A Repository for Bottled Monsters: World's Columbian Exposition

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Letter of the Day, March 21

Ahhh, large world’s fairs – those were the days…

Major Clifton Comly, U.S.A.
Representative of War Department

World’s Columbian Exposition,
War Department Exhibit

Indianapolis
21 March 1891

My dear Dr.

Will you kindly notify Dr. Billings that a meeting of the War Dept Board in connection with the World Columbian Exposition, has been called for Tuesday the 24th inst at 11 a.m. at the room of the Board of Management 1429 New York Ave., Washington (Safe Deposit Building, Cor. 15th St.)

You will remember that it was agreed that the Dr was to represent Dr. LaGarde for this meeting and I trust nothing may interfere with his attendance.

Very truly yours
Clifton Comly,
Major, USA

Dr. C.R. Greenleaf,
Med Dept.

Note reads: Dear Dr. – I pass this along to you CRG

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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Sunday, March 21, 2010

Letter of the Day, March 21

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