The medical staff of the United States Army, and its scientific work / by J.J. Woodward.

  • Woodward, Joseph Janvier, 1833-1884.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical staff of the United States Army, and its scientific work / by J.J. Woodward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    sections of Human and Comparative Anatomy, and a Miscellaneous section. The section of Comparative Anatomy is yet in its infancy, and almost all the specimens have been collected by medical officers of the army, so that it has cost altogether but a few hundred dollars. There are about 1500 skeletons and crania, almost all of American vertebrates, in this section. A check list of them, prepared by Dr. H. C. Yarrow, has recently been published in pamphlet form. Those interested in this special sub- ject can obtain copies of it at the Hospital of the Medical Department of the Army at the Centennial grounds. The section of Human Anatomy is chiefly remarkable for its collection of human crania, which now number about 1600. These chiefly repre- sent the nat ive American races, including the prehistoric mound-builders, and the various modern tribes, from the Esquimaux at the North io the Patagonians at the southern extremity of South America. The careful measurement of these crania, under the supervision of Dr. Otis, consti- tutes a genuine addition to the science of ethnology. An abstract of these measurements has been prepared by him, and recently published in pamphlet form. Ethnologists can obtain copies at our hospital on the Centennial grounds, or of the Surgeon General. Catalogues of the Medical, Surgical, and Microscopical sections were published in 1867. That of the Surgical section was prepared by As- sistant Surgeon A. A. Woodhull; that of the Medical section by myself; • and that of the Microscopical section by Assistant Surgeon E. Curtis. Since these catalogues were published the collections have doubled in size. The publication of a catalogue of the additional specimens, or a revised catalogue of the whole, would be a useful work. It gives me pleasure to state that the interest taken in this collection by the medical profession of the country is being annually more and more frequently displayed by the presentation of valuable medical and surgical specimens from all parts of the country. Such specimens are always acceptable, and especially, I may remark, that those which have served as the basis of original communications published in the medical journals have especial interest. You can all appreciate how useful it would be; how many misunderstandings would have been prevented if the actual specimens which have served for certain pathological de- scriptions could have been somewhere preserved and accessible to the criticism of subsequent investigation. But no medical museum that is not national in its character will ever serve as the central point for such a collection. The actual appropriations of money for our Museum have never ex-