Jump to content

Armed Forces Institute of Pathology: Its First Century 1862-1962/Chapter III

Add links
From Wikisource
←
Chapter II
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology: Its First Century 1862-1962
by Robert S. Henry
Chapter III : Second Wind
Chapter IV
→
4133817Armed Forces Institute of Pathology: Its First Century 1862-1962 — Chapter III : Second WindRobert S. Henry
​

CHAPTER III

Second Wind

Fortunately for the future, while most other elements in the great complex of military organizations which had just won the war were shrinking back toward pre-war standards of size and activity, the Medical Museum was permitted to go on its way undisturbed. It had won the respect of the new Surgeon General, Joseph K. Barnes (fig. 23), who declared in the Annual Report for 1864, while the war was still being fought, that "the Army Medical Museum continues to increase in value, and is already one of the most instructive pathological collections in the world." Thus, early in its history, the ultimate direction of the development of the Museum was foreshadowed by the use of the word "pathological" to describe its collections. The term was repeated in The Surgeon General's Report for 1865, with mention of the Museum's "pathological collection," which had grown to 7,630 specimens.

Continued support of the project by Surgeon General Barnes was further evidenced by Circular No. 6 of the Surgeon General's Office, issued on 26 lune 1865, directing that "when Hospitals shall be discontinued and their Libraries disposed of, the most valuable works, Scientific, Historical, etc., shall be carefully selected, packed and turned over to the Quartermaster's Department for transportation to Surgeon George A. Otis, U.S.V., Curator of the Army Medical Museum."

Supply and Funding for the Museum

Besides books, The Surgeon General interested himself in supplementing the financial support of the Museum by securing from the War Department the authority to have all "slush funds" of discontinued hospitals turned over to Major Otis for the use of the Museum. lust how much these funds amounted to does not appear, but the transfer, ordered on 27 September 1865, did not escape the attention of the Comptroller of the War Department, to whom

General Barnes addressed an explanation and an inquiry on 21 July 1866. "This Fund," The Surgeon General wrote, "accrued during the war at the various General Hospitals from the sale of soap, fat and swill, and upon their discon​

Figure 23.—Maj. Gen. Joseph K. Barnes, The Surgeon General of the Army for 18 years, 1864-1882, who carried forward much of the program initiated by General Hammond.

​

tinuance, was transferred to Dr. Otis by authority of the Honorable Secretary of War, to be expended for the use of 'the Army Medical Museum.' As this fund resulted from the sale of refuse subsistence supplies, it is believed to be embraced in the exceptions to the Act of 1849, which are stated in the Act of 1850." Under the circumstances, The Surgeon General asked, were not the "slush funds" exempt from the requirements of the Act of 1849 that "all moneys received from the customs, and all other sources, are to be paid into the Treasury without abatement or reduction" ? 1[1]

Expenditures from the Museum fund, whether augmented by the "slush funds" or not, were extremely modest. As reported by Curator Otis to The Surgeon General on 1 July 1865, "* * * about two-fifths of the annual appropriation" of $5,000 had been paid for new cabinets to contain the specimens and $1,200 had been spent for "apparatus of a high order of excellence" for the "commodious photograph gallery erected in the yard of the Museum by the Quartermaster's department, and supplied with water, baths, screens, shelving, etc."

Increasing Activities of the Museum

Over 50 of the more interesting specimens in the Museum had been photographed, and 40 complete sets of this series of pictures, each accompanied by a history, had been prepared for issue to medical directors of armies and departments. This project had involved the making of more than 1,000 photographic prints, this being before the day of the halftone process of reproduction. In addition, 150 photographs were made to guide the wood engravers in making a like number of woodcuts for use in illustrating catalogs or other publications relating to the surgery of the war.

Additional apparatus for Surgeon Joseph J. Woodwards microscopical work had been purchased, and "for several months" Assistant Surgeon Edward Curtis had been engaged in experiments in photomicrography, with results already attained that had been favorably received. In the surgical department, 997 additional specimens had been mounted and cataloged since 3 October 1864, while the medical side of the Museum had "very complete" illustrative materials on the principal camp diseases, with many valuable additions on parasitic diseases and morbid processes in general. ​ Enough glass jars were on hand to meet the Museum's needs for a year to come, and a sufficient quantity of alcohol had been distilled from confiscated whisky turned over to the Museum by the major general commanding in Washington to mount the wet preparations suitably. 2[2]

The Museum, according to Dr. Otis's report, had not only enough glass jars and alcohol; it had also an appropriation for the coming year that was "ample." The fact that an annual appropriation of $5,000 was "ample" was explained later by Dr. Woodward in an article in Lippincott 's Magazine for March 1871. "The building is already the property of the government, the officers and attaches all belong to the army; no extra-duty pay, no special allowances of any kind are awarded to any of them." Hence, as Dr. Woodward put it, "the total additional outlay * * * in consequence of the existence of the museum is so small that it may fairly be regarded as insignificant in comparison with the good to be obtained." 3[3]

The Museum's Fourth Home

In its 3 years of life, the Museum had been housed in three different buildings and now, in its fourth year, it was to be moved again. Its new quarters were in the building (fig. 24) formerly occupied by Ford's Theater, on 10th Street, NW., where, on Good Friday of 1865, President Lincoln was shot. The building had been closed as a theater immediately after the assassination and had been in the possession of the Government since 8 July 1865. The purchase of the building "for the deposit and safekeeping of documentary papers relative to the soldiers of the army of the United States and of the Museum of the Medical and Surgical Department of the Army" was provided for by Act of Congress approved 6 April 1866, and on 7 May 1866, the building was assigned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to The Surgeon General. 4[4]

Its interior fittings had been torn out and replaced with three floors, of which the upper floor was assigned to the Museum, the second floor to the surgical records of the Surgeon General's Office, and the ground floor to the Record and Pension Division of the same office. There had been an effort to fireproof the building by putting in brick floors resting on iron arches, sup​

Figure 24.—The fourth home of the Museum.

ported by columns of iron. Stairways between floors were also of iron. The building had a front of 71 feet on 10th Street, and a depth of 109 feet. Museum workshops and a chemical laboratory were housed in small wings on each side.

Into this building, "the scene of the assassination of the lamented Lincoln," in the words of Dr. Woodward, the collections of the Museum were to be moved. "What nobler monument could the nation erect to his memory," the doctor asked, "than this sombre treasure house, devoted to the study of disease and injury, mutilation and death?"[5]

The movement of this "sombre treasure" from the building on H Street began on 12 November 1866, and continued until 8 December. The removal of the records, and that portion of the collection which had been housed at 180 Pennsylvania Avenue, followed between 11 December and the 21st of the month. On the 22d, General Barnes advised the Quartermaster General's ​ office that the former quarters had been vacated, and transmitted the keys. 6[6] For the next 20 years, the life of the Museum was to be centered in the Ford's Theater building.

From the beginning, the Museum had attracted an increasing number of visitors. Within a year of its establishment, its usefulness had been recognized by the civilian medical profession as well as by the military, and it was "weekly and almost daily" consulted by them. 7[7] To the medical profession, there was added another class of visitors with a special interest. In Dr. John H. Brinton's phrase, "officers and soldiers who had lost a limb by amputation would come to look up its resting place, in some sense its last resting place." Then, too, as Dr. Brinton wrote, "the public came to see the bones, attracted by a new sensation." While the Museum was still at the H Street address, Curator Otis reported, more formally, "the number of visitors to the collection constantly increases." 8[8]

With the removal to the Ford's Theater building, and its tragic associations with the great appealing figure of Lincoln, the number of visitors mounted to such an extent that rules, approved by order of The Surgeon General and issued on 25 April 1867, were posted (fig. 25) .9[9]

Between mid-April of 1867 and the end of the year, some 6,000 persons, an average of about 25 for each day the Museum was open, had been registered in the visitor's book. Within the next 4 years, the number of visitors had trebled, 10[10] and the Museum had become established as one of the "sights" of Washington. When extra crowds came to the city, as upon the occasion of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's inauguration as President in 1869, the visiting hours were extended — opening at 9 a.m. and closing at 4 p.m.; and at his second inauguration, in 1873, from 8 a.m. until 4 p-m. 11[11]

The collections viewed by these visitors were divided into six groups or sections — surgical, medical, microscopical, normal human anatomy, comparative or animal anatomy, and miscellaneous articles (fig. 26). ​

Figure 25.—The Museum adopts visiting rules.

In addition, there was the beginning of a collection of crania, chiefly of American Indians, together with specimens of Indian weapons, dress, implements, diet, and medicines, started in response to Circular No. 2 of the Surgeon's General's Office, issued on 4 April 1867. The chief purpose of the collection, officers of the Medical Department were informed by Assistant Surgeon General ​

Figure 26.—Main exhibit hall of the Museum, Ford's Theater building, 1866-1887.

​Charles H. Crane in a memorandum of September 1868, was "to aid the progress of anthropological science by obtaining measurements of a large number of skulls of the aboriginal races of North America." For that purpose, it was necessary "to procure sufficiently large series of adult crania of the principal Indian tribes to furnish accurate average measurements." 12[12]

The articles relating to Indian archeology and anthropology, received along with the skulls and skeletons, belonged more appropriately in the Museum of Natural History, administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Professor Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian, accordingly proposed to Surgeon General Barnes an exchange of the Smithsonian's anatomical materials for the Medical Museum's materials relating to the manners and customs and the archeology of the Indian tribes. The Surgeon General agreed, and over the next several years numerous exchanges were effected.

The craniological collection was to have been the most important feature of a proposed catalog of the anatomical section of the Museum, to accompany the catalogs of the surgical, medical, and microscopical sections. In a letter of 18 January 1873, to the Honorable John Coburn, chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs, Surgeon General Barnes strongly urged such a catalog as "simply a necessity" to make the collections accessible to students. "Anthropologists in different parts of the world," he wrote, "are anxious for the data * * * for comparison with similar data published in Sweden, Russia, Germany, Italy, France, and England. The French Government, through its Legation here, after making repeated applications for the tables of cranial measurements, employed an artist to make casts and take photographs of a series of typical skulls; and a professor of Bonn made the study of the collection the object of a trip across the Atlantic."

The Military Affairs Committee reported favorably on the bill authorizing the publication of the catalog at a cost for 1,000 copies estimated at $26,200, but the bill was not passed and the catalog was not published. 13[13]

After some 30 years of medically unfruitful measurement of the cubic capacity, the length and breadth, the facial angle, and other characteristics of skulls, it was decided that such determinations pertained more properly to anthropology than to medical study. On 8 May 1898, therefore, the Museum's ​ collection of crania, by then numbering 2,206 specimens, was transferred to the Museum of Natural History. 14[14]

Exchanges of duplicate and supernumerary specimens with other institutions and individuals, and purchase of private collections increased the holdings of the Museum. Among the former was the exchange of pictures and models, suitable for class demonstration, which had been prepared for use in the projected Army Medical School, vetoed by Secretary Stanton, for a cabinet of pathological specimens collected by professors of the National Medical College of Washington, which had taken over the buildings on H Street vacated by the Museum and which, under its present name of the School of Medicine of George Washington University, still occupies the site. Among the latter was the purchase at Richmond, Va., on 22 April 1868, from the widow of Prof. William Gibson, University of Pennsylvania, of a collection of 413 specimens, 54 casts and wax models of human anatomy, and 42 oil paintings by Sully of various diseased conditions. 15[15]

Still another source of specimens for the Museum's collection was the medical staff of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, better known as the Freedmen 's Bureau. Col. L. A. Edwards, chief medical officer of the Bureau, appealed on 6 June 1868 to "all Acting Assistant-Surgeons in the employment of the Bureau, and especially those who are in charge of Freedmen's Hospitals, [to] avail of every opportunity of contributing to the Anatomical and Pathological collections of the Army Medical Museum." Officers were especially urged to make, or have made, autopsies and to forward to the Museum "all pathological specimens of interest thus obtained." 16[16]

Praise From Foreign Visitors

By 1871, when Dr. Woodward's description of the Museum was published in Lippincott's Magazine, the surgical section consisted of about 6,000 mounted specimens and 350 plaster casts, the medical section of 1,150 specimens, and the microscopical section of more than 4,000. The anatomical section included nearly 1,000 human skulls and skeletons, of which 376 had been transferred by the Smithsonian in exchange for Indian weapons, utensils, and other artifacts, while a still larger number had been contributed by medical officers. 17[17] The section of comparative anatomy (fig. 27) included more than 1,000 animal ​

Figure 27.—Early "dry" exhibits in comparative anatomy at the Medical Museum included skeletal remains of a variety of mammals, birds, and reptiles.

​

skulls and skeletons, with special attention paid to the anatomy of the horse.

The majority of the 6,000 surgical specimens were, as was to be expected, illustrative of military surgery, though other surgical cases were already well represented. Over 400 missiles extracted from wounds were included, while sabers and other cutting weapons were responsible for 22 specimens.

"Altogether," wrote Dr. Woodward, "it may safely be asserted that in the illustration of military surgery this section not only exceeds any other surgical museum in the United States, but surpasses any similar collection hitherto made in the Old World — a fact that has been frequently and willingly admitted by foreign savants well acquainted with the subject who have visited Washington." 18 [18]

Dr. Woodward doubtless referred to statements by Dr. Berenger-Feraud of Paris, published in the Gazette des hopitaux civils et militaires, Paris, and Saint George Mivart, published in Nature, London, in 1870. In the Paris publication, Dr. Berenger-Feraud said that the United States had done as much in the building of an anatomicopathological museum in 5 years as had been done in Europe in a century, and that the three catalogs which had been published — surgical, medical, and microscopical — contained more specimens than were in all the like museums in Europe combined. In recognition of the fact that the materials in the Museum had been chiefly collected during the American Civil War, Mr. Mivart said in the London publication that "the Americans are a wonderful people. There are few other nations which would have been capable of so utilizing the results of a protracted internecine war as to make them available in after years toward the advancement of medical science and alleviation of human pain." 19[19]

Some foreign visitors, according to Dr. Woodward, were not only impressed by the scope of the collections of the Museum, but "seem to have been particularly struck with the free access given to the general public and to private soldiers, who in less enlightened communities would be excluded from such an institution."

While the majority of the 1,150 specimens in the medical section of the Museum illustrated "morbid conditions of the internal organs in fever, chronic dysentery and other camp diseases," Dr. Woodward reported, "the number of preparations which exhibit the morbid anatomy of the diseases of civil life" had been constantly increasing since the war. These included "pathological ​pieces" relating to the diseases of women and children — which, after all, were not foreign to the practice of medicine by army doctors responsible for the health of dependents as well as for that of military personnel.

The Museum and the Medical Profession

Many of the post-war contributions to the Museum were from physicians and surgeons in civil life who, as the institution became better known after the war, gave specimens developed in their practice — the beginning of the close relationship between the Museum and its successor, the Institute, and the medical profession, the results of which have been so fruitful.20[20]

Among the more interesting of the early contributors to the collections were former Confederate surgeons, including three presidents of the American Medical Association, Dr. Henry F. Campbell of Augusta, Ga., Dr. Paul F. Eve of Nashville, Tenn., and Dr. Hunter McGuire of Richmond, professor of surgery in the Medical College of Virginia, but perhaps better known as the chief surgeon of "Stonewall" Jackson's Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. 21[21]

The collections of the Museum, housed on the third floor of the building, were lighted by windows front and rear and by a large central skylight. Beneath the skylight was an oblong opening in the floor which let the light fall into the space below. All available wall space was covered with display cases, which also stood in ranks on the floor. In these cases, which were of pine and painted white, the specimens were exhibited. Most of the surgical specimens were mounted "dry," while almost all the medical specimens were "wet" preparations, preserved in wide-mouthed jars, closed with ground glass stoppers to the undersurfaces of which were attached glass hooks from which the specimens were suspended in the preservative fluid (fig. 28).22[22]

The Museum and the Congress in the 1870's

While supplies of alcohol distilled from confiscated whisky remained ample, at least until 1876, with the growth of the Museum and its work, the annual appropriation of $5,000 — which had seemed ample to Dr. Otis in 1865 — ceased ​

Figure 28.—Wet specimens on display enclosed in glass.

to be sufficient. The Surgeon General accordingly addressed a letter to the Honorable James A. Garfield, chairman of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, on 6 January 1872, justifying an estimate of $10,000 for the Museum and also the Surgeon General's Library. "No institution," he said, "has reflected greater credit upon its Government both at home and abroad than the Army Medical Museum and its present size and steady increase render the expense of keeping it in good order and preservation larger than heretofore, although still small when compared with the cost of other institutions of similar character." The request was looked upon with favor, but the Senate Appropriations Committee cut the item from $10,000 to $5,000 whereupon, on 15 May, General Barnes wrote Chairman Cole, urging reconsideration and stating that the lesser sum was not sufficient to maintain the growing collection and "to make some of the more valuable results known to the profession of the country, a course which has been pursued so far as means would allow." The appeal for restoration of the House figure was not successful, and the next year's appropriation remained at $5,000.[23]

An interesting sidelight is thrown on the problem of the congressional relations of the Museum by a bit of correspondence between Curator Otis and Brevet Lieutenant Colonel John Shaw Billings of the Surgeon General's Office, preserved in the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology records. On 7 May 1870, ​ Otis wrote, "I have on hand about thirty volumes of surgical photographs. Is it practicable to have them bound at the Congressional Bindery ?", to which inquiry Dr. Billings responded on the same day, "Dear Doctor: I do not think it will be well to try to get any binding done at the Gov't, office until Congress adjourns. It wouldn't be done I am sure and I doubt whether the attention of the Committee on Printing would not be called to it— which thus far has been avoided." 24[24]

Enlarging the Aims of the Museum

Despite limited financial support, the Museum continued to grow. By 1876, in its 10th year in the Ford's Theater building, the surgical section contained 6,539 specimens, the medical section 1,279, the microscopical section 7,275, the human anatomical section 1,254, tne comparative anatomical section 1,522, and the section for miscellaneous articles 240. The primary emphasis remained on preserving specimens illustrative of the wounds and diseases which produced death and disability in the military forces, with the purpose of reducing mortality and alleviating suffering among soldiers, but by 1876, Dr. Woodward wrote, it had become "the desire of the Surgeon General that so far as the means placed at his disposal will permit, the collection shall be extended so as to embrace all forms of injuries and diseases, so that eventually it shall become a general pathological Museum, accessible for study to all medical men who are prosecuting original inquiries * * *.25[25]

That the original purpose remained uppermost is indicated by the reports of foreign observers, who were struck by the richness of the collections in gunshot and arrow wounds, and were impressed with the diligence and devotion which had permitted the making of such collections in the midst of a great war. "Among the foreign visitors, whose wide experience made their commendation peculiarly gratifying," said The Surgeon General in his annual report for 1875, "were Baron Schwartz-Sanborn, Director of the Vienna World Exposition of 1873, and Professor John Eric Erichsen, of University College, London." Professor Erichsen, who visited the Museum in the fall of 1874, said in a lecture on American surgery at the University College on 9 November of that year:

There is one Museum which is so unique, so admirably arranged, and so interesting, that I must direct your attention to it for a few minutes. It is the Museum of the Army Medical Department at Washington. This magnificent collection, illustrating not ​ only every possible variety of gunshot and arrow injury, but also those diseases which are more fatal than the bullet to an army in the field or in camp, has under the able superintendence of Surgeon General Barnes, and of Drs. Otis and Woodward, been most admirably arranged and catalogued * * *. Many of the specimens in this Museum are quite unique * * *. 26[26]

Varied Uses of the Museum

The Army Medical Museum became somewhat of a focus for the intellectual and scientific life of the Washington of the 1870's The fortnightly meetings of the Philosophical Society, the leading intellectual group of Washington, were held at the Museum, and the charter meeting of the now famous Cosmos Club, and its first election of officers, was held at the Museum on 13 December 1878. 27[27] When the American Medical Association met in the Capital in 1868, the Museum was the scene of a reception to its members given by The Surgeon General. A like courtesy was extended to the members of the National Academy of Sciences in 1870. Upon both occasions, as well as at other times, Dr. Woodward showed transparencies of some of the remarkable photomicrographs made at the Museum. Another notable visitor for whom The Surgeon General had a reception at the Museum, on 11 December 1872, was Prof. John Tyndall of London, whose studies in sterilization by heat had not yet reached their culmination but who, already, had dealt mighty blows to the theory of spontaneous generation. 28[28]

Scientific Skepticism As to Bacteria

Just a month before the reception at the Museum for one whose careful researches were to do so much toward establishment of the theory of bacterial infection, Dr. Woodward paid his respects to the theory, in a letter to the editor of the Washington Evening Star, published on 13 November 1872. "During the last few years," the letter read, "it has been a favorite speculation in certain quarters, that epidemic diseases are produced by the presence in the atmosphere of vegetable germs, so minute as to be visible only with the microscope. Considerable labor has been bestowed upon microscopical work in this direction, but the results which have been confidently announced from time to time by ​enthusiasts have been either contradicted or so materially modified by subsequent observations that the question still remains in the domain of mere speculation." Referring to the opportunities for "charlatanism" and for honest mistake in this field, he added, "nevertheless I certainly regard the microscopical forms which exist in the atmosphere and their possible effect on man as a proper matter for scientific study, and by way of contributing my mite to the difficult subject * * * I have collected the organic forms from a quantity of air of a stable in this city where there are a number of sick horses, and submitted them to the highest power of the microscope, without finding any which are not usually encountered when no epidemic is prevailing * * *."29[29]

His opinion had undergone little change when, 7 years later, in part II of volume I of the "Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion," he used with approval the derisive term "bacteriafanatics" and, speaking of the persistence of the "general hypothesis that bacteria are in some way disease-producers," said that Virchow's "splendid rhetoric has lent plausibility to arguments which appeal almost as much to faith as to reason." Dr. Woodward was well aware of the presence of inconceivable numbers of bacteria, but he was doubtful of the disease-producing effects of what he referred to, somewhat slightingly, as "those convenient bacteria which have played so conspicuous a part in modern pathological speculation." 30[30]

Ironically, the expressions of scientific skepticism on the part of Dr. Wood-ward were published 2 years after Capt. A. C. Girard, stationed at Fort Randall, Dakota Territory, had reported enthusiastically on the results of Joseph Lister's technique in antiseptic surgery, which he had observed on a trip to Europe. Captain Girard was willing to "leave to other pens the task of elucidating" the nature of bacteria and how they acted upon the body, but he stoutly maintained "the indisputable fact that there are germs or ferments in the atmosphere which will produce putrefaction in wounds, and that by preventing their ingress we can in most cases avert the complications which cause the greatest fatality in surgery * * *. This is the key to Lister's system." Captain Girard's report was published to the Medical Corps in Circular Orders No. 3, Surgeon General's Office, 20 August 1877, but, perhaps because the report and the Lister system dealt with surgery while Dr. Woodward was concerned with medicine, neither the Girard report nor Lister himself is mentioned in the 1879 volume of the History. ​

The Third Curator

The stupendous task of compiling and writing the Medical and Surgical History was drawing to its close when, in May 1877, Dr. Otis suffered a stroke of paralysis, and in May 1880, Dr. Woodward was compelled by the state of his health to go to Europe. On 23 February 1881, Dr. Otis died, at the early age of 51, and was succeeded as Curator of the Museum by Surgeon David Low Huntington, U.S.A. (fig. 29), who also took over the task of completing the third and final part of the surgical volumes of the great History upon which Dr. Otis was engaged at the time of his disability and death. 31[31]

Back from Europe, Woodward suffered a broken leg on 1 January 1881, when his horse slipped and fell on him, but he was able to resume work at the Museum in time to be one of the physicians attending President James A. Garfield, when the President was shot and fatally wounded by Charles J. Guiteau on 2 July 1881. The shooting took place in the waiting room of the Baltimore & Potomac railroad depot in Washington, where the President had gone to board a train to join his wife on the New Jersey seashore. The first shot from Guiteau's pistol grazed the President's arm; the second entered his back and was not located until after his death on 19 September 1881. Probing failed to find it, as did an "induction-balance" device of Prof. Alexander Graham Bell which was supposed to locate metal objects by an electrically induced sound. Every-thing known to the medical art of 1881 was tried, but in the prevailing state of medical knowledge, there was nothing that could be done to save the President's life.

The Museum and the Garfield Tragedy

Eighteen hours after his death, in a seaside cottage at Elberon, N.J., where the President had been taken to escape the heat of Washington and the miasmas of the swamplands south of the White House, an autopsy was performed by Dr. Daniel Smith Lamb, pathologist of the Museum, with Dr. Woodward acting as recorder (fig. 30). The autopsy disclosed the course and location of the fatal bullet, which had entered the victim's back about 4 inches to the right of his spine ; had broken the eleventh and twelfth ribs to the right of the spine ; passed through the first lumbar vertebra, missing the spinal cord; grazed the splenic artery; and stopped behind the pancreas, some 10 inches from the point of ​

Figure 29.—Surgeon David Low Huntington, U.S. Army, third Curator of the Museum, 1881-1883.

entrance.[32] The President's vertebrae are preserved in the Medical Museum, with the course of the bullet traced through them by a plastic rod.

Dr. Woodward's health failed early in 1882, and in February he left for Europe—to return no more to the Museum. He did not participate in the ​

Figure 30.—Bullet from the body of President Garfield, located at autopsy by Dr. Daniel Smith Lamb, pathologist of the Museum.

​

autopsy performed by Dr. Lamb on Guiteau, the assassin, who was executed on 30 June 1882. Special attention was given to the brain, sections of which were parceled out to eminent alienists for examination, but no evidence of unusual pathological change was found. 33[33]

Thus it was, that in the first 20 years of its life, the Museum attaches were called upon to participate in the activities growing out of the assassinations of two Presidents of the United States, and the Museum itself became the repository of the melancholy medical memorabilia of two great national tragedies.

  1. ↑ 1 (1) Lamb, Dr. D. S.: A History of the Army Medical Museum, 1862-1917, compiled from the Official Records. Mimeographed copy in historical records of AFIP, pp. 34, 37. (2) On file, National Archives, Accession Number 421 , Letter Book Number 42, SGO, p. 347.
  2. ↑ 2 (1) Lamb, op. cit., pp. 35, 37. (2) Lamb, D. S.: Army Medical Museum, Washington, D.C. The Military Surgeon 53: 109-111, August 1923.
  3. ↑ 3 Woodward, J. J.: The Army Medical Museum at Washington. Lippincott's Magazine, Philadelphia, VII: 241, March 1871.
  4. ↑ 4 (l) Statement of Gen. Joseph K. Barnes. On file, National Archives, War Department Records, Letter Book No. 14, SGO, 1878, p. 15. (2) U.S. Statutes at Large, volume 14, p. 23.
  5. ↑ Woodward, Lippincott's Magazine, VII (1871), pp. 233, 242.
  6. ↑ 6 (1) Lamb, op. cit., p. 41. (2) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), pp. 112, 113. (3) National Archives, Accession Number 421, Letter Book Number 13, Military, p. 452.
  7. ↑ 7 Original letter, John Hill Brinton to Joseph K. Barnes, 24 August 1863. On file in historical records of AFIP.
  8. ↑ 8 (1) Brinton, John Hill: Personal Memoirs. New York: The Neale Publishing Co., 1914, p. 189. (2) Lamb, op. cit., pp. 35-37. (3) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), p. 110.
  9. ↑ 9 War Department Records, Office of the Surgeon General. On file in National Archives.
  10. ↑ 10 (1) Lamb, op. cit., p. 44. (2) Woodward, Lippincott's Magazine, VII (1871), p. 239.
  11. ↑ 11 Original letters, George A. Otis to Charles H. Crane, 2 March 1869 and 28 February 1873. On file in historical records of AFIP.
  12. ↑ 12 (1) War Department Records, Office of the Surgeon General. On file in National Archives. (2) Lamb, op. cit., pp. 43, 50, 51. (3) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), pp. 117, 118.
  13. ↑ 13 House of Representatives Report 56 (42d Congress, 3d session), 4 February 1873, "The Army Medical Museum."
  14. ↑ 14 (1) Lamb, op. cit., pp. 52-54, 56, 57, 75, 76, 81, 89, 91, 97, 108, 114. (2) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), pp. 118, 119.
  15. ↑ 15 (1) Lamb, op. cit., pp. 48, 49, 56. (2) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), pp. 116, 117.
  16. ↑ 16 War Department Records, Office of the Surgeon General. On file in National Archives.
  17. ↑ 17 (1) Woodward, Lippincott's Magazine, VII (1871), pp. 235-238. (2) Lamb, op. cit., p. 56.
  18. ↑ 18 Woodward, Lippincott's Magazine, VII (1871), p. 236.
  19. ↑ 19 (1) Gazette des hopitaux civils et militaires, Paris, XLIII: 293, and Nature, London, 11 August 1870, p. 290 (as cited by Lamb, op. cit., pp. 57, 58). (2) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), p. 120.
  20. ↑ 20 Woodward, Lippincott's Magazine, VII (1871), pp. 236, 237, 239.
  21. ↑ 21 (1) Otis, George A.: Notes on Contributions to the Army Medical Museum by Civil Practitioners. Boston Medical & Surgical Journal 98: 163-169, 1870. (2) Lamb, D. S.: The Army Medical Museum — A History. Washington Medical Annals 15: 9, January 1916. (A paper presented before the Medical Society of Washington, 1 November 1915.)
  22. ↑ 22 Woodward, Lippincott's Magazine, VII (1871 ), pp. 234, 236.
  23. ↑ On file, National Archives, Accession Number 421, Letter Book Number 50, SGO, pp. 37, 245.
  24. ↑ 24 Original letters on file in historical records of AFIP.
  25. ↑ 25 (1) Lamb, op. cit., p. 76. (2) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), p. 125.
  26. ↑ 26 (1) Annual Report, Surgeon General Barnes, 1875, p. 12. (2) The Lancet, London, 1874, II: 720 (quoted in Lamb, op. cit., pp. 67, 68).
  27. ↑ 27 Cosmos Club Bulletin, Washington, volume 13, Number 3, March 1960, p. 4.
  28. ↑ 28 Lamb, op. cit., pp. 49, 51, 54, 55, 57, 62.
  29. ↑ 29 (1) Lamb, op. cit., pp. 61, 62. (2) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), pp. 120. 121, 123.
  30. ↑ 30 Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. Medical History. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1879, pt. II. vol. 1 , pp. 370, 374, 595.
  31. ↑ 31 (1) Lamb, op. cit., pp. 77, 80-82. (2) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), p. 127.
  32. ↑ (1) Lamb, D. S.: Official Record of the Postmortem Examination of the Body of President James A. Garfield. American Journal of the Medical Sciences 82: 583-590, 1881. (2) Lamb, op. cit., p. 82.
  33. ↑ 33 (1) Lamb, op. cit., p. 83. (2) Lamb, Washington Medical Annals, 15 (1916), p. II. (3) Medical News, Philadelphia, volume 41, p. 13, 1882.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Armed_Forces_Institute_of_Pathology:_Its_First_Century_1862-1962/Chapter_III&oldid=12935599"