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.

    19/24 page 31
    been practically the Curator of the Army Medical Museum and many of its specimens, as in the collection of John Hunter in London, or Virchow in Berlin, were prepared with his own hands. It might be of advantage to the Museum if Dr. Lamb’s list of desiderata were printed in the Annals of the Society. The gaps in the Washington collection, as was originally the case in the Hunter Museum, are mainly in the physiological series and the corresponding pathological series, and it is possible that some practitioners or surgeons of the District of Columbia might be able to help out with a specimen here and there. The Surgeon General’s Library, in the Army Medical Museum building, began as a small collection of medical books in the office of Surgeon General Lovell, 1835; numbering about 135 works, (228 volumes), in 1840, and increased to about 587 volumes by Surgeon General Hammond in 1862. Dr. Billings came on at the beginning of 1865 in Surgeon General Barnes’ administra¬ tion, and at this time the collection numbered 1,365 volumes. Soon afterwards General Barnes acquired the use of $80,coo.00 for the purchase of books—a slush fund turned in from the dis¬ mantled army hospitals—and by 1871 the Library contained 13,330 volumes. Appropriations for further purchases were obtained from Congress, and catalogs were printed, that of 1873 showing 25,000 volumes and 15,000 pamphlets. In 1876 Dr. Billings published his Specimen Fasciculus of an index catalog (by authors and subjects), which was well received by the medical profession. Soon afterwards he secured the valuable aid of Dr. Robert Fletcher. In 1880 Volume I of the Index Catalogue was printed, and has been followed by a volume each successive year, the whole first and second series, to be completed in 1916, making 37 volumes in quarto. The Surgeon General’s Library has the best collection of medical periodicals in the world, and this period¬ ical literature, the most important part of modern medicine, is well indexed in the catalogue. The only things lacking are certain rare and expensive transactions of societies, but even the medical papers in these are often indexed in the form of abstracts, printed in other journals. Physicians would have better success in finding things under the subject entered in the catalog if they minded the cross references. An article on “Pneumoperi¬ cardium” for instance might not be found under this heading, but would appear under the referred subject “ Pericardium, (air in)”. Dr. E. M. Schaeffer had heard with much interest the review of the history of the old Army Museum, which brought back to his memory many scenes and faces of former days. The mention of the photographic division reproducing the picture of John Wilkes Booth for distribution to aid in his capture after the death of President Lincoln in April, 1865, reminded Dr. Schaeffer that
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