A Repository for Bottled Monsters: Elizabeth Ramsey

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

"Excitement" by Elizabeth Ramsey

Part of a lecture given at University of Vermont 1983, Dr. Ramsey's observations about what research is and should be is something all researchers, no matter their field, could take to heart.

The Scientific method is so integral a part of our approach to science nowadays that we do not think of it very often. It comprises, of course, the two complementary techniques of observation and experimentation and whenever we are confronted by a problem to be solved or a question to be answered, we automatically take hold of one or the other or both of those tools. What we do not do is sit down and speculate what may be the answer or might be or would be logical if it were. Nor do we consult ancient tomes by long dead "authorities" to find support and justification for our supposings. Such arm chair research is an anathema to modern science. What we want are facts; hard, objectively demonstrable facts. And on the basis of them we achieve our triumph and excitement.

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

Pages

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

"Excitement" by Elizabeth Ramsey

Get new posts by email:

FeedBurner FeedCount

Google analytics