u)? \io AFIaL PORTRAITS a Series of Sketches September 1952 This series of sketches on oil paintings in the Armed Forces Medical Library!s collection is reprinted from various issues of the Library's Bulletin,beginning with Volume III, No. Ul, 10 Octo- ber 1951. The sketches were compiled by Mrs. Ethel M. Chase, much of the material for the series coming from Colonel Harold W. Jones• "A Portrait Gallery of Physicians, the Collection in the Array Medi- cal Library" (Annals of Medical History, 9:517 - 532, 1937), The Military Surgeon, particularly the articles by James Evelyn Pilcher, "The Surgeon Generals of the United States Army" (190^-1905), and other publications. Copies are available for distribution on request to the Office of the Director, Armed Forces Iviedical Library, Vifashington 25* D. C. Barker, Benjamin F. Page 17 Barnes, Joseph K. 7 4 Bastion, Joseph E. 23 $§<- & &»™^ Ayric~ Beaumont, William 15 Bichat, LI. F. X. UU Billings, John Shaw 13 Craik, Janes 2 Crane, Charles H. 8 * Dibble, John 23 <£& ~tc fk~-L, &m£~ Fletcher, Robert 18 Garrison, Fielding H. 11 \ Gorgas, William C, 12 Hammond, William A. 20 ^ Irwin, Bernard J. D. 9 c34 ^ ^l*-~Co Ih^C— Jones, Harold 17. 23 Love11, Joseph h fr LIcCloskey, Janes A. 23 J^^> &^~*U <&r>lC~ ^ McComack, Condon C. 6^^"^ &u^&s 9^nKL-. Moore, John 19 Morton, Samuel G. 5 ^r Mower, Thcmas G. 16 -^^- & /^w^x- Xh'iCL- Otis, George A. 21 Physick, Philip Syng 22 Shippen, William 1 Sydenham, Thomas 10 Tilton, James 3 4 h >___^ ^- „c '. ■ • . ^-u~ -, "*-rW • ■ a A- « -d ■ ir^v. ^-^ © W I> U ►V>»-q INDEPENDENCE AVENUE a CO 3 I M CO O § o CO Entrance to Library Hall CRANE BARNES McCORNACK MORTON LOVELL TILTON CRAIK SHIPPEN I CO BICHAT BEAUMDNT IvDllER BARKER o 8 ►-3 O BALCONY Location of Portraits in Library Hall, Armed Forces Medical Library. Other portraits described herein hang elsewhere in the Library. YOXLIAM SHIPPEN The portrait of William Shippen [1736-1808], Director Gen- eral of the military hospitals of the Continental Army, was pre- sented to the Library many years ago by Mrs, George E. Nitzsche, of Pennsylvania. It is a good copy of Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Shippen now in the possession of the Shippen family. William Shippen, junior, was born in Philadelphia, the son of Dr. V/illiam Shippen, one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania and for thirty years a trustee of Princeton College. On his graduation from Princeton in 175U, the son at once began the stucty- of medicine with his father. He went abroad in 1757 to continue his studies in London, Edinburgh, and Paris, receiving his doctorate at the great Scot- tish University in 1761. He was strongly impressed while in Europe with the need for systematic instruction in America, and upon his return to Philadelphia in 1767 established a course in anatomy and suggested the institution of a medical school in the city. Vftien the medical school of the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) was established three years later, he became its first Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. Shippen early demonstrated remarkable oratorical ability and his lectures, given annually for many years, soon became famous. He served in the Revolutionary War beginning in 1776, re- signing from the Army in 1781, soon after his reappointment as Director General of Military Hospitals, to return to his profes- sional work in Philadelphia. Here he regained his former success both as a teacher and practitioner. In 1798, on the death of his only son, Dr. Shippen began gradually to withdraw from active life. The year following his death "Wistar said of him, in a eulogy de- livered before the College of Physicians of Philadelphia: "It appears that he had the peculiar talent of successfully promoting an object of immense utility to his country, and that his steadi- ness in pursuit thereof entitles him to be ranked amongst the benefactors of mankind." 1 JAMES CRAIK The portrait of James Craik, Physician General of the Army from 1798 to 1800, is a copy of the original which hangs in the Washington Lodge in Alexandria, Virginia. James Craik was born in Scotland in 1730, studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and emigrated to the new world in 1751* Upon the organization of the Virginia Provincial Regiment, Craik was appointed Surgeon. The command was under the leadership of George Washington, and here began a lifelong intimacy bet-ween the general and the doctor. Craik accompanied Washington in an expedition against the French and Indians in 175U* and attended the wounded Braddock a year later at Fort Duquesne. When in the summer of 1755 Washington was assigned the duty of protecting the Virginia and Maiyland frontier, Dr. Craik remained as his chief medi- cal officer. This operation continued for more than three years, during which all the hardships and privations of the hardy frontier troops were shared by the young surgeon. Upon his retirement from this service, Craik purchased a plantation in iferyland and here passed in active medi- cal practice the years elapsing until he again followed his friend at his country's call. In 1770, Craik accompanied Washington on the first of two adventur- ous trips into the western wild, and in the spring of 1777, at Washing- ton's request, again placed his medico-military experience at the disposal of his country. One of the most important acts of Dr. Craik during the War of the Revolution was in connection with the exposure of the infamous Conway Cabal against General Washington. His letter of warning to his commander in chief on the subject is one of the most valuable historical documents of the period. At the close of the war he returned to his home, but at the General's suggestion he removed to the neighborhood of Mount Vernon. In 1798, when war with France was threatened and Washington was again summoned to lead the Army, he made the appointment of Craik at the head of the medical department one of the conditions of his ovn acceptance of the command. Dr. Craik attended Washington in his last illness and was present when the General passed away. He himself died full of years and honors in I8U1. 2 JAMES TILTON The portrait of James Tilton [17U5-1822], Physician and Surgeon General of the Army, was the gift of a descendant, Mr. James Tilt on of Wilmington, Delaware, in 1875. As in the case of several other portraits m the collection, the artist is unknown. p. ?°rn ^ DGlav'are, graduated in the first class of the medical school of Philadelphia, Tilton relinquished a lucrative practice to enter the service of his country in 1776. He saw much active service with the Dela- ware regiment and his devotion to duty was recognized by appointment as Hospital Surgeon. He was placed in charge of the hospital at Princeton and when the medical department was reorganized in 17§0, his name ap- peared at the head of the list of "hospital physicians and surgeons." His dissatisfaction with the medical situation and his visit to Philadel- phia to present his views to the medical committee of Congress, resulted in marked reforms. He accompanied the Army on the momentous campaign in Virginia, witnessing the battle of Yorktown and the surrender of Corn- wallis. A year previously he had been tendered a chair at his alma mater, but he declined the honor, preferring to remain with the Army until its disbandment in 1782. He then returned to Dover, served a term in Con- gress, and was repeatedly chosen to represent his district in the state legislature. After a long period of civil life, devoted to active pro- fessional work and with horticulture as a fascinating recreation, his interest in military medicine was again aroused by the War of 1812 and he prepared a treatise "Economical Observations on Military Hospitals; and the Prevention aid Cure of Diseases Incident to an Army. In three parts address: I. To ministers of state and legislatures; II. To command- ing officers; III. To the medical staff." This doubtless was the moving factor in his selection as Physician and Surgeon General when that office was established in the spring of 1813. One of the most important results of his administration was the "Regulations for the Medical Department," published in General Orders in December 181U • Here for the £irst time in the history of the Army, the duties of medical officers and the other medical personnel were clearly defined. Physical disability ended his active military service in I81I4, and he spent his remaining years at his home overlooking the city of V&lming- ton. 3 JOSEPH LOVELL The portrait of Joseph Lovell [1788-1836], founder in I836 of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office, U. S. Army, is by an unknown artist. It has been copied in every known instance where Lovell's features have been reproduced, though other like- nesses of him are in existence in the possession of his family. Joseph Lovell was graduated from Harvard in 1807 and im- mediately began the study of medicine in Boston under the precep- torship of Dr. Ingalls, a well known practitioner of that city. He entered the military service as Surgeon of the 9th Infantry in May 1812 . He was the first Surgeon General of the Army under definite planned legislative enactment, and from the time he took office in 1818 at the age of twenty-nine until his death eighteen years later, he made history. His views on sanitation of over a century ago are still sound today. He revised and rewrote the Medical Department Regulations, was largely responsible for the reorganization of the Medical Corps in 1821, and at all times stood ready to staunchly defend his beloved branch of the service. He labored earnestly to secure increases of pay for medical offi- cers and his efforts ultimately were successful. He banished the whiskey ration from the Army; he established boards to weed out the incompetents of the Medical Department. In the words of Harvey Brown: "In all his relations, whether as Christian philanthropist, profound scholar, skilful surgeon, or true- hearted gentleman, he was one of whom the medical staff may always be proud and the memory of whose good life may be written on every page of its history." Such was Lovell, who founded what is now the Armed Forces Medical Library one hundred and sixteen years ago. it SAMUEL G. MORTON Samuel George Morton was bom in 1799 and was educated in Philadelphia, a strict Quaker, graduating in medicine in 1820. He later went to Edinburgh and received his doctorate in medicine there in 1823. His thesis for his doctor's degree was "De cor- poris dolore." On the flyleaf of the copy in the Library, in Morton!s handwriting, is: "To Dr. Bradley with the best regards of his friend, the author." He dedicated his thesis to James Morton (his uncle), Philip Syng Fhysick, and Joseph Parrish. In his day Morton was the most eminent craniologist in America. From the time he was thirty until he was in his mid- forties, he collected and studied the skulls of a multitude of American Indians, Egyptians, and Toltecans, and recorded his observations. To the close of his life a few years later at the early age of fifty-two, he studied the human skull, and his collection in time grew to nearly a thousand. At his death it went to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Retzius of Stockholm observed in 18U7 in a letter to Morton: "You have done more for Ethnography than any living physiologist." Humboldt too was a warm admiror of Iforton and shor/ed this in his numerous letters. Agassiz soon after his arr5.val in America said of Dr. Morton's collection of skulls: "Nothing like it exists anywhere. The collection alone is worth the journey to America." Dr. Morton was widely known as a skilled practitioner and had a large practice. His published works, numerous indeed, are practically all in the realm of ethnology and craniology. 5 CONDON C. McCORNACK The portrait of Brigadier General Condon C. McCornack [1880-19W4], painted by Rogozen in 191*7, was received by the Library on the closure of McCornack General Hospital at Pasadena, California. General McCornack, a veteran of the Spanish American War and World War I, entered the Medical Corps, U. S. Army, in April 1910 and served for 3U years in the United States, China, the Philippines, and Hawaii where he was Department Surgeon.^ He was a graduate of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 190b, the Army Medical School in 1910, the General Staff School in 1921, the Army War College in 1925, and was an honor graduate of the School of the Line in 1920. He was an instruc- tor at the General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, from 1921 to 192U, and at the Army Vaar College in Washington, D. C, from 1925 to 1929. At one time he was Assistant Commandant of the Judical Field Service School, Carlisle Barracks, Penn- sylvania, where he had earlier served as instructor; for four years he was attached to the General Staff in Washington, having charge of the budget and legislative planning branch. General McCornack was outstanding in the Army Medical Corps as a student and instructor in military strategy and tactics and in medical field service. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his service in the Fourth Army for "exceptional meritorious conduct in the performance of out- standing service during World War II as Surgeon and later Deputy Chief of Staff of the Fourth Army and the Western Defense Command." 6 JOSEPH K. BARNES The next portrait is that of Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes [1817-1883], by the artist F. J. Fisher. On 3 September 1863, after sane 23 years of varied and extensive service as a medical officer, Colonel Barnes was "empowered to take charge of the Bureau of the Medical Depart- ment of the Army, and to perform the duties of the Surgeon Gen- eral during the absence of that officer." The following day he assumed the position of Acting Surgeon General, and when General Hammond [later vindicated] was dismissed from the Army by sentence of a court martial in l86li, Barnes was made Surgeon General and served as such until 1882. General Barnes was responsible for the continuance of the collection of the Army Medical Museum, started in the war by General Hammond, and for the detail of John Shaw Billings on the duty of creat- ing a great medical library. He also stood stoutly for the rights of the Medical Department as to the control of general hospitals and hospital ships. On his recommendation the Secretary of War (Mr. Stanton) issued orders as to such con- trol, giving medical officers the right to command within their own sphere of action. General Barnes was the first Surgeon General of the Army to be retired by reason of age, the compulsory retirement act of June 30, 1882, finding him already nearly a year beyond the age limit and causing his immediate relinquishment of active service. He had manifested indications of impaired health, however, for months prior to this event, and he died at his home in Washington less than a year later. 7 CHARLES H. CRANE The portrait of Charles H. Crane, Surgeon General of the Army in 1882 and 1883, is by L. P. Spinner. The son of a Field Artillery officer, Crane was born in 1825, and his early years were passed at various Army posts where he doubt- less imbibed that fondness for the military portion of his chosen pro- fession as well as that strictness of discipline which were his chief characteristics in after life. On completion of his medical studies at Harvard in l8i;7, he lost no time in appearing before the Army Examining Board. As was then the custom, he was given a contract as Acting Assistant Surgeon and in February 18U8 was commissioned an Assistant Surgeon. He did good service in the closing scenes of the Mexican War and the subsequent years were passed chiefly in the var- ied duties of a medical officer on the frontier, in garrison service, in Indian campaigns, always increasing his reputation as a faithful an energetic officer, a skillful surgeon, a learned and humane physician. In July 1863 the then Major Crane was detailed for duty as Senior Assistant to the Surgeon General at Washington. "In con- nection with the arduous and important work connected with the latter years of the War of the Rebellion," said Major Huntington, "his sound judgment, delicate sense of justice and right, his deliberate action and fine decision soon won for him an enviable reputation and mater- ially assisted in raising the Medical Corps of the Army to the high degree of discipline and efficiency which has characterized it in the past and present." In March 1865, Crane received the brevets of Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel, and Brigadier General "for faithful and meritorious service during the War of the Rebellion." Promptly after the passage of the Act of July 28, 1866, fixing the peace establishment of the Army, he was appointed Assistant Surgeon General with the rank of Colonel. On the retirement of General Barnes in 1882, Crane succeeded him as Sur- geon General, and the Medical Department looked forward to a long career of prosperity and usefulness under his judicious management. But it was willed differently, and his unexpected demise in October 1883 was a shock to his Corps and to the service for which he labored so long, so faithfully, and so successfully. 8 BERNARD J. D. IRWIN The nearly full length portrait of Brigadier General Bernard John Dowling Irwin was painted and presented by Amy McCormick, a Chicago artist and General Irwin's daughter. General Irwin is in full dress uniform and the portrait is a striking one. Bernard J. D. Irwin - a fighting doctor like General Wood - was born in Ireland in 1830 and served in action in the Civil War. At the battle of Shiloh he established what is said to have been the first field tent hospital evor used in war. This attracted the attention of many foreign nations and the idea was soon adopted by armies the world over. In addition, General Irwin spent many years of arduous duty in the Southwest in the Indian campaigns, leading troops in action in the course of his career as well as performing surgical operations under conditions which would well give pause to the doctor of today. The story of his campaigns, as related by him and his biographer Crinmins, ac- quaints the reader with what it meant in those days to be an officer of the Medical Corps in frontier warfare. For distin- guished bravery in action against the Indians, General Irwin won the Congressional Medal of Honor, one of the first to receive it. In addition he was distinguished in his profession, as his writings show. Not content with that, this versatile officer wrote papers upon meteorites; he discovered and presented to the Smithsonian Institution the Irwin meteorite. General Irwin died in 1917, in his eighty-eighth year, after a life full of such advantures and distinctions as seldom fall to a disciple of Aesculapius. 9 THOMAS SYDENHAM The portrait of Thomas Sydenham [162U-1689] was purchased in 191*0 with funds from the Edgar Bequest. The artist is Mary Cradock Beale. Born in England, Thomas Sydenham entered Oxford at the age of eighteen. In l61*ll he enlisted in the Parliamentary Army and after a brief military service resumed his studies at Oxford, v/here he received his Bachelor's degree in 16U8. At a much later date (1676) he was given the degree of Doctor of Medicine by Cambridge. During the latter period of his career Sydenham attained great celebrity as a physician, but this celebrity would have been short-lived if it had rested on nothing more substantial than mere cleverness and professional success. As a matter of fact he had effected, by his teachings and also by his example, a most important revolution in medicine, and it was the appre- ciation of this fact which lead the physicians in England to bestow upon him the appellation of "The English Hippocrates," and which ultimately gave him so highly honorable a position in the history of the profession. Sydenham, who was quick at perceiving the truth and who possessed a rare degree of common sense, cast aside all the hypotheses of the physicians of that period as valueless, disregarded the prevailing routine methods of treatment, and refused to accept the therapeutic novelties of the day. He studied disease at the bedside and watched care- fully, with a mind free from prejudice, the effects of the remedies which he employed. Thus, pursuing the methods advo- cated by the great master Hippocrates, Sydenham was able to place his medical brethren once more on the pathway which leads to an increase in knowledge of the healing art. Practical medicine, v/hich proviously had been falling into an almost moribund condition, was made by his efforts again a living and growing science. 10 FIELDING H. GARRISON Franklin B. Clark's painting of Fielding H. Garrison [186U-1935] v/as also purchased from the Edgar Bequest, in 1937. After receiving his A.B. degree from Johns Hopkins in 1890, Garrison secured a clerkship in the Library of the Surgeon Gen- eral's Office in March 1891 and took up the study of medicine at Georgetown University, where he was graduated in 1893 • For practically forty years Garrison was associated with the institution which in 1922 was renamed the Army Medical Library. He contributed greatly to the first three series of the Index- Catalogue; with Dr. Fletcher he re-inaugurated the Index Medicus in 1903, serving as associate editor until 1912 when he became the editor. After its consolidation with the Quarterly Cumula- tive Medicus of the American Medical .association in 1927, Garri- son served as associate editor of this publication until 1929. Garrison made a continuing study of the history of medicine and in time gained recognition as the foremost American author- ity on this subject. His justly famous An Introduction to the History of Medicine was published in 1913, and by 1929 ha3 gone through four editions. A published bibliography of his works lists 250 titles. Garrison was commissioned a Lieutenant Colonel in the Medi- cal Corps of the Anmy and served for two years in Manila, retir- ing as a Colonel in May 1930 for physical disability. He ijame- diately accepted an appointment as Librarian of the Welch Medical Library, the first to hold that post. He continued in this posi- tion and as resident lecturer in the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins until his death in Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is buried in Arlington. 11 WILLIAM C. GORGAS The portrait of William Crawford Gorgas was presented to the Library in 1921 by the Southern Society of Washington, and the artist is Alexander Robertson James. At the ceremonial of presentation, the portrait was accepted for the Library by Sur- geon General Lferritte W. Ireland from the hand of Colonel William 0. owen, M. C, Born in l851i, Gorgas lived through a great era. As a boy he saw the Civil War and in his maturity became the greatest sanitarian of his time. His ten years of work beginning in the early 1900's accomplished a marvelous triumph of sanitation and made possible the building of the Panama Canal. As Chief Health "Officer in Panama, he applied against the mosquito-borne dis- eases which made the Isthmus a pesthole the same measures that previously had given him such success in Cuba. Numerous honors v/ere conferred upon General Gorgas. He is the subject of an interesting permanent exhibit at the Snith- sonian Institution. General Gorgas died in London in 1920, two years after his retirement following a four-year term as Surgeon General of the Army. Fitting tributes to his stirring life were the visits of King George V to his bedside and the conferring of knighthood upon him, and finally his funeral in St. Paul's in London. 12 JOHN SHAW BILLINGS The portrait of John Shaw Billings [1838-1913], painted in 1895 by Cecilia Beaux, is one of the most colorful in the collec- tion . Funds for this fine portrait were provided by Billings' numerous friends in this country and in England. Colonel Billings was Librarian of the Army iaedical Library for thirty years (1865-1895), and under his leadership the Library's collections grew from a little more than 1,000 volumes to 307,U55 volumes and pamphlets and 1*,335 portraits of physicians. Entering the Army in 1861, Dr. Billings' four years of active service in camps and hospitals were crowned with the re- ward of a brevet Lieutenant Colonelcy in the Regular Army and the position of Medical Inspector of the Army of the Potomac. In the great battles of the war, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, he performed many operations of a major character. He was the first surgeon in the war to attempt with success the unusual operation of excision of the ankle joint, which had been done only two or three times before in the history of surgery. It was said of Billings that the three great things in his life after the war were the development of the Surgeon General's Library and its catalogs, the planning of the Johns Hopkins Hos- pital, and the Directorship of the New York Public Library. But in his long and fruitful career there were many other chosen fields of activity - hygiene and sanitary engineering, vital and medical statistics, and the advancement of medical education. In acknowledgment of the value of his work in science, Dr. Billings received numerous honorary degrees and active or honorary memberships in many medical and scientific societies. During World War II an Amy General Hospital at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, bore his name. 13 M. F. I. BICHAT The portrait of Mario Francois Xavier Bichat [1771-1802] was presented to the Library over fifty years ago by a Mr. Andrews, then the Director of the Corcoran Art School, and is apparently an original, although undoubtedly suggested by other likenesses. Among the large collection of etchings and copies of portraits of Bichat in the Library, nothing resembling this picture has been discovered. Bichat, the apt pupil of Desault, earned high rank both as a clinician and an anatomist; he was regarded as the most capable physician of France in his time. He classified the tissues com- posing the body into twenty-one systems, correlated pathological anatomy with physiology, and taught how to discriminate between disease processes. Bichat, with his emphasis on tissue pathology, stands midway between Morgagni, who stressed organ pathology, and Virchow, who called attention to the pathological changes in the structure of cells. In the words of Husson -"he presented anat- omy in a new point of view; studied the general organization of man in the simple tissues of which he is composed, divided the living economy into various systems, and by accumulating facts, by bringing observation to bear on experience, he broadened the limits of science and built for himself a monument which brings him lasting renown." In his brief life span, Bichat was author of many important works. Among these the most important wore "Rccherches physio- logiques sur la vie et la mort," "Traite d'anatomie descriptive," "Anatomie generale," and "Traite des membranes." There seems to be a difference of opinion as to the cause of Bichat's death. Some writers say it was due to an infection incurred at the dissecting table; others mention a fall dov/n the hospital stairs which, added to tuberculosis from which he had suffered for some time, ended his brillirnt career at the age of thirty. u* WILLIAM BEAUMONT William Beaumont's portrait is a copy of the one by Chester Harding, made of Beaumont during his later years in St. Louis, which hangs in the Beaumont Room in the Library of the Medical School of Washington University. The copy is an excellent and practically exact reproduction of the original and, according to our records, was made by Ivan Summers of the Army Medical Museum. The Army claims Beaumont as does St. Louis; indeed, all America claims this immortal pioneer investigator in the physi- ology of digestion. Born in 1785, William Beaumont came into the Army as a surgeon's mate during the War of 1812, resigning three years later to enter private practice. In 1820 ho was back in the Army again, and in 1822 was enabled to revolutionize the study of gastric digestion when the accidental discharge of a shotgun at one yard wounded a French Canadian, Alexis St. Martin. The permanent gastrostomy, while crudely performed, was a notable success, and Beaumont spent several years of his life studying his subject. In 182U, Beaumont sent his report on St. Martin to Surgeon General Lovell and received from him a highly appreciative letter. In his letter the Surgeon General made some suggestions of value concerning future experimentation and showed his keen interest in the work Beaumont was doing. Throughout his life General Lovell exhibited the greatest sympathy for and helpfulness in Beaumont's work. Not so his successor, General Lawson, and in 1839 Beaumont resigned his commission. Beaumont continued to practice in St. Louis, and in the cholera epidemic of 181*8 rendered unselfish service to all. He died in 1853. The William Beaumont Army Hospital at El Paso, Texas, is a monument to his memory. 15 THOMAS G. M3WER One of the finest portraits in the collection is that of Thomas G. Mower [1790-1853). Unfortunately, there is no record of the artist who painted it or of how it came into the possession of the Library. Dr. Mower entered the Judical Corps as a surgeon's mate dur- ing the War of 1812 and was in the battles of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and Fort Erie, During the last thirty years of his life he exercised an influence over the Medical Department practically co- equal with the chiefs of the corps. There was no far reaching project involving unusual judgment or foresight in which his views were not sought and given consideration. He served on every medi- cal examining board, except one, that was convened from their first organization in 1832 until his death, and with the above exception and one other he was always the presiding member. In 1833 and l83h, he traveled under orders as a member of a board of examina- tion and inspection to a majority of the military posts of the country. Though exceedingly kind, gentle, and courteous to the applicants before his boards, he was inflexible in the maintenance of the highest quality of scholarship and character for the corps. Another responsible and important duty performed by Dr. Mower was as chief medical purveyor, in which capacity he increased the variety and quantity of supplies, improved their quality, and devised new methods of preparation for shipment and dispatch. During the Civil War one of the large military hospitals in Philadelphia was named for him. 16 BENJAMIN F. BARKER iftoTi1116 por?rait of the renowned Benjamin Fordyce Barker [1818- 1091] was painted by J. H. Lazarus in I87U. Fordyce Barker was graduated from Bowdoin Medical College and continued his studies in Edinburgh and Paris. He entered practice in New York City in 1850. In 1852 he became obstetric physician to Bellevue Hospital and in i860 professor of clinical midwifery and diseases of women in Bellevue Hospital Medical Col- lege, which positions he held for many years until increasing cares and years obliged him to relinquish them. Dr. Barker was consulting physician to Bellevue Hospital, the Nursery and Child's Hospital. St. Elizabeth's Hospital, the Cancer Hospital, and for several years surgeon of the Women's Hospital. He was a member of many medical associations, notably the New York Academy of Medicine, of which he was president from 1878 to 1881;; the New York County Medical Society; the Not York Obstetrical Society; the New York Pathological Society; the New York Medical and Surgical Society; the Medical Society of the State of New York, of which he was formerly president; and the American Gynecological Society, of which he was the first presi- dent in 1876. He was also Honorary Fellow of the Royal Medical Society of Athens, of the obstetrical societies of Edinburgh, London, Philadelphia, and Louisville, and of the Philadelphia College of Surgeons. In 1886 the University of Edinburgh con- ferred upon him the degree of LL.D., which he already had received from Bowdoin and Columbia Colleges. Dr. Barker was without a rival in his generation as a con- sultant in obstetrics and contributed many lectures and papers to medical literature. He was the author of a standard work on puerperal diseases, which was published in I87U and translated into Italian, French, German, and Spanish. He was also the author of a treatise on seasickness. 17 ROBERT FLETCHER +~h+ «f Robert Fletcher [1823-1912], generally regarded as MSTSe coUectTon, was painted by Wilton R. Locked and pre- the finest in *Ia to the Library by Fletcher's friends. Robert ketche^was born in Bristol, England, and studied law for Robert Fletcher w Bristol attorney, before taking up his med- S/sludi" tl th Bristol Laical School. He went to the London Hos- pital in lUbocame a member of the Royal College of Surgeons In I8k7 he ca^e to the united States and settled in Cincinnati, where he Practiced^ profession for some years. On the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the 1st Regiment of Ohio Volunteers, served through the *ar, and was breveted Lieutenant Colonel and later Colonel for "faithful and meritorious service." In 1871 he was ordered to Washington and at first was attached to the Provost-marshal's office, taking part in 1875 in the preparation of the volumes of Anthropometric Statistics. On his transfer to the Surgeon General's Library in 1876, he became associated with John Shaw Billing?, and his important labors on the Library's Index-Catalogue extended from the date of publication of its first volume in 1880 to the last year of his life, a period of thirty-three years. Dr* Billings acknowledged the value of this phase of Fletcher's work by saying "the accuracy and typo- graphical excellence of the volumes are largely due to his careful and skillful supervision." The same painstaking care in preparation and proofreading is evidenced in the Index ifedicus in the redaction of which Billings and Fletcher were associated as editors for twenty-one years (1879-1899) and of which Dr. Fletcher was editor-in-chief for nine years after the journal was revived by the Carnegie Institution in 1903. The subject of medical jurisprudence was especially attractive to Dr. Fletcher and he lectured thereon at the medical department of the Columbian (now George Washington) University from 188U to 1888, and at Johns Hopkins Medical School from 1897 to 1903. Dr. Fletcher was a member of a number of societies and the recipient of many degrees and other honors. Sir William Osier concluded Chapter XIX of his "ifen and Books" (Canadian Medical Association Journal, Vol. Ill, No. 3, March 1931, p. 227-8) with the paragraph: One of two things happens after sixty, when old age takes a fellow by the hand. Either the rascal takes charge as general factotum, and you are in his grip body and soul; or you take him by the neck at the first encounter, and after a good shaking make him go your way. This Dr» Fletcher did so successfully that with all that should accompany old age, he carried on his work faith- fully to the very end, reading proofs to within a few days of his death. Of few men could it be said more truthfully, "He saw - life steadily and saw it whole." As his friend and collaborator, Dr. Garrison, wrote me: "Even on his grey days his wonderful willpower and stoicism are something to command admiration. You 3VP!°n 7 h,Card his fav°urite 'argumentum ad baculinum' for Z w ? COmpla^nt * '**** it with contempt.'" And this is the best lesson of his long and useful life/ 18 JOHN MOORE The portrait of Brigadier General John Moore [1826-1907] is a copy of a photograph, by an unknown artist. John Moore was born in Indiana and received his education at the Indiana State University. He entered the Army Msdical Corps in 1853 and served during the Civil War, receiving the brevets of Lieutenant Colonel for gallant and meritorious service during the Atlantic Campaign and Colonel for faithful and meri- torious service during the war. Between the Civil War and his appointment in 1886 by President Cleveland to the office of Surgeon General of the Army, Dr« Moore served at various Army posts and took a long leave of absence for European travel. The administration of Surgeon General Moore was marked by the greatest advances in Army medical work since the War of the Rebellion. Instruction in first-aid was inaugurated in 1886, and in 1887 the Act organizing a Hospital Corps in the U. S. Array became a law, the most important medico-military legislation since the Act of 18U7 which gave definite rank to medical offi- cers . The last volume of the gigantic Medical and Surgical His- tory of the Rebellion appeared during his term of office. After his retirement by operation of law in 1890, General Mborc resided in Washington until his death. 19 WILLIAM A. HAMMOND The portrait of Surgeon General William A. Hammond [1828-1900], the largest in the collection, hangs in the stair well above the landing be- tween the first and second floors• This full length, more than life-size canvas, was painted about 1893 by Robert Hinckley, and presented by Gen- eral Hammond's widow, Helen Nesbit Hammond of Washington, about 192k. Following his graduation in medicine at the University of the City of New York and a year's work at the Pennsylvania Hospital, Hammond entered the Army in June 181*9. He resigned in i860 to accept the chair of Anatomy and Physiology in the University of Maryland, re-entering the military service at the start of. the Civil War. Ifemmond was appointed Surgeon General of the Army in 1862 and in his first annual report to the Secretary of War submitted several recommenda- tions that were far reaching in their effect. Most of those have been adopted, sane after a lapse of many years, and have proved of great value. A new and vastly enlarged supply table was instituted by his order; he established a new system of hospital reports designed to embody material for a medical and surgical history of the war; he founded the Array Medical Museum. Among other improvements, he recommended the formation of a per- manent hospital corps, the establishment of an army medical school, the location of a permanent general hospital in Washington, and the institu- tion of a military medical laboratory. Soon after his appointment as Surgeon General, however, Hammond incurred the displeasure of Secretary of War Stanton, who in the fall of 1863 issued orders detaching him from his work in Washington. Confident of acquittal, Hammond demanded trial by court martial, but was dismissed from the Army in 186U. He then took up practice in New York, becoming an authority in diseases of the nervous system. He was appointed lecturer upon that subject in the College of Physicians and Surgeons and later successively occupied a professorship in the same specialty in Bellevue Hospital Medical College, the University of the City of New York, and the New York Post-Graduate Medical School. In 1878 he opened his campaign for vindication of his conduct as Surgeon General. Congress passed a bill authorizing review of the court martial proceedings, and President Hayes reinstated him with the rank of Brigadier General on the retired list. General Hammond later returned to Washington where he resided until his aeath, gradually diminishing his active professional work because of a heart condition from which he suffered for many years. On wnSSS^wTS?!8 T1^* include; A Treatise on ifygiene (1863), S?n^ ^?f n(1 65)VInSanity in its Medico-Legal Relations (1866), tem (1871) an^ Df??"ts tt«*), DiseaLs of the Nervous Sys- tem U07i;, and Cerebral fy-peraemia (1895). 20 GEORGE A. OTIS In the Chief Librarian's Office hangs a small portrait, only 18 by 20 inches, by the famous Sully - Colonel George A. Otis, at the age of twelve. Unfortunately, there is no record of the manner in which this portrait came into the possession of the Library. George A. Otis was born in 1830 and lived but fifty years. He received his medical education at the University of Pennsylvania, completing his studies in Paris, He early manifested a taste for literature and on his return to the United States settled in Rich- mond, Virginia, becoming co-editor the following year [1853] of The Virginia Medical and Surgical Journal. He served in the Civil War, afterwards entering the Regular Army Medical Corps. In July 1861;, Surgeon Otis was ordered to duty in the office of Surgeon General Crane and assigned as assistant to the Curator of the Army Medical Museum. In October of the same year he succeeded Dr. Brinton as Curator, ivhich post he held until his death. He is closely associated with the development of the Army Medical Museum and with the preparation of the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, on the third volume of which he was engaged at his untimely death. 21 PHILIP SYNG PHYSICK Philip Syng Physick's portrait, painted about 1800 by Benjamin West, hangs over the fireplace in the Director's office. Physick's grandson, in a letter to Dr. Billings over sixty years ago, says it was presented to the Library by Thomas Sully of Philadelphia* Physick was born and died in Philadelphia - 1768-1837. After graduation at the University of Pennsylvania and additional stutfy in his home city, he went to London in 1789 as a private pupil of John Hunter. After receiving the license of the Royal College of Sur- geons in 1791, he spent a year in Edinburgh for his doctorate in medicine at the University. Dr. Physick was renowned as an operator on the eye. He was appointed surgeon to the Pennsylvania Hospital in 179U, six years later lecturer on surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1805 professor of that subject. He resignediMs chair in 1818 to accept the chair of anatomy, which he held until 1830. Something of a mechanical genius, Dr. Physick invented or modified surgical instruments to meet his needs. He invented the tonsillotome and a punch forceps for eye operations; he introduced modifications and improvements in the treatment of fractures and in genito-urinary surgical instruments. He developed and raised American surgery from a somewhat low state to where it equaled the best surgery in Europe, fully merit- ing the term since applidd to him, "the Father of American Surgery." 22 In addition, four portraits of more recent date also hang in the Library: The portrait of Brigadier General Joseph E. Bastion, painted by J. Brangwyn in 19l*6, is in the Library's administrative office. General Bastion was in command of Percy Jones General Hospital, Battle Creek, Michigan, and his portrait came to the Library on the closure of that hospital. Two other portraits were received on the closure of named general hospitals. Also in the Library's administrative office is the portrait of Colonel John Dibble, Medical Corps, for whom the World War II hospital at Menlo Park, California, was named, painted in 19b3 by M. Bartha. Colonel Dibble died early in 19b3 in an airplane accident in the Pacific area, where he had been on duty. The portrait of Lfeijor James A. McCloskey, by Victor Lallier, hangs in the Chief Librarian's office. Major McCloskey, the first Regular Army Medical Corps officer killed in action in World War II, lost his life in the Philippine Islands in 19u2. The general hospital at Temple, Texas, an amputation center dur- ing the war, bore his name. The portrait of Colonel Harold W. Jones, Medical Corps, painted by Rolf Stoll and presented in 19hh by the Friends of the Army Medical Library, hangs in the second floor corridor at the head of the stairs. Colonel Jones was Librarian (later termed Director) of the Army Medical Library from 1936 to 19U5- 23