Melissa J. Brachfeld is the Museum's Public Affairs Specialist, and her father is in the business too, and featured in this article, as is my old friend Mitch Yockelson -
Guardians of the nation's attic
The National Archives keeps watch over 10 billion historical records. And its treasure hunting team keeps watch over collector shows and EBay for the scraps of valuable history that have been stolen.
By Faye Fiore, Los Angeles Times
August 8, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
WAMU's Metro Connection on museum exhibit
Wounded in Action: Art at Walter Reed
August 6, 2010
Two new art shows have opened at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C. and at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. It's all part of a traveling exhibit called 'Wounded In Action' put on by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Ginger Moored reports...
The Wounded in Action art exhibit is on display at Walter Reed and the University of Maryland in Baltimore through November 11th.
August 6, 2010
Two new art shows have opened at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C. and at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. It's all part of a traveling exhibit called 'Wounded In Action' put on by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Ginger Moored reports...
The Wounded in Action art exhibit is on display at Walter Reed and the University of Maryland in Baltimore through November 11th.
Letter of the Day: August 9 (2 of 2)
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 88
August 9, 1864
WJ McGee,
Ethnologist-in-charge,
Smithsonian Institution,
Bureau of Ethnology,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Sir:
Your letter of August 8th, addressed to Dr. Billings, now in Europe, has been referred to me for reply.
We will be pleased to receive the triple trephined skull referred to for deposit in the Army Medical Museum, and would state that the specimen will be at your service at any time for further examination.
Very respectfully,
Walter Reed
Major and Surgeon, U.S. Army,
Curator Army Medical Museum
Letter of the Day: August 8 ( 2 of 2)
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 88
Smithsonian Institution
Bureau of Ethnology
Washington, D.C., August 8, 1894.
Dear Sir:
Your inquiry of the 14th ultimo concerning the triple-trephined skull found near Cuzco by Dr Maneul A. Muniz and designated by him for presentation to the Army Medical Museum has been received. This skull, together with other specimens in the Muniz collection, remains in the Bureau pending the receipt from Dr Muniz of photographs of drawings of certain other trephined crania in Cuzco; when it is the purpose to prepare a detailed description of the entire collection for publication in one of our annual reports. Until advices are received from Dr. Muniz, it is inexpedient to fix a date for the final disposition of the collection; but should you feel anxious to have this specimen at an early date, I will undertake to put it in your hands by the end of the present month with no condition than that you will afford facilities for further examination in the Museum should occasion arise.
Yours with respect,
WJ McGee
Ethnologist-in-charge.
Dr. J.S. Billings,
Deputy Surgeon General,
U.S. Army.
Letter of the Day: August 9 (1 of 2)
Camp Letterman
Gen’l Hospital
Near Gettysburg, Pa.
Aug. 9th/65
Dear Doctor,
I have numerous specimens for you – have put them in ale barrels with some whisky + chlorinated soda upon them + have buried barrels and all in the ground. What shall I do with them? We will have more every day for a month to come.
Truly yours
H.K. Neff
Surgeon 3rd Div.
Gen’l. Hos.
To Surgeon Brinton
Washington
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Letter of the Day: August 8 (1 of 2)
The life of a crack Civil War surgeon was less glamorous after the war.
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 94
Copy
82 Fourth St.
Troy, N.Y.,
August 8, 1894
Surgeon General, U.S. Army.
Sir:
Pardon the liberty taken in sending you by mail this day, a small package directed to Museum of Surgeon General’s Office, containing four small phials of a strange parasite, great numbers of which have been voided from the bowel of a young lady patient whom I was attending for injury to the spine. Bloody and slimy evacuations occurred, presumably from having much of berries. Oil and terebinthin was administered for some days; masses of transparent jelly was voided, and in a few days these bodies were voided with each evacuation, but more especially after taking turpentine and oil. The patient is about twenty years old, of small, slim stature, and light weight; there is no abdominal tumor, distention or pain, but a feeling of fullness and oppression in the left hypochondrium. The nervous system is much upset. Flushings alternated with cold clammy extremities and frequent paroxysms of voluntary respiration; for the past five days since some calomel and santonin was administered for a few nights no perfect specimens have been voided; but the jelly like substance with fragments of the spiders continue to be voided. When the objects were first voided before the administration of the santonin they were noticed to move, and the appendages which had for some time while in water a tremulous, vibrating movement.
If consistent please inform me what the animal is. I am unable to find in the books any description of them, and greatly oblige,
Your obedient servant,
R. B. Bontecou, M.D.
The original of the above letter was sent informally to Surgeon Walter Reed U.S.A. by Surgeon Charles Smart, U.S.A. by direction of the Surgeon General, with the request that an examination be made of the parasite.
J. F. Longhean
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 94
Copy
82 Fourth St.
Troy, N.Y.,
August 8, 1894
Surgeon General, U.S. Army.
Sir:
Pardon the liberty taken in sending you by mail this day, a small package directed to Museum of Surgeon General’s Office, containing four small phials of a strange parasite, great numbers of which have been voided from the bowel of a young lady patient whom I was attending for injury to the spine. Bloody and slimy evacuations occurred, presumably from having much of berries. Oil and terebinthin was administered for some days; masses of transparent jelly was voided, and in a few days these bodies were voided with each evacuation, but more especially after taking turpentine and oil. The patient is about twenty years old, of small, slim stature, and light weight; there is no abdominal tumor, distention or pain, but a feeling of fullness and oppression in the left hypochondrium. The nervous system is much upset. Flushings alternated with cold clammy extremities and frequent paroxysms of voluntary respiration; for the past five days since some calomel and santonin was administered for a few nights no perfect specimens have been voided; but the jelly like substance with fragments of the spiders continue to be voided. When the objects were first voided before the administration of the santonin they were noticed to move, and the appendages which had for some time while in water a tremulous, vibrating movement.
If consistent please inform me what the animal is. I am unable to find in the books any description of them, and greatly oblige,
Your obedient servant,
R. B. Bontecou, M.D.
The original of the above letter was sent informally to Surgeon Walter Reed U.S.A. by Surgeon Charles Smart, U.S.A. by direction of the Surgeon General, with the request that an examination be made of the parasite.
J. F. Longhean
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Letter of the Day: August 7
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1642
August 7, 1896
R. H. Cooper, Esq,
City Clerk,
Palatka, Florida
Dear Sir:
Your letter of August 5th inquiring in regard to an examination of the water used for drinking purposes, etc., at Palatka, is received.
We will endeavor to make the desired examination, and inform you of the result.
Please forward to the Army Medical Museum about a gallon of the water referred to. It had better be sent in a glass demijohn which has previously been thoroughly cleaned, rinsed with boiled water and then with alcohol, the latter being allowed to evaporate. The water should flow directly into the demijohn from the source of supply in order to avoid contamination from any substance whatever. The cork stopper should be charred in the flame. The sample should be sent at once by express in order that it may reach here as soon as possible.
Respectfully,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Museum and Library Division
August 7, 1896
R. H. Cooper, Esq,
City Clerk,
Palatka, Florida
Dear Sir:
Your letter of August 5th inquiring in regard to an examination of the water used for drinking purposes, etc., at Palatka, is received.
We will endeavor to make the desired examination, and inform you of the result.
Please forward to the Army Medical Museum about a gallon of the water referred to. It had better be sent in a glass demijohn which has previously been thoroughly cleaned, rinsed with boiled water and then with alcohol, the latter being allowed to evaporate. The water should flow directly into the demijohn from the source of supply in order to avoid contamination from any substance whatever. The cork stopper should be charred in the flame. The sample should be sent at once by express in order that it may reach here as soon as possible.
Respectfully,
D.L. Huntington
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Museum and Library Division
Friday, August 6, 2010
Letter of the Day: August 6
Fort Custer, M.T. [Montana Territory]
Aug. 6th, 1880.
Major G. A. Otis,
Surgeon, U.S.A.
My dear Sir;
I have just received your “List of the Specimens in the Anatomical Section of the U.S. Army Medical Museum.” I notice on p. 118 that the Museum has only two crania of Crow Indians.
I think I can obtain a number of specimens of this tribe for you, and also one or two complete skeletons.
If you will send me, from time to time, similar catalogues you may publish, I will gladly supply any deficiencies in my power.
Besides the skeletons of mammals and birds sent you recently from Fort Shaw, I have already a number of species new to the collection, that I have obtained in this locality, but as I am constantly adding to them I will not forward them at present.
I am, Sir,
Very truly yours,
James C. Merrill
Capt. + Ass’t. Surg. U.S.A.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
More on Eakin's Gross Clinic
The NY Times ran a good article on what the restored painting and its exhibit are like -
Deft Surgery for a Painting Under the Scalpel
By KAREN ROSENBERG
Published: July 29, 2010
An exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art shows Thomas Eakins’s “Gross Clinic,” an 1875 masterpiece that has recently been restored.
In the article, Rosenberg discusses the paintings history especially the initial public hanging of it:
The current show’s first gallery contains photographs and ephemera from the Centennial Exhibition, a world’s fair that included the first historical survey of American art. Much of this material is filler. (Do we really need to see the shareholders’ certificate or Eakins’s exhibitor’s pass?) More to the point are the interior shots of the exhibition sites, which show how “The Gross Clinic” made its debut.
The selection committee found the painting too visceral for the main art show, a stuffy, salon-style affair in Memorial Hall, but with help from Dr. Gross, Eakins was able to display it in a model Army-post hospital elsewhere on the fairgrounds. Photographs show “The Gross Clinic” prominently featured at the end of a long row of beds, framed by dark curtains.
Here's a photograph of that "model Army-post hospital" which featured exhibits on military medicine, and was partially curated by Dr. J.J. Woodward.
1876 Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, PA, Army Medical Department Exhibit - 001 Hospital front view
1876 Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, PA, Army Medical Department Exhibit - 005 Hospital ward 1 from southern end. [Note the beds with mosquito netting, the enlargements of photomicrographs on the side walls and especially The Gross Clinic painting by Thomas Eakins on the far wall.
Deft Surgery for a Painting Under the Scalpel
By KAREN ROSENBERG
Published: July 29, 2010
An exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art shows Thomas Eakins’s “Gross Clinic,” an 1875 masterpiece that has recently been restored.
In the article, Rosenberg discusses the paintings history especially the initial public hanging of it:
The current show’s first gallery contains photographs and ephemera from the Centennial Exhibition, a world’s fair that included the first historical survey of American art. Much of this material is filler. (Do we really need to see the shareholders’ certificate or Eakins’s exhibitor’s pass?) More to the point are the interior shots of the exhibition sites, which show how “The Gross Clinic” made its debut.
The selection committee found the painting too visceral for the main art show, a stuffy, salon-style affair in Memorial Hall, but with help from Dr. Gross, Eakins was able to display it in a model Army-post hospital elsewhere on the fairgrounds. Photographs show “The Gross Clinic” prominently featured at the end of a long row of beds, framed by dark curtains.
Here's a photograph of that "model Army-post hospital" which featured exhibits on military medicine, and was partially curated by Dr. J.J. Woodward.
1876 Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, PA, Army Medical Department Exhibit - 001 Hospital front view
1876 Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, PA, Army Medical Department Exhibit - 005 Hospital ward 1 from southern end. [Note the beds with mosquito netting, the enlargements of photomicrographs on the side walls and especially The Gross Clinic painting by Thomas Eakins on the far wall.
Anatomy exhibit at National Gallery of Art
This looks really interesting -
The Body Inside and Out: Anatomical Literature and Art Theory
Selections from the National Gallery of Art Library
July 24, 2010–January 23, 2011
Here's the info from their website and a link to the brochure:
The humanist movement of the Renaissance introduced new realms of possibility in the arts and the sciences, including the study of anatomy. Many artists witnessed or participated in dissections to gain a better understanding of the proportions and systems of the body. Artists and physicians also worked together and formed partnerships—Leonardo and Marcantonio della Torre, Michelangelo and Realdo Columbo, and perhaps most famously, Titian and Andreas Vesalius—where the artist's renderings of the anatomist's findings were reproduced and dispersed to a scattered audience through the relatively recent innovation of print.
This exhibition, featuring outstanding examples of anatomy-related material from the collection of rare books in the National Gallery of Art Library, offers a glimpse into the ways anatomical studies were made available to and used by artists from the 16th to the early 19th century. On view are detailed treatises on human proportion and beauty by artists and scholars including Albrecht Dürer and Juan de Arfe y Villafane; drawing and painting manuals by Leonardo, Jean Cousin, and others, which include chapters on proportion and anatomy; and adaptations of anatomical treatises tailored to the needs of working artists by Roger de Piles and Johann Daniel Preissler, among others.
The Body Inside and Out: Anatomical Literature and Art Theory
Selections from the National Gallery of Art Library
July 24, 2010–January 23, 2011
Here's the info from their website and a link to the brochure:
The humanist movement of the Renaissance introduced new realms of possibility in the arts and the sciences, including the study of anatomy. Many artists witnessed or participated in dissections to gain a better understanding of the proportions and systems of the body. Artists and physicians also worked together and formed partnerships—Leonardo and Marcantonio della Torre, Michelangelo and Realdo Columbo, and perhaps most famously, Titian and Andreas Vesalius—where the artist's renderings of the anatomist's findings were reproduced and dispersed to a scattered audience through the relatively recent innovation of print.
This exhibition, featuring outstanding examples of anatomy-related material from the collection of rare books in the National Gallery of Art Library, offers a glimpse into the ways anatomical studies were made available to and used by artists from the 16th to the early 19th century. On view are detailed treatises on human proportion and beauty by artists and scholars including Albrecht Dürer and Juan de Arfe y Villafane; drawing and painting manuals by Leonardo, Jean Cousin, and others, which include chapters on proportion and anatomy; and adaptations of anatomical treatises tailored to the needs of working artists by Roger de Piles and Johann Daniel Preissler, among others.
Letter of the Day: August 5 (2 of 2) - malaria?
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 1642
Office of R.H. Cooper,
City Clerk.
Palatka, Florida, Aug 5, 1896
The Curator Army Medical Museum
Washington DC
Dear Sir
The City Council of the City of Palatka desires to as-certain whether you subject a sample of water to an analytical or microscopic examination which will determine whether the water is the cause of a considerable amount of malarial sickness which is prevailing in our City at the present time.
If this can be done please inform me of the cost and the amount of water it will be necessary to transmit. The water in question is that which is used for drinking and general purposes throughout the City.
Yours respectfully
RH Cooper
Museum lunchtime talk today
Lunchtime Talk: Technology in Rehabilitation at the Military Advanced Training Center, Walter Reed Army Medical Center
When: Thursday, August 5, 2010, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
What: Rehabilitation of Wounded Warriors is enhanced by state-of-the-art technology employed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Housed within the Military Advanced Training Center (MATC) is the Center for Performance and Clinical Research (CPCR). The CPCR consists of a Biomechanics Lab and a Virtual Environment Lab. The technology is used to provide objective information about how a patient walks, balances, and reacts. The team of care providers uses the data to design, modify, or assess rehabilitation programs.
Bring a lunch and listen to Barri L. Schnall discuss her experiences working with Wounded Warriors using these innovative technologies.
COST: FREE! Bring your lunch!
WHERE: Russell Auditorium, NMHM, Bldg. 54 on WRAMC.
Questions? Email nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil or (202) 782-2673.
When: Thursday, August 5, 2010, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
What: Rehabilitation of Wounded Warriors is enhanced by state-of-the-art technology employed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Housed within the Military Advanced Training Center (MATC) is the Center for Performance and Clinical Research (CPCR). The CPCR consists of a Biomechanics Lab and a Virtual Environment Lab. The technology is used to provide objective information about how a patient walks, balances, and reacts. The team of care providers uses the data to design, modify, or assess rehabilitation programs.
Bring a lunch and listen to Barri L. Schnall discuss her experiences working with Wounded Warriors using these innovative technologies.
COST: FREE! Bring your lunch!
WHERE: Russell Auditorium, NMHM, Bldg. 54 on WRAMC.
Questions? Email nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil or (202) 782-2673.
Letter of the Day: August 5 (1 of 2)
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 851
August 5, 1895
To the Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
Washington, D.C.
General:
I have the honor to inform you that the articles of equipment of the Sanitary Corps of the Spanish Army, presented to this office by the Spanish Government, have been received, thinking that you might wish to make a suitable acknowledgement either by letter or exchange.
The articles received are:
1 Ambulance Knapsack (Mochila de ambulancia.)
1 Ambulance Dressing Case (Bolsa de ambulancia.)
1 Field Litter (Camilla de Campana.)
1 Litter Bed (Camilla-litera.)
1 Chair for carrying wounded (Silla-sueca.)
The value of the outfit received, according to the Spanish catalogue, is 353.28 pesetas, or about $70.65.
Very respectfully,
J.S. Billings
Deputy Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
In charge of Army Medical Museum and Library.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Letter of the Day: August 4
Phila Aug 4th 1863
Dr. Brinton
Dear Sir
Enclosed please find statement of account against the Medical Museum, if we should received the amount at the present time, it would be a great benefit, as business is very dull and we are obliged to pay accounts as they become due. We shall take it as a favor if you will have the account put in train for being paid.
Yours truly
James W. Queen & Co
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Museum Lunchtime Talk, Thurs., 5 August, 12p-1pm: Rehabilitation Technologies at the MATC/WRAMC
Lunchtime Talk: Technology in Rehabilitation at the Military Advanced Training Center, Walter Reed Army Medical Center
When: Thursday, August 5, 2010, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
What: Rehabilitation of Wounded Warriors is enhanced by state-of-the-art technology employed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Housed within the Military Advanced Training Center (MATC) is the Center for Performance and Clinical Research (CPCR). The CPCR consists of a Biomechanics Lab and a Virtual Environment Lab. The technology is used to provide objective information about how a patient walks, balances, and reacts. The team of care providers uses the data to design, modify, or assess rehabilitation programs.
Bring a lunch and listen to Barri L. Schnall discuss her experiences working with Wounded Warriors using these innovative technologies.
COST: FREE! Bring your lunch!
WHERE: Russell Auditorium, NMHM, Bldg. 54 on WRAMC.
Questions? Email nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil or (202) 782-2673.
When: Thursday, August 5, 2010, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
What: Rehabilitation of Wounded Warriors is enhanced by state-of-the-art technology employed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Housed within the Military Advanced Training Center (MATC) is the Center for Performance and Clinical Research (CPCR). The CPCR consists of a Biomechanics Lab and a Virtual Environment Lab. The technology is used to provide objective information about how a patient walks, balances, and reacts. The team of care providers uses the data to design, modify, or assess rehabilitation programs.
Bring a lunch and listen to Barri L. Schnall discuss her experiences working with Wounded Warriors using these innovative technologies.
COST: FREE! Bring your lunch!
WHERE: Russell Auditorium, NMHM, Bldg. 54 on WRAMC.
Questions? Email nmhminfo@afip.osd.mil or (202) 782-2673.
Letter of the Day: August 3 - Milan medical museum?
Washington August 3 1867
My dear Doctor
Among a large number of interesting Medical & Surgical works recently received by us from Milan was the enclosed little pamphlet which if you have not already seen it may interest you as begin on very small scale what you are doing on a very large. Please return when done with and oblige
Your truly
S.F. Baird
Dr. Otis USA
Army Med. Mus.
Wash.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Letter of the Day: August 2
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 74
August 2, 1894
Dr. S.P. Kramer,
Professor of Pathology,
University of Cincinnati,
Cincinnati, Ohio.
Dear Sir:
In the absence of Dr. Billings who is in Europe, your letter of July 31st has been referred to me for answer. An application has already been made by another party for the loan of the Kymograph, and this request is now awaiting the return of Surgeon General Sternberg to the city. The draughtsman of the Museum is at present on leave and will not return until September 1st. If in the meanwhile, you will indicate explicitly what part or parts of the instrument you would like drawings made of I will gladly comply with your request as soon as our draughtsman returns.
Very truly ours,
Walter Reed
Major and Surgeon, U.S. Army
Curator Army Medical Museum.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Letter of the Day: August 1
Fort Union, N.M. August 1st 1867
Dear Doctor,
I received on my return your very kind letter dated July 10th, for which accept my thanks. I was with Genl. Getty at Nascruces (?) Ranch, some 50 miles from here, holding an Indian council of Utes + Apaches when an express brought news of the death of Dr. + Mrs. McGill and of the cholera in a Battalion of the 38th U.S. Inf. En route for N.M. and thus near Fort Syon some 250 miles from this post. The Genl, at my request gave me an order to prevent the spread of the disease and to care for those sick. I got safely at this camp near Iron Springs, C.T. riding night + day, found that the report of the deaths of poor McGill + wife was only too true. There had been 29 cases with 9 deaths, poor McGill’s being among the last. He lost his wife, carried her remains back over 30 miles to a Fort (Fort Paulford) to bury there, returning the command had moved on 20 miles, and he stayed with his escort at the camp of the day before. In the morning as the officer in charge of the party was about moving, he told him “he was sick, he thought he had the cholera, and that it would kill him to move him.”
The next day at illegible he was dead. He died, poor fellow in an army wagon with only his servant and a Sergt + 3 colored soldiers with him. His last words the Sergt. told me was “Bury me by my wife’s side.” He had lost all interest in life after the death of his wife and seemed glad to die. I have told you what I was able to collect while I remained with the command which was only a few days – only long enough to know its condition with enough to report the proper means to be taken to prevent the spread of the disease – or danger of contagion. Dr. Kimble as act asst surg is with it now. I saw while there a prolapsed anus which I think would measure 10 inches across. The mass would not go in a large hat. If possible I will make a cast of it and send it to you. I will send in a day or two some specimens put up in cotton and small bottles, by mail, and also the cases you desire. I am very busy having turned over to Dr. Peter, and getting ready to leave. Setting out +c I saw in a Washington Chronicle that my leave had been granted. If so I shall leave for France from New York in November. I have been thinking of resigning but not quite made up my mind. I have got many friends and some surgical influence in New York and Drs. Bush DuBuois Snidely + Matts all advise me to settle there at once and offer me on my fathers ack[nowledged?] many favors. Still life is short and I do not care to take the trouble of settling without my constitution gets somewhat illegible. Please excuse the illegible of the above. Drs. McKee, P?, Huntington, are well. On Sunday I am off on a trip of two or three hundred miles thro’ the mts to look at a copper mine + some gold diggings with Genl. Carlton and will illegible + put in quarantine the donkeys and then arrive illegible 20 miles of the post. Remember me to Dr. Crane, Woodward, illegible, Curtis and any other friends and believe me with kind regards
Yours Sincerely,
H.A. DuBois
Bvt. Lt. Col. Geo A. Otis
U.S.A.
PS If you have been abroad please give me your advice. I go for health and to study surgery, medicine, + chemistry. Would it not be well for me to get Dr. Barnes to give me a letter of introduction. Is such a thing usual. I forgot to say that the cholera stopped in the negro command just after crossing the Arkansas.
H.A.D.
Dear Doctor,
I received on my return your very kind letter dated July 10th, for which accept my thanks. I was with Genl. Getty at Nascruces (?) Ranch, some 50 miles from here, holding an Indian council of Utes + Apaches when an express brought news of the death of Dr. + Mrs. McGill and of the cholera in a Battalion of the 38th U.S. Inf. En route for N.M. and thus near Fort Syon some 250 miles from this post. The Genl, at my request gave me an order to prevent the spread of the disease and to care for those sick. I got safely at this camp near Iron Springs, C.T. riding night + day, found that the report of the deaths of poor McGill + wife was only too true. There had been 29 cases with 9 deaths, poor McGill’s being among the last. He lost his wife, carried her remains back over 30 miles to a Fort (Fort Paulford) to bury there, returning the command had moved on 20 miles, and he stayed with his escort at the camp of the day before. In the morning as the officer in charge of the party was about moving, he told him “he was sick, he thought he had the cholera, and that it would kill him to move him.”
The next day at illegible he was dead. He died, poor fellow in an army wagon with only his servant and a Sergt + 3 colored soldiers with him. His last words the Sergt. told me was “Bury me by my wife’s side.” He had lost all interest in life after the death of his wife and seemed glad to die. I have told you what I was able to collect while I remained with the command which was only a few days – only long enough to know its condition with enough to report the proper means to be taken to prevent the spread of the disease – or danger of contagion. Dr. Kimble as act asst surg is with it now. I saw while there a prolapsed anus which I think would measure 10 inches across. The mass would not go in a large hat. If possible I will make a cast of it and send it to you. I will send in a day or two some specimens put up in cotton and small bottles, by mail, and also the cases you desire. I am very busy having turned over to Dr. Peter, and getting ready to leave. Setting out +c I saw in a Washington Chronicle that my leave had been granted. If so I shall leave for France from New York in November. I have been thinking of resigning but not quite made up my mind. I have got many friends and some surgical influence in New York and Drs. Bush DuBuois Snidely + Matts all advise me to settle there at once and offer me on my fathers ack[nowledged?] many favors. Still life is short and I do not care to take the trouble of settling without my constitution gets somewhat illegible. Please excuse the illegible of the above. Drs. McKee, P?, Huntington, are well. On Sunday I am off on a trip of two or three hundred miles thro’ the mts to look at a copper mine + some gold diggings with Genl. Carlton and will illegible + put in quarantine the donkeys and then arrive illegible 20 miles of the post. Remember me to Dr. Crane, Woodward, illegible, Curtis and any other friends and believe me with kind regards
Yours Sincerely,
H.A. DuBois
Bvt. Lt. Col. Geo A. Otis
U.S.A.
PS If you have been abroad please give me your advice. I go for health and to study surgery, medicine, + chemistry. Would it not be well for me to get Dr. Barnes to give me a letter of introduction. Is such a thing usual. I forgot to say that the cholera stopped in the negro command just after crossing the Arkansas.
H.A.D.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Letter of the Day: July 31
Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 836
Schulze-Berge & Koechl,
79 Murray Street, New York,
Importers and Sole Licenses for the United States For the Modern Medicinal Products
Of the Farbwerke, Vorm. Meister, Luciuss & Bruning,
Hoechst-on-the-Main, Germany.
DIPHTHERIA ANTITOXINE-“BEHRING.”
Dear Doctor:--
It will probably interest you to learn that the Serum department of the FARBWERKE vorm. MEISTER, LUCIUSS & BRUNING at Hoechst-on-the-Main, Germany, where the original DIPTHERIA ANTITOXINE of PROF. BEHRING is manufactured, is now and has been for some time, under the immediate supervision of the GERMAN GOVERNMENT. Each vial of the serum is not only tested and approved by PROFS. BEHRING and EHRLICH, but as a further guarantee of its reliability is also approved and passed by the government experts before it is put upon the market.
In order to be certain of obtaining the genuine “BEHRING” serum, it will be well to specify DIPHTHERIA ANTITOXINE-“BEHRING” and to observe that each vial bears the label herewith reproduced in fac-simile, which is printed in four different colors in order to distinguish the respective strengths.
Literature will be sent upon application to SCHULZE-BERGE & KOECHL,
Sole Licensees for the United States,
79 Murray Street, New York.
Undated but received July 31, 1895
Friday, July 30, 2010
Letter of the Day: July 30
Office of Geo. W. Knox
Storage Passenger, Freight, and Baggage Express.
Cor. 2d. & B Sts NW
Washington, D.C. July 30th 1887
Surg: J. S. Billings USA
Washington D.C.
Sir,
Your letter of 28th inst was received by me this A.M. upon my return to the city after an absence of two days.
Arrangements will be made to commence the work of moving to the new Army Med: Museum Bldg. on next Tuesday August 2nd. My wagons will report for duty at 7 AM, as my understanding with Capt. Hoyt was for a full days work from 7 A.M. to 6 P.M.
Will confer with you in person next Monday to make final arrangements.
Respectfully +c
Geo. W. Knox
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