surgeon. For more than a year he served in the military hospitals of Washington and for some months at the United States General Hospital at West Philadelphia.
On March 31, 1863, Billings was transferred to the field service and assigned to the 5th Corps of the Army of the Potomac. A month later the disastrous battle of Chancellorsville was fought, where he showed his superior qualities as surgeon and executive officer. He then followed the army to the north and was present at the bloody battle of Gettysburg. Billings was a very skilful surgeon and the most difficult operations were turned over to him. He was the first surgeon in America to perform the rare operation of excision of the ankle joint. But the work was so arduous and the strain so great that even an iron nature like Billings' felt its effects. In September, 1863, he was transferred to McDougall General Hospital at Fort Schuyler, New York Harbor, and soon after to the Convalescent Hospital on Bedloe's Island. In March, 1864, he was again assigned to the Army of the Potomac, then under General Grant. He was present at all the sanguinary battles that preceded the siege of Richmond. His note book, published for the most part in Dr. Garrison's biography, gives a vivid picture of those stirring days.
On August 22, 1864, Billings was assigned to the office of the Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac at Washington, where he drew up the field reports which now form a part of the "Medical and Surgical History of the War." In December of the same year he was transferred to the Surgeon General's Office, where he was to remain for more than thirty years. It was in this position that he accomplished the most important work of his life. "Billings," says his biographer, Dr. Garrison. "achieved excellence and gained distinction in no less than six different fields, in military and public hygiene, in hospital construction and sanitary engineering, in vital and medical statistics, in medical bibliography and history, in the advancement of medical education and the condition of medicine in the United States and as a civil administrator of unique ability."
In 1869, Billings was detailed by the Secretary of the Treasury to inspect the Marine Hospital Service which was then in a deplorable condition. It was due to his efforts that this branch of governmental activity which, under the new name of Public Health Service, is now doing such splendid work, was completely reorganized. Of far-reaching importance were the reports which Billings made on the military hospitals of the United States. These reports, known as Circular No. 4 and Circular No. 8, expose with unsparing criticism the deficiencies and the wretched condition of these establishments and are full of new and advanced ideas on hospital construction and management.
During his stay in the Surgeon General's Office Billings was the leading authority on public hygiene in this country. He wrote numerous articles on this subject and his advice was sought and valued everywhere. Billings was among the five men who, in 1876, were invited by the Board of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Foundation to submit plans for the new hospital, and his plan was selected as the best one. It marked a new departure in hospital construction and when the hospital was completed it was the most perfect and best equipped institution of its time. Billings also planned the Barnes Hospital at the Soldiers' Home and the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D. C. (1887), the Laboratory of Hygiene (1892), the William Pepper Laboratory of Clinical Medicine in Philadelphia (1911), and the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston (1913).
Of inestimable value is Billings' work as a statistician. He may be called the father of medical and vital statistics in this country. It was on his advice that medical statistics were included in the United States Census of 1880. He himself took an active part in drawing up the vital statistics for the tenth, eleventh and twelfth Census.
Billings' most important work, one which will perpetuate his name in the history of medicine, is the creation of the Surgeon General's Library and the publication of the great Medical Index Catalogue. Being a man who delved deep in medical literature, he very early felt the want of a great reference work which would guide writers on medical subjects in the literature of the past. His position in the Surgeon General's Office enabled him to carry out this favorite wish of his student days. But in order to publish a medical catalogue he had first to establish a library. The small stock of books which was on hand in the Surgeon General's office at the close of the Civil War was gradually enlarged. Billings worked with such earnestness that already in 1876 he had collected 40,000 volumes and a like number of pamphlets. In 1880 he obtained the necessary appropriation from Congress and commenced the publication of the first series of the catalogue. It was
