A Repository for Bottled Monsters: ornithology

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Letter of the Day: September 29

[There were so many bird collectors in the Army that there’s a book about them – Ornithologists of the United States Army Medical Corps by Hume]

Madisonville, Hamilton Co. Ohio

Sept. 29^th 1879

Dear Sir

I send you today, per Express (M+C. care of Adams) as directed, a box containing the following species of birds in the flesh, for the Army Medical Museum; (for skeletons).

Viz.-

Deudioeca castanea

Deudoieca blackburniae

Turdus swainsoni

Pyranga aestiva

Passerella iliaca

Aegialitis vociferous

Hoping that they may reach you in good order, I have the honor to be

Very respectfully yours

Frank W. Langdon

C.H. Crane

Asst. Surgeon General, U.S.A.

Received at A.M.M. Oct. 2, 1879, + turned over to Dr. Woodward, in charge of the Sec. of Comparative Anatomy. Copy of this letter furnished Dr. Schafhirt Oct. 7 1879, by order of Mr. Myers.

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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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Letter of the Day: September 29

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