A Repository for Bottled Monsters: Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Letter of the Day: April 26

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 03066

War Department Exhibit,
Trans-Mississippi
and International Exposition,
Omaha.

April 26th, 1898.

Col. Dallas Bache,
Asst. Surgeon General U.S. Army,
Washington, D.C.

Sir:

In reply to yours of the 22nd instant, I respectfully enclose herewith six blank forms of vouchers for use in the payment of bills against the Exposition fund.

All that is required in connection with bills will be to attach bill to voucher and have vouchers signed and filled up as shown by sample voucher enclosed, and then forward them to me for completion and placing in a way for early settlement.

Very respectfully,
Henry C. Ward
Captain 16th U.S. Infantry,
war Department Representative.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Letter of the Day: April 22

Curatorial Records: Numbered Correspondence 03066

April 22, 1898

Capt. Henry C. Ward, 16th U.S. Infantry,
War Department Representative,
Omaha, Neb.

Sir:

The Army Medical Museum Exhibit will be ready for shipment on or about the 28th of this month, when it will be turned over to Col. Humphries, Deputy Qr. Mr. Genl. for shipment. As I presume that you have a special form of vouchers for payment of bills from the Exposition fund, I shall be pleased to receive about six (6) blank forms with such instructions to fill them out properly, as you deem necessary.

Very respectfully,
Dallas Bache
Col. & Asst. Surgeon General, U.S.A.
In charge of Museum and Library Division

Who are we?

Mike Rhode was the chief archivist of the Museum from 1989-2011, and is the founder of this blog. I maintain an interest in the course of the museum, and will be posting relevant information.

The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 during the American Civil War. After World War II, a parent-child relationship was inverted and the Museum became part of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Since then, the Museum has moved around Washington, stopping for years in Ford's Theatre, and on the National Mall where the building it shared with the National Library of Medicine once stood, until it was demolished in 1968 for the Hirshhorn Museum. For 35 years it was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and now is in Silver Spring, MD.

So what about that blog name?

It's historical. I found it in a quote from one of the former curators. World War II confirmed the Army Medical Museum's primary role in pathology consultation. James Ash, the curator during the war and a pathologist, noted, "Shortly after the last war, more concerted efforts were instituted to concentrate in the Army Medical Museum the significant pathologic material occurring in Army installations." He closed with the complaint, "We still suffer under the connotation museum, an institution still thought of by many as a repository for bottled monsters and medical curiosities. To be sure, we have such specimens. As is required by law, we maintain an exhibit open to the public, but in war time, at least, the museum per se is the least of our functions, and we like to be thought of as the Army Institute of Pathology, a designation recently authorized by the Surgeon General."

After the war, it evolved into the tri-service Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

A Repository for Bottled Monsters

Pages

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Letter of the Day: April 26

Friday, April 22, 2011

Letter of the Day: April 22

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