Action in support of the new building taken by local, county, and State medical societies in at least 19 States was reported to the Congress by the special committee of the American Medical Association, which also addressed its own communication to Congress on behalf of the national association, stressing "the urgent need to secure the preservation and full benefits" of the Museum and Library. "These collections," the committee said, "already the largest and most valuable of their kind in the world, are of the greatest importance, not only to the physicians of this country but to all whose welfare and lives depend on medical skill; and hence what we ask is emphatically for the general good." 6[1]
A New Surgeon General Presses for a New Building
Before further action toward a new building was taken, Surgeon General Barnes, who had retired in 1882, died in April 1883. His successor in office, Charles H. Crane, who had been Assistant Surgeon General since 1863, also died in October 1883, and was succeeded as Surgeon General by Robert Murray. 7[2]
General Murray continued to press the movement for a new building, filing with Congress a printed document setting forth the "imperative need of such a building" and the "pressing necessity of placing in security these collections, probably the most valuable of the kind in the world." 8[3]
General Murray's submittal was in support of bills introduced in the Senate by Senator Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut (S. 403) and in the House by Gen. William S. Rosecrans, Representative from California (H.R. 48), in December 1883, in the early days of the first session of the 48th Congress. 9[4] On 13 December 1883, Secretary Lincoln, renewed his recommendation, remarking that he did so the more strongly because the appropriation of $200,000
- ↑ 6 (1) Congressional Record, 48th Congress, 2d session, p. 1768. Documents, Proposed Building, loc. cit., pp. 3-6. (2) Scrapbook of clippings. On file in historical records of AFIP.
- ↑ 7 In announcing General Barnes' death, the Adjutant General's office ascribed to him the founding of the Medical Museum and the launching of the History. Dr. Hammond called attention to the error, which resulted in a change in the general order, which was made to read "Under the fostering care of Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, he (General Barnes) accomplished the successful establishment of the Medical History of the War and the Medical Museum." Taking the word, " 'accomplished' in its primary signification of 'completed'," Dr. Hammond was satisfied with the amendment. General Barnes, he said, " 'completed' their successful establishment." (From the official correspondence between Surgeon General William A. Hammond, U.S. Army, and the Adjutant General of the Army, relative to the founding of the Army Medical Museum, and the inauguration of the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, New York, 1883).
- ↑ 8 Senate Executive Document 12, 48th Congress, 1st session.
- ↑ 9 Congressional Record, 48th Congress, 1st session, pp. 37, 59. [General Rosecrans was in command in West Virginia where the future General Hammond, founder of the Medical Museum, made his first reputation in the Civil War.]
