The Army Medical Museum : a history / by D.S. Lamb.

  • Daniel Smith Lamb
Date:
[1916?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Army Medical Museum : a history / by D.S. Lamb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In June, 1869, Dr. Curtis was detailed to photograph the eclipse of the sun, and went to Des Moines, Iowa, for the purpose. The work was done in cooperation with a detail from the Navy Department that was sent to take observations. At the meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in 1870 Dr. Otis read a paper on Deformation of skulls, and one also on Indian crania, that were based mainly on work done at the Museum. Occasionally a meeting has been held at the Museum in mem¬ ory of some distinguished person, deceased ; as in the case of Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, and of Sir James Y. Simpson, who first used chloroform as an anesthetic. Among the earlier favorable notices of the Museum may be mentioned those of Berenger-Feraud and St. George Mivart in 1870 ; the former, in a French journal, said that the United States had done as much in the period of the Civil War as all Europe had done in a century, and that the Museum contained more specimens than all the anatomico-pathological museums of Europe combined. Mivart said that few nations would have so utilized the results of a protracted civil war as to make them avail¬ able in after years for the advancement of medical science and the alleviation of human pain as the United States had done. In the March number of LippincotVs Magazine, 1871, Wood¬ ward published some account of the Museum. In 1871 the subject of vegetable germs as causative of disease was much discussed, and brought from Woodward a published statement that his own microscopic examinations of air supposed to be infected had failed to demonstrate the presence of any such germs. At that time he may not have known of the researches of Leewenhoek in 1700 ; of Mueller in 1786, and of Ehrenberg in 1838 ; but he knew of the work of Pasteur. The discovery of the anthrax bacillus by Koch occurred five years after Woodward had expressed his skepticism. From time to time some one from abroad came to the United States especially to see the Museum and its work. I recall Victor Horsley, Pearce Gould, and Erichsen, of London. Erichsen came in 1874, and on his return said some very complimentary things about the Museum. He said that the Museum collection illustrated every variety of gunshot and arrow wounds and also those diseases that are more fatal than the bullet to an army in the camp or field. He spoke of the beautifully illustrated his¬ tories of the war, and in some detail analyzed the Museum cata- logs. The Museum was well represented at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. Woodward was in charge of the repre¬ sentation of the Medical Department of the Army, which, of course, included the Museum, and he exerted himself to the ut¬ most, as did also Dr. H. C. Yarrow, who was custodian of this
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