Licence: In copyright
Credit: The Army Medical Museum : a history / by D.S. Lamb. Source: Wellcome Collection.
![While it was possible and perhaps probable that the idea of such a museum should occur to other army medical officers, especially in view of the fact that there was a military medical museum at Netley in England, and another at Val-de-Grace in France, it still seems to be due to Dr. Hammond that the Museum was established ; and the credit has almost without exception been given to him. The first Curator, Dr. J. H. Brinton, a Surgeon, U. S. Volunteers, distinctly gives Hammond the credit, and was in a position to know. Dr. Brinton was appointed Curator June 4, 1862, just two weeks after the issuance of the circular named. On that date he was assigned to duty in the Surgeon General’s Office and appointed Curator of the Museum ; and a few days afterwards, June 9, he was designated to prepare the surgical part of the Medical and Surgical History of the War of 1861-5. At the same time Dr. J. J. Woodward, Asst. Surg., U. S. A., who had also been assigned to duty in the Surgeon General’s Office, was designated to prepare the medical part of the same history. It should be added that not only did these officers and their successors attend to the duties named, but they were called on from time to time to attend to many other duties besides those of the Museum and the preparation of the History of the War. Already there was a nucleus of a museum in half a dozen specimens that had at odd times found their way to the Surgeon General’s Office. Besides this it became known that some med¬ ical officers were preserving specimens for their own use. It may be that this fact had some influence in determining to establish the Museum. Events moved rapidly. July 28 the Surgeon General sent a number of medical officers to some of the military hospitals to collect such specimens as had up to that time been preserved, and a few days later, August 1, he directed Brinton to make the col¬ lections and have them properly arranged. It seems probable that the Surgeon General had become satisfied that his order to send specimens to his office was being to some extent evaded, and that specimens, as previously stated, were being preserved for the personal use of some medical officers. At this early period the collection, being small, was housed in rooms in the office of the Surgeon General, which was then located in the back and upper part of the old Riggs Bank Build¬ ing, at the corner of 15th Street and President Place, northwest. [This building was later torn down and replaced by the present one.] Sometime afterwards these rooms were turned over to the medical Inspector General, and Drs. Brinton and Woodward and the specimens were transferred to a building on Pennsylvania Avenue, west of 17th, north side, numbered 180. The number is now 1719-21. After the battle of Antietam in September, 1862, Dr. Brinton](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30621458_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
