American Medical Biographies/Hammond, William Alexander
Hammond, William Alexander (1828–1900).
A surgeon-general of the United States Army and an able neurologist, he was the son of Dr. John W. Hammond of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and was born at Annapolis, August 28, 1828, receiving his M. D. from the University of the City of New York in 1848, and after some hospital experience entering the United States Army as assistant surgeon in 1849. He served at various frontier stations in New Mexico, Kansas, Florida and at West Point, participating in numerous Indian cam- paigns and occupying his leisure time chiefly with physiological and botanical investigations. In 1857 he was awarded the American Medical Association prize for an exhaustive essay on "The Nutritive Value and Physiological Effects of Albumen, Starch and Gum When Singly and Exclusively Used as Foods."
In 1860 he resigned military service to accept the chair of anatomy and physiology in Maryland University and remained in active conduct of his department and in professional practice in Baltimore until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he resigned, appeared before the army medical examining board, and re-entered the service as assistant surgeon. On account of his previous experience he was at once assigned to administrative work in the organization of hospitals and sanitary stations, in which he was so successful as to attract the attention of the Sanitary Commission, which, being dissatisfied with the administration of the medical department of the army, successfully urged his appointment as surgeon-general. The work of the surgeon-general's office at once assumed an aspect of efficiency and force, but the promotion of Hammond over the heads of the assistant surgeon-general and the rest of the staff did not fail to create much antagonism upon the part of his confreres. More particularly his masterful and forceful administration so clashed with the autocratic spirit of Edmund M. Stanton, Secretary of War, that the result was a court-martial by which Hammond was dismissed from the service, a sentence shown later to be unjust and reversed by action of Congress, which, in 1878, provided for the appointment of Gen. Hammond with the full rank of brigadier-general previously held by him, upon the retired list.
During the period of his service as surgeon-general from April 28, 1862, to August 18, 1864, he accomplished many reforms in army medical administration. He inaugurated the "Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion," established the Army Medical Museum, introduced the pavilion system of hospital construction extensively throughout the service, and provided suitable habitation for the sick and wounded. The liberal issue of medical books and journals to the medical officers which has done so much towards maintaining the high standard of the department was due to him. Many other forms which later became realities were also recommended by him, such as the formation of a permanent hospital corps, the establishment of an army medical school, the location of a permanent general hospital at Washington and the institution of a military medical laboratory. In addition he urged the autonomy of the medical department in construction of buildings and transportation of supplies, a measure the full materialization of which is still believed to be essential to the service of the sick in war.
His court-martial left him in great pecuniary embarrassment, and it was only through the courtesy of a professional friend, who raised a purse for his benefit, that he was enabled, pending his ultimate vindication, to go to New York, where he became a noted alienist and lectured upon that subject in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, later in Bellevue Hospital Medical College, the University of the City of New York, and the New Post-Graduate Medical School; of the latter he was one of the founders. He made many original investigations and utilized extensitamesve clinical opportunities for the recognition and development of hitherto unrecorded conditions; but perhaps his description of the disease called by him, and now universally known as "athetosis," is best known.
He wielded a most facile pen, and even when carrying the enormous burden of directing the medical department in the war, found time to produce a comprehensive work on "Military Hygiene." His medical books consist chiefly of works devoted to nervous affections, and of these his treatises on "Diseases of the Nervous System" and "Insanity in its Medical Relations" are the best known. But he is not unknown as a play-writer, and his "Son of Perdition" is thought by some to be the best novel of the Christ ever produced.
From 1867 to 1872 he edited the Quarterly Journal of Physiological Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence; from 1867 to 1869 he was editor of the New York Medical Journal, and later editor and promoter of the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 1867 to 1883.
In 1878, having acquired an ample fortune and having secured his vindication from, and restoration to, the army, he returned to Washington, where he lived until his death from cardiac failure. During this period he took great interest in the subject of animal extracts, and was largely instrumental in their introduction into professional work.
In addition to the writings named should be mentioned his "Physiological Memoirs," Philadelphia, 1863; "Military Medical and Surgical Essays for the United States Sanitary Commission," Philadelphia, 1864; "A Treatise on Insanity in its Legal Relations," New York, 1883. A yet fuller list can be seen in the Surgeon-General's Catalogue, Washington, D. C.