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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Penetrating Gunshot Wound of the Abdomen. General Henry Barnum, 12th New York. He received this wound on July 1, 1862 at the battle of Malvern Hill. Photograph by William Bell in August, 1865. (SP93)

Deathbed of Lincoln by Hermann Faber

Sketch of Abraham Lincoln's death bed done by Hermann Faber, and approved for accuracy by Surgeon General J. K. Barnes. The original is on display in the Museum.

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

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.

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

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.

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