A Repository for Bottled Monsters: Two Army Medical Museum letters from J.J. Woodward

Monday, August 18, 2014

Two Army Medical Museum letters from J.J. Woodward

Today, I ran across a photocopy from some old research I'd done, and experimented with putting it online at the Medical Heritage Library. If there's interest, I can scan more.

Letter from J. J. Woodward to Bowditch on Army Medical Museum - Army Medical Museum
Dr. Joseph Woodward writes to Dr. Bowditch expressing his opinion on the use of the medical museum in determining the causes of disease. He also expresses appreciation for the Surgeon General's Library. Original in National Museum of Health and Medicine's OHA 28: Curatorial Records: Woodward Letterbooks.

Letter from J.J. Woodward To Joseph Henry On Comparative Anatomy Books - Army Medical Museum
Dr. Joseph Woodward writes to Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution asking for books on animals for the Museum's comparative anatomy collection with the books to be added to the Surgeon General's Library. Original in National Museum of Health and Medicine's OHA 28: Curatorial Records: Woodward Letterbooks.

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Who are we?

Mike Rhode was the chief archivist of the Museum from 1989-2011, and is the founder of this blog. I maintain an interest in the course of the museum, and will be posting relevant information.

The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 during the American Civil War. After World War II, a parent-child relationship was inverted and the Museum became part of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Since then, the Museum has moved around Washington, stopping for years in Ford's Theatre, and on the National Mall where the building it shared with the National Library of Medicine once stood, until it was demolished in 1968 for the Hirshhorn Museum. For 35 years it was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and now is in Silver Spring, MD.

So what about that blog name?

It's historical. I found it in a quote from one of the former curators. World War II confirmed the Army Medical Museum's primary role in pathology consultation. James Ash, the curator during the war and a pathologist, noted, "Shortly after the last war, more concerted efforts were instituted to concentrate in the Army Medical Museum the significant pathologic material occurring in Army installations." He closed with the complaint, "We still suffer under the connotation museum, an institution still thought of by many as a repository for bottled monsters and medical curiosities. To be sure, we have such specimens. As is required by law, we maintain an exhibit open to the public, but in war time, at least, the museum per se is the least of our functions, and we like to be thought of as the Army Institute of Pathology, a designation recently authorized by the Surgeon General."

After the war, it evolved into the tri-service Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

A Repository for Bottled Monsters

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Monday, August 18, 2014

Two Army Medical Museum letters from J.J. Woodward

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