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.

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.

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 4^th, 1897

 

Walter Reed, M.D.,

Curator U.S. Army Museum,

7^th and B. Streets S.W.,

Washington, D.C.

 

Dear Doctor:-

 

Your communication of the 28^th 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. 24^th, 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

 

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.

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.