold and excitement of dancing + adds that at no time he did not know what he was doing.
Very respectfully yours,
P. C. Fauntleroy
Monday, December 20, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 20
Improved Centrifugal Machine
December 20, 1894
To the
Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Washington, D.C.
Sir:
I have the honor to report that I have examined the improved Dougherty Centrifugal Machine received on the 17th inst. I find that it is some respects superior to the old centrifugal machine made by the same firm. The number of revolutions is certainly much greater; and, as it runs by clock-work, it saves the labor of turning with the hand. If the spring is thoroughly strong, and warranted to last for several years, then I would pronounce it the better machine of the two for use in the service.
Very respectfully,
Walter Reed
Major and Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Curator Army Medical Museum
December 20, 1894
To the
Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Washington, D.C.
Sir:
I have the honor to report that I have examined the improved Dougherty Centrifugal Machine received on the 17th inst. I find that it is some respects superior to the old centrifugal machine made by the same firm. The number of revolutions is certainly much greater; and, as it runs by clock-work, it saves the labor of turning with the hand. If the spring is thoroughly strong, and warranted to last for several years, then I would pronounce it the better machine of the two for use in the service.
Very respectfully,
Walter Reed
Major and Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Curator Army Medical Museum
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 19
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1104
December 19, 1895
To the Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Washington, D.C.
General:
I have the honor to report that Mr. Morris Downs, a Laborer in this Division of the office, died at 7 P.M., last night, and to request that another laborer be appointed as soon as possible as the services of such laborer are very much needed.
Very respectfully,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Museum and Library Division.
December 19, 1895
To the Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Washington, D.C.
General:
I have the honor to report that Mr. Morris Downs, a Laborer in this Division of the office, died at 7 P.M., last night, and to request that another laborer be appointed as soon as possible as the services of such laborer are very much needed.
Very respectfully,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Museum and Library Division.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 18
T. Sinclair & Son
Lithographic Establishment.
506 & 508 North St.
Philadelphia Dec. 18th 1883
Dear Sir:
In reply to your communication of the 17th inst., we have to say that the illustrations for 10,000 copies of Parts 1.2.3 Surgical volume and Parts 1 and 2 Medical volume would cost at the rate of one dollar per volume, or about $50,000 in all.
Very respectfully yours
Thos. Sinclair + Son
Surgeon General U.S.A.
Washington D.C.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Friday Fact
You might have noticed that our "Letters of the Day" frequently contain the word "inst.," which always seem to reference a date of some kind. Having confined most of my previous research to the very late 19th century/ early 20th century, this was a convention that I hadn't run across very often until I started here at NMHM. It occurred to me that some readers out there might be confused, or at least curious, as I was.
These abbreviations are common in correspondence from the Civil War era, but have (obviously) fallen out of fashion. So here goes:
"Inst." is an abbreviation for "instant", which refers to the current month or year, depending upon its context. For example, "the 17th of December, inst.," means December 17 of the current year. "The 17th, inst.," means the 17th day of the current month.
You may also see the word "ult." - an abbreviation for "ultimo" - which means the previous month or year.
These abbreviations are common in correspondence from the Civil War era, but have (obviously) fallen out of fashion. So here goes:
"Inst." is an abbreviation for "instant", which refers to the current month or year, depending upon its context. For example, "the 17th of December, inst.," means December 17 of the current year. "The 17th, inst.," means the 17th day of the current month.
You may also see the word "ult." - an abbreviation for "ultimo" - which means the previous month or year.
Letter of the Day: December 17
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 374
December 17, 1894
Dr. Paul Gibier,
Director New York Pasteur Institute,
1-7 West 97th St.,
New York.
Dear Doctor:
In the Therapeutic Review, Vol. II., No. 4, which you were kind enough to send me a few days ago, I observe, on page 73, that “Serum is now procurable with an antitoxic power of 50,000,” at your Institute. I will thank you very much if you can send me 10 c.c. of this serum; at the same time please forward bill for the serum.
Very sincerely yours,
Walter Reed
Major and Surgeon, U.S. Army
Curator Army Medical Museum.
December 17, 1894
Dr. Paul Gibier,
Director New York Pasteur Institute,
1-7 West 97th St.,
New York.
Dear Doctor:
In the Therapeutic Review, Vol. II., No. 4, which you were kind enough to send me a few days ago, I observe, on page 73, that “Serum is now procurable with an antitoxic power of 50,000,” at your Institute. I will thank you very much if you can send me 10 c.c. of this serum; at the same time please forward bill for the serum.
Very sincerely yours,
Walter Reed
Major and Surgeon, U.S. Army
Curator Army Medical Museum.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Holiday bit 2 - Ex Libris
Here’s a bookplate based on the Museum’s photograph #Reeve 85182-82 “Avoid Pickups”. You should get 4 per 8x10 page. Write your name in the white box and glue one into your book and you should get it back, or perhaps not even have the book borrowed in the first place.
Happy holidays
Letter of the Day: December 16
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1872
Mssrs Richard Kny & Co.,
17 Park Place,
New York.
Gentlemen:
Will you have the kindness to inform me at an early date of the prices at which you will furnish the following preparatioins:
Osteological Preparations, Catalogue III
p. 3. Skull disarticulated, mounted according to Beauchene, bones untied by polished metal strips, screw movement.
p. 3 Ear with two cuts, internal and median.
p. 15. Skull of monkey, mounted after Beauchene.
Biological Preparations, Catalogue No. V, pp. 20 and 21.
I. Dissected Preparations.
Mus decumanus
Columba sp.
Lacerta agilis.
Rana fortis.
Tinca vulgaris.
Bombyx mori.
Astacus fluviatilis.
Helix pomatis.
II. Injected preparations.
Mus decumanus.
Columba sp.
Lacerta agilis.
Rana fortis.
Tinca vulgaris.
Astacus fluviatilis.
Helix pomatis.
Hiruda medicinalis.
III. Nerve Preparations.
Mus decumanus.
Columba sp.
Lacerta agilis.
Rana escuelenta.
Melolontha vugaris.
Hydrophilus piceus.
Astacus fluviatilis.
Very respectfully,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Mus. and Lib. Div.
Additional
Hiruda medicinalis, nerve prep.
Helix pomatis, “ “
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Washington Post obituary for River Blindness crusader
Rene Le Berre, 78
Entomologist saved millions of Africans from river blindness
By Emma Brown
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121407707.html
Pictures of the disease from the MIS Library –
Letter of the Day: December 15
Subject: Army Medical School Library.
War Department,
Surgeon General's Office,
Washington, December 15, 1894.
Major Walter Reed,
Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Secretary, Army Medical School,
Washington, D.C.,
Sir:
The Surgeon General has directed me as President of the Army Medical School to inform you that it is his desire that a special library should be formed and added to as opportunity affords, for the use of the Faculty and Students of the Army Medical School. While this library will contain chiefly "books of reference", works on the branches taught in the Army Medical School and the more important recent works on general medical and surgical subjects will be added. The Surgeon General has already sent to you for this purpose a number of medical works and will continue to do so; and he desires that you will suggest from time to time the names of suitable books with a view to their purchase from the medical appropriation.
It is desired that you will as soon as convenient prepare a catalogue of the Library of the Army Medical School.
Very respectfully,
Chs. H. Alden
Assistant Surgeon General, U.S. Army
President, Army Medical School
War Department,
Surgeon General's Office,
Washington, December 15, 1894.
Major Walter Reed,
Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Secretary, Army Medical School,
Washington, D.C.,
Sir:
The Surgeon General has directed me as President of the Army Medical School to inform you that it is his desire that a special library should be formed and added to as opportunity affords, for the use of the Faculty and Students of the Army Medical School. While this library will contain chiefly "books of reference", works on the branches taught in the Army Medical School and the more important recent works on general medical and surgical subjects will be added. The Surgeon General has already sent to you for this purpose a number of medical works and will continue to do so; and he desires that you will suggest from time to time the names of suitable books with a view to their purchase from the medical appropriation.
It is desired that you will as soon as convenient prepare a catalogue of the Library of the Army Medical School.
Very respectfully,
Chs. H. Alden
Assistant Surgeon General, U.S. Army
President, Army Medical School
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Post says "GSA relinquishes claim to Walter Reed property"
GSA relinquishes claim to Walter Reed property
By Jonathan O'Connell
Monday, December 13, 2010; 4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121006109_pf.html
This would include the AFIP Building (and its Museum space), the Rumbaugh parking garage and the hospital among others.
Letter of the Day: December 14
USA General Hospital No. 5
Frederick City Md. Dec. 14th 1862
Surgeon Brinton USA
Sir
I have learned that there is now connected with the Medical Department of the Army, an Anatomical Museum under your charge, I have a couple of dry specimens. One of the Knee Joint, the other Foetus, which I requested Surgeon Keene to inform you of , I would be pleased to have you present them to the Surgeon Gen'l from me - I prepared them while reading Medicine at Hartford Conn. I have Written my father to have them Expressed to you.
I have been some time in preparing specimens here, I should be pleased if I could be Transferred to Washington for duty under your charge, as I have a great taste for Anatomy. Please let me hear if you have received them or not + oblige.
I am your Obt Servant
H.S. Hannen
Medical Cadet, USA
Frederick City Md. Dec. 14th 1862
Surgeon Brinton USA
Sir
I have learned that there is now connected with the Medical Department of the Army, an Anatomical Museum under your charge, I have a couple of dry specimens. One of the Knee Joint, the other Foetus, which I requested Surgeon Keene to inform you of , I would be pleased to have you present them to the Surgeon Gen'l from me - I prepared them while reading Medicine at Hartford Conn. I have Written my father to have them Expressed to you.
I have been some time in preparing specimens here, I should be pleased if I could be Transferred to Washington for duty under your charge, as I have a great taste for Anatomy. Please let me hear if you have received them or not + oblige.
I am your Obt Servant
H.S. Hannen
Medical Cadet, USA
Monday, December 13, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 13
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1094
War Department,
Surgeon General’s Office,
U.S. Army Medical Museum and Library,
Corner 7th and B Streets S.W.,
Washington, D.C., December 13, 1895
Dr. J.S. Billings,
Laboratory of Hygiene,
University of Pennsylvania,
34th and Locust Sts.,
West Philadelphia, Pa.
Dear Dr. Billings:
I herewith enclose a letter received this day from Mr. Wm. S. Bonwill, of Philadelphia, in regard to a collection of his inventions in medical and dental surgery.
Will you kindly read the letter and return it to me with any information you may have regarding the man or his offer.
Very sincerely yours,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Museum and Library Division.
My dear Dr Huntington
Dr Bonwill is a very ingenious dentist who has invented a number of instruments and devices. The best known of which is the “Dental Engine” which every dentist uses. His is somewhat cranky and appreciates himself highly. I would suggest a polite reply delivering thanks, and saying that this will be a valuable addition etc. etc.
Very truly yours
JS Billings.
War Department,
Surgeon General’s Office,
U.S. Army Medical Museum and Library,
Corner 7th and B Streets S.W.,
Washington, D.C., December 13, 1895
Dr. J.S. Billings,
Laboratory of Hygiene,
University of Pennsylvania,
34th and Locust Sts.,
West Philadelphia, Pa.
Dear Dr. Billings:
I herewith enclose a letter received this day from Mr. Wm. S. Bonwill, of Philadelphia, in regard to a collection of his inventions in medical and dental surgery.
Will you kindly read the letter and return it to me with any information you may have regarding the man or his offer.
Very sincerely yours,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Museum and Library Division.
My dear Dr Huntington
Dr Bonwill is a very ingenious dentist who has invented a number of instruments and devices. The best known of which is the “Dental Engine” which every dentist uses. His is somewhat cranky and appreciates himself highly. I would suggest a polite reply delivering thanks, and saying that this will be a valuable addition etc. etc.
Very truly yours
JS Billings.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 12
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1094
2009 Chestnut St.,
Philadelphia, PA.
12/12/95 – 1:30. a.m.
Dr. Billings:
Dear Dr:-
Let this be my Will and Testament so far as the present gift is concerned.
At my death or sooner if I so conclude I desire that the Army and Medical Museum at Washington D.C. shall have the large collection of models of all my Inventions in Medical and Dental Surgery for the past forty years. The collection is the largest of any individual in the Dental and perhaps Medical Profession and which have marked an era and are entirely unique.
You may hold this as your security against all others who might claim it.
I will have them systematically arranged on Tablets and with full index that each can be easily designated and the full history of invention and discovery of one man in 40 years.
Kindly reply,
I am Sincerely,
Wm. S. Bonwill
2009 Chestnut St.,
Philadelphia, PA.
12/12/95 – 1:30. a.m.
Dr. Billings:
Dear Dr:-
Let this be my Will and Testament so far as the present gift is concerned.
At my death or sooner if I so conclude I desire that the Army and Medical Museum at Washington D.C. shall have the large collection of models of all my Inventions in Medical and Dental Surgery for the past forty years. The collection is the largest of any individual in the Dental and perhaps Medical Profession and which have marked an era and are entirely unique.
You may hold this as your security against all others who might claim it.
I will have them systematically arranged on Tablets and with full index that each can be easily designated and the full history of invention and discovery of one man in 40 years.
Kindly reply,
I am Sincerely,
Wm. S. Bonwill
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Letter of the Day: December 11 [an update from Antietam]
Gen. Hosp No. 1
Frederick, Md.
Dec. 11th, 1862
Dear Doctor:
I enclose you my notes of Specimens gathered since Antietam. They amount in all to 187.
I have worked pretty hard over them and I hope you will be satisfied. Many of them are not cleaned off – in some even the soft parts remain – simply from the fact that I did not have the time for so much labor as that would have necessitated. This work could I knew be better done in Washington + as I was anxious to get as full notes as possible I have rather devoted my time and not without result to gathering them.
The specimens are divided into two series 1. Bony + soft specimens 1-165 which occupy the largest part and 2. “Arterial specimens” 1-22 which how ever though mostly are not altogether arterial; but I thought it best not to make too many series for fear of confusion. The former are mostly marked by tins the latter entirely – as I had no readier means – by knotted strings.
Dr. Hewitt has furnished me a large number of specimens and many not in his own name are still from the Hospital under his charge (Gen. Hosp. No 5). He has not been able yet to give me full notes on his own personal cases + by arrangement will therefore send to you direct – numbered to correspond to my list – the histories of the following cases
5 [Danl Hartey. full amp]*
13 [Mo. Welsh. com fract of tarsus]*
14 [Chi Carney. fract of femur lower 30]*
19
20 [M. Dock. fr. of elbow]*
24 [Lewis Wrath. amp shouler joint]*
25 [L. Bard. resection of wrist]*
26 [J. Martin. resec. of wrist]*
27 [Jo. West. resec. of Elbow]*
28 [J. Dennison. resec of __]*
29 [Pamc. Doyle. Resec. of elbow]*
34 [Chs Schaffer. amp left ankle]*
35 [Jim Loaly. amp thight]*
36 [Clark Stillwell. amp of leg]*
40 [M. Floran. resec of condyls of femur]*
61 [H. Hanger. amputation]*
62 [Ian McQueen. amputation]*
63 [M. Henry. amp]*
64 [J. Dibbey. amputation]*
104 [Thos. Nerny. knoyout [?] amputate]*
138 [Alonzo Freeman. arterial S/1 no. 11]*
139 [Lewis Meeker “ “ “ 12]*
142 [J. OBrian. amp of the 3rd of femur]*
143 [Pat Doyle. amp of 3rd of tibia]*
144 [Kennelly. amp of lower 3rd tibia]*
148 [Shay. arterl sh. 17]*
154 [Murphy [?] “ “ 15]*
155 [Geo. Bray. artl 16]*
The rough notes I have of them may be of use in case by any accident he be not able to send his own. As yet (9 Am) I have not got from him the bones of case 155 nor the artery in case 139.
A Cadet of his Mr. Hannen of Hartford Conn. has been very industrious in his work over the specimens. Should you desire any additional aid in preparing those you have in the office for the museum he would be glad to have the work to do and as a sample of what he can do I persuaded him to send you from Hartford a muscular, arterial, + nervous preparation of a boy and also a prepared knee joint. If you like them they may be worth presentation in the museum.
Surg J. B. Lewis U.S.N. Gen. Hospital No. 6 has sent me also 4 very beautiful specimens. He likewise will send you direct the notes of cases nos. 23 [resec of Ho4 humery [?]*, 41 [No. 2 resec of elbow]*, 96 [Amp of Ho4 Tibia No. 3]*, 159 [Reice [?] Ulna no. 4]* numbered to correspond with my list.
Asst. Surg J. H. Bill USA in charge Gen Hosp No. 3 has as yet sent no but one specimen (no. 1). With notes however of several others, the specimens to accompany the notes may however be sent according to promise today + will in that case be enclosed with the others.
From our own G Hospital (Gen. Hosp. No. 1 in charge of R. J. Weir Asst Surg. USA) there are 105 specimens in all. They are credited to the operators whether ante- or past- mortem. The notes in most cases are quite complete and the credit primarily is due for this fact to the exertions of the surgeon in charge who, so far as I am aware, is the only one who has insisted and successfully on keeping up a Hospital Case Book, among all the Hospitals in this place. In this respect as in almost every other regard this Hospital as a model for every one of which I have as yet at least any knowledge.
There have been 4 deaths from Chloroform in Frederick since Antietam. One (as states in the notes to case 102) here one at No. 4 + two at No. 5. I send full notes of our own case - the only one I could obtain – and also notes of a case which was under my observation while at Eckington Hospital D.C. In neither case was any due care lacking. With the case here I send also a specimen of the chloroform used, for examination. Had the means been present, I should have done so myself. The result if it be examined I should like exceedingly to know as I have a copy of the notes. Some of it has also been sent to the maker Squibb in N. Y.
Dr. Weir has the Specimen of a case of wound of the common carotid, in which he performed Synu’s Operation for a traumatic aneurism extending from the jaw to the clavicle + from the sternocleido to the trachea which was pushed one inch to the opposite sides together with the spinal cord with the buckshot in it from the Lance Case both of which he will forward soon; as also the note of an extremely interesting operation for the ligature of the external ihac (approaching it from the inside) for a large traumatic aneurism of the femoral just below Ponpart ligament.
I enclose also (no. 160) the notes on a very curious + I believe rare malformation of the intestines in a case of Typhoid fever which also came under my observation Eckington in May last. The specimens you will find on a shelf over the clothes pegs in 2 bottles in my room at Mrs. Nisbet where I left them when ordered off from Washington.
I enclose also my bills for sundry articles purchased. The amount in all to 11.50. Had I known before I purchased the Bbl + Whiskey I should have written to you to express me one but Dr. Weir informed me you would do so a few days too late. The Whiskey through casting a good deal is the cheapest I could find in town.
Dr. Davis from Birmingham Eng. I have left to take charge of the specimens after I leave tomorrow. He is very enthusiastic in surgery and to such a degree that his object in coming to this country was simply to see the surgery of the War. Until a recent date he has done one full duty on our staff without compensation. He will I think be very efficient + is by far the best man with the best prospect of perseverancey here that I could think of.
In conclusion I think I have learned a great deal even from the very oftentimes cursory examinations I have made of the specimens and if I have satisfied yourself and the Surgeon General in my labors I am amply repaid.
My transfer to West Philadelphia is the most agreeable change possible + the greatest favor I could ask + if you have done aught to aid it let me give you my hearty thanks.-
Very Respectfully
You Obt Svt
Friend + old pupil
W.W. Keen,
Act Asst Surg, USA
[To] John H. Brinton, M.D.
Surgeon U.S.N.
Curator Nat Med Army Museum
Washington, D.C.
*Indicates notes written on the letter, with red pen in a different had, presumably added upon receipt of specimens
Frederick, Md.
Dec. 11th, 1862
Dear Doctor:
I enclose you my notes of Specimens gathered since Antietam. They amount in all to 187.
I have worked pretty hard over them and I hope you will be satisfied. Many of them are not cleaned off – in some even the soft parts remain – simply from the fact that I did not have the time for so much labor as that would have necessitated. This work could I knew be better done in Washington + as I was anxious to get as full notes as possible I have rather devoted my time and not without result to gathering them.
The specimens are divided into two series 1. Bony + soft specimens 1-165 which occupy the largest part and 2. “Arterial specimens” 1-22 which how ever though mostly are not altogether arterial; but I thought it best not to make too many series for fear of confusion. The former are mostly marked by tins the latter entirely – as I had no readier means – by knotted strings.
Dr. Hewitt has furnished me a large number of specimens and many not in his own name are still from the Hospital under his charge (Gen. Hosp. No 5). He has not been able yet to give me full notes on his own personal cases + by arrangement will therefore send to you direct – numbered to correspond to my list – the histories of the following cases
5 [Danl Hartey. full amp]*
13 [Mo. Welsh. com fract of tarsus]*
14 [Chi Carney. fract of femur lower 30]*
19
20 [M. Dock. fr. of elbow]*
24 [Lewis Wrath. amp shouler joint]*
25 [L. Bard. resection of wrist]*
26 [J. Martin. resec. of wrist]*
27 [Jo. West. resec. of Elbow]*
28 [J. Dennison. resec of __]*
29 [Pamc. Doyle. Resec. of elbow]*
34 [Chs Schaffer. amp left ankle]*
35 [Jim Loaly. amp thight]*
36 [Clark Stillwell. amp of leg]*
40 [M. Floran. resec of condyls of femur]*
61 [H. Hanger. amputation]*
62 [Ian McQueen. amputation]*
63 [M. Henry. amp]*
64 [J. Dibbey. amputation]*
104 [Thos. Nerny. knoyout [?] amputate]*
138 [Alonzo Freeman. arterial S/1 no. 11]*
139 [Lewis Meeker “ “ “ 12]*
142 [J. OBrian. amp of the 3rd of femur]*
143 [Pat Doyle. amp of 3rd of tibia]*
144 [Kennelly. amp of lower 3rd tibia]*
148 [Shay. arterl sh. 17]*
154 [Murphy [?] “ “ 15]*
155 [Geo. Bray. artl 16]*
The rough notes I have of them may be of use in case by any accident he be not able to send his own. As yet (9 Am) I have not got from him the bones of case 155 nor the artery in case 139.
A Cadet of his Mr. Hannen of Hartford Conn. has been very industrious in his work over the specimens. Should you desire any additional aid in preparing those you have in the office for the museum he would be glad to have the work to do and as a sample of what he can do I persuaded him to send you from Hartford a muscular, arterial, + nervous preparation of a boy and also a prepared knee joint. If you like them they may be worth presentation in the museum.
Surg J. B. Lewis U.S.N. Gen. Hospital No. 6 has sent me also 4 very beautiful specimens. He likewise will send you direct the notes of cases nos. 23 [resec of Ho4 humery [?]*, 41 [No. 2 resec of elbow]*, 96 [Amp of Ho4 Tibia No. 3]*, 159 [Reice [?] Ulna no. 4]* numbered to correspond with my list.
Asst. Surg J. H. Bill USA in charge Gen Hosp No. 3 has as yet sent no but one specimen (no. 1). With notes however of several others, the specimens to accompany the notes may however be sent according to promise today + will in that case be enclosed with the others.
From our own G Hospital (Gen. Hosp. No. 1 in charge of R. J. Weir Asst Surg. USA) there are 105 specimens in all. They are credited to the operators whether ante- or past- mortem. The notes in most cases are quite complete and the credit primarily is due for this fact to the exertions of the surgeon in charge who, so far as I am aware, is the only one who has insisted and successfully on keeping up a Hospital Case Book, among all the Hospitals in this place. In this respect as in almost every other regard this Hospital as a model for every one of which I have as yet at least any knowledge.
There have been 4 deaths from Chloroform in Frederick since Antietam. One (as states in the notes to case 102) here one at No. 4 + two at No. 5. I send full notes of our own case - the only one I could obtain – and also notes of a case which was under my observation while at Eckington Hospital D.C. In neither case was any due care lacking. With the case here I send also a specimen of the chloroform used, for examination. Had the means been present, I should have done so myself. The result if it be examined I should like exceedingly to know as I have a copy of the notes. Some of it has also been sent to the maker Squibb in N. Y.
Dr. Weir has the Specimen of a case of wound of the common carotid, in which he performed Synu’s Operation for a traumatic aneurism extending from the jaw to the clavicle + from the sternocleido to the trachea which was pushed one inch to the opposite sides together with the spinal cord with the buckshot in it from the Lance Case both of which he will forward soon; as also the note of an extremely interesting operation for the ligature of the external ihac (approaching it from the inside) for a large traumatic aneurism of the femoral just below Ponpart ligament.
I enclose also (no. 160) the notes on a very curious + I believe rare malformation of the intestines in a case of Typhoid fever which also came under my observation Eckington in May last. The specimens you will find on a shelf over the clothes pegs in 2 bottles in my room at Mrs. Nisbet where I left them when ordered off from Washington.
I enclose also my bills for sundry articles purchased. The amount in all to 11.50. Had I known before I purchased the Bbl + Whiskey I should have written to you to express me one but Dr. Weir informed me you would do so a few days too late. The Whiskey through casting a good deal is the cheapest I could find in town.
Dr. Davis from Birmingham Eng. I have left to take charge of the specimens after I leave tomorrow. He is very enthusiastic in surgery and to such a degree that his object in coming to this country was simply to see the surgery of the War. Until a recent date he has done one full duty on our staff without compensation. He will I think be very efficient + is by far the best man with the best prospect of perseverancey here that I could think of.
In conclusion I think I have learned a great deal even from the very oftentimes cursory examinations I have made of the specimens and if I have satisfied yourself and the Surgeon General in my labors I am amply repaid.
My transfer to West Philadelphia is the most agreeable change possible + the greatest favor I could ask + if you have done aught to aid it let me give you my hearty thanks.-
Very Respectfully
You Obt Svt
Friend + old pupil
W.W. Keen,
Act Asst Surg, USA
[To] John H. Brinton, M.D.
Surgeon U.S.N.
Curator Nat Med Army Museum
Washington, D.C.
*Indicates notes written on the letter, with red pen in a different had, presumably added upon receipt of specimens
Friday, December 10, 2010
Civil War photos slowly be added to Flickr
I’m posting about three pictures a day to Flickr from the Contributed Photographs collection. Many of these images are from the Civil War -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/medicalmuseum/sets/72157614294677868/
Letter of the Day: December 10
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 01090
K/T 7
Department of State,
Washington.
December 10, 1895.
The Honorable
The Secretary of War.
Sir:-
I have the honor to transmit for the information of the Surgeon General of the Army a memorandum with enclosures, furnished by the Norwegian War Department relating to military hospital equipment in Norway.
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Richard Clury
Enclosures:
Enclosures in No. 91, November 27, 1895, from our Minister to Sweden and Norway.
[Verso]
1st Endorsement
War Department, Surgeon General’s Office.
December 11, 1895.
Respectfully referred to LIEUTENANT COLONIAL D.L. HUNTINGTON, Deputy Surgeon Genera;, U. S. Army, in charge of Museum and Library Division, who will please prepare a letter of acknowledgement.
Geo. M. Sternberg
Surgeon General, U. S. Army.
K/T 7
Department of State,
Washington.
December 10, 1895.
The Honorable
The Secretary of War.
Sir:-
I have the honor to transmit for the information of the Surgeon General of the Army a memorandum with enclosures, furnished by the Norwegian War Department relating to military hospital equipment in Norway.
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Richard Clury
Enclosures:
Enclosures in No. 91, November 27, 1895, from our Minister to Sweden and Norway.
[Verso]
1st Endorsement
War Department, Surgeon General’s Office.
December 11, 1895.
Respectfully referred to LIEUTENANT COLONIAL D.L. HUNTINGTON, Deputy Surgeon Genera;, U. S. Army, in charge of Museum and Library Division, who will please prepare a letter of acknowledgement.
Geo. M. Sternberg
Surgeon General, U. S. Army.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Michelle and Megan 12/09/10
Hi! It’s Michelle and Megan again. We are starting a project on the development and anomalies of the eye. So far we have researched how the eye develops.
The eye starts off as a tiny groove in the folds of the brain tissue. Later, as the folds become the forebrain, the groove turns into a bump, known as the optic vesicle. The optic vesicle is connected to the forebrain by a thin hollow tube, called the optic stalk, which allows the brain to send messages to the eye. The optic vesicle then comes into contact with a layer of the skin known as ectoderm. The ectoderm thickens and moves inward to form the lens vesicle. Meanwhile, the optic vesicle also moves inward to begin forming the two layers of the retina, which later join together. The lens vesicle then increases in length and small fibers are formed connecting the lens to the retina. The thin membrane that covers the lens disappears to provide communication between the two chambers of the eye. The cornea is formed by the combination of a layer of the ectoderm, stroma and epithelial layer. A groove in the back of the optic vesicle allows the hyaloid artery to enter the eye. Later, the hyaloid artery disappears leaving behind a hollow path known as the hyaloid canal, and the optic stalk’s walls grow from an increase in fibers turning the optic stalk into the optic nerve.
The eye starts off as a tiny groove in the folds of the brain tissue. Later, as the folds become the forebrain, the groove turns into a bump, known as the optic vesicle. The optic vesicle is connected to the forebrain by a thin hollow tube, called the optic stalk, which allows the brain to send messages to the eye. The optic vesicle then comes into contact with a layer of the skin known as ectoderm. The ectoderm thickens and moves inward to form the lens vesicle. Meanwhile, the optic vesicle also moves inward to begin forming the two layers of the retina, which later join together. The lens vesicle then increases in length and small fibers are formed connecting the lens to the retina. The thin membrane that covers the lens disappears to provide communication between the two chambers of the eye. The cornea is formed by the combination of a layer of the ectoderm, stroma and epithelial layer. A groove in the back of the optic vesicle allows the hyaloid artery to enter the eye. Later, the hyaloid artery disappears leaving behind a hollow path known as the hyaloid canal, and the optic stalk’s walls grow from an increase in fibers turning the optic stalk into the optic nerve.
TODAY: Lunchtime Talk with Author Arthur Ainsberg
Lunchtime Talk with Author Arthur Ainsberg, “Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle”
December 9, 2010, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
National Museum of Health and Medicine
6900 Georgia Avenue NW
Building 54 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Washington, DC 20307
In “Breakthrough,” authors Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg tell the true story of the invention of insulin, one of the most important medical advances of the 20th century. Ainsberg will talk about this fascinating tale of Nobel prize-winning research, and the brave little girl who risked everything for the groundbreaking experiment that saved not only her life but the lives of countless others.
December 9, 2010, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
National Museum of Health and Medicine
6900 Georgia Avenue NW
Building 54 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Washington, DC 20307
In “Breakthrough,” authors Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg tell the true story of the invention of insulin, one of the most important medical advances of the 20th century. Ainsberg will talk about this fascinating tale of Nobel prize-winning research, and the brave little girl who risked everything for the groundbreaking experiment that saved not only her life but the lives of countless others.
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