[This tape was duplicated from a 16mm film by Erickson Archival for the National Library of Medicine,]
[July 2003. NLM call number HF0974]
[THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, and WELFARE Public Health Service Presents]
[Dedication Ceremonies NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE December 14, 1961]
[Military band playing.]
[Board of Regents Chairman, Worth Daniels:] The Reverend William Andrews,
Chaplain of the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health
will offer the invocation.
[Mr. Andrews:] Let us pray.
Almighty God who doth inspire the hearts and minds of men.
We beseech thee to bless us
as we dedicate this National Library of Medicine
to the health and healing of thy children.
Give us the spirit of praise and accept the devotions of our hearts
to thee and to thy purposes. Amen.
[Chairman Daniels:] Today we come together to dedicate a great new facility
for the greatest medical library in the world,
the National Library of Medicine.
By happy circumstance, we are also celebrating
the hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary
of the institution founded in 1836 by the Surgeon General of the Army, Dr. Joseph Lovell.
We have received many messages of congratulations
on this occasion,
from all over America and all over the world.
I cannot read them all but there is one which I wish to share with you.
It is from the President of the United States,
who because of the press of world affairs
is unable to be with us on this occasion.
He has written us as follows.
"The dedication of the new National Library of Medicine perpetuates
a distinguished history extending back to the early days of our nation.
This enterprise has my congratulations and best wishes
for a new era of outstanding service to medical research
and the dissemination of medical knowledge
throughout America and around the world."
Signed, John F. Kennedy.
The distinguished group at the rear of the platform
is the present membership of the Board of Regents of the library.
I shall introduce by name only two of them to represent them all.
General Leonard Heaton. General Heaton.
The Surgeon General of the United States Army.
If the Army had not carefully nurtured this library
for over a hundred years, we would have little to celebrate today.
Dr. Luther L. Terry.
The Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service.
Dr. Terry heads the service which is now responsible
for the stewardship of the library's activity.
We have with us today, the representative in Congress
of the sixth district of Maryland,
the district in which the library makes its new home.
Congressman Charles Mathias, Jr.
[Laughter from the audience.]
Nice to have you here sir.
There are many distinguished medical men here,
a few of whom I shall introduce.
In the interest of time please withhold applause
until all have stood and been recognized.
The Dean of the Georgetown University Medical School,
who is chairman of the board of trustees of the American Medical Association
and represents that organization today, Dr. Hugh H. Hutton Jr.
I'd like to introduce the Chief Surgeon of the United States Army, Europe
and the director of the Army Medical Library from 1946 to 1949,
General Joseph McNinch.
And now I'll call on another gentleman
to make some additional introductions.
Although his name does not appear on today's program,
he has played a major role in the remarkable
renaissance of the National Library of Medicine during the last decade.
I call on the director of the library,
Dr. Frank B. Rogers.
[Dr. Rogers:] Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests,
ladies and gentleman.
I will follow the chairman's example
and ask you to withhold applause until I have completed
the list of entrants of people whom I wish to introduce.
One of the most significant events
in the one hundred and twenty-five year lifetime of the
National Library of Medicine occurred in 1942,
when under Rockefeller Foundation sponsorship,
a survey of the old Army Medical Library was conducted.
One of the main recommendations of that survey
was, a new building is an absolute necessity.
The chairman of the committee which conducted that survey is here today.
He also served as the library's consultant
on the development of plans for this building.
He is librarian emeritus of Harvard University, Mr. Keyes Metcalf.
Another member of that survey committee
is now a member of our Board of Regents.
The Librarian of Congress, Dr. Quincy Mumford.
I would like to recite the names of a few men, now gone,
who in their time worked mightily for the end
now here come to pass.
Dr. John F. Fulton,
Dr. Alan Gregg,
Colonel Harold Wellington Jones,
General Charles R. Reynolds,
Dr. Atherton Seidell.
And some there be which have no memorial who are [?].
[Applause.]
[Chairman Daniels:] The secretary of a great department of federal government
is at once the most enviable and most unenviable of men.
Enviable for the vast opportunities for service which are his.
Unenviable for the harassment and punishing workload which he must carry.
I am proud to introduce to you
a great secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.
A man who serves his country with passion and skill
and who does not wince at the burden.
The Honorable Abraham A. Ribicoff.
[Applause.]
[Dr. Ribicoff:] Dr. Daniels,
Mr. Ambassador,
Senator Hill,
Dr. Rogers,
Dr. Terry,
and Dr. Shannon.
You can always tell when you have an association with a man
who introduces you and speaks kindly of you.
Dr. Daniels is my doctor.
You couldn't expect anything else.
About a month after I came to Washington,
I found myself in need of a doctor and I had some very sage advice.
Which I must confess I haven't followed.
The first thing he told me is,
I've been around Washington a long, long time,
and first thing you ought to do, Mr. Secretary,
is cut out all that social stuff.
That was very easy to follow.
The second piece of advice, he said now I think what you ought to do,
make sure that you take off at least one day in the middle of the week,
and then of course if you like golf take Saturday and Sunday off too.
I found I haven't been able to take off a day
in the middle of the week
and I haven't been able to take off Saturday and Sunday either.
But for some reason I'm still well.
So it shows that even the advice of a good doctor
can be breached, but I hope that I don't have
to call on your services, on your services soon, Dr. Daniels.
With pleasure and pride I greet you on behalf
of the President of the United States.
When he was serving in the Senate,
the President co-authored with a distinguished Senator
from Alabama, Lister Hill,
the legislation which authorized the construction
of this building,
and he retains a very great personal interest in this library,
which enriches our lives,
which contributes to our growing intellectual heritage,
and which improves worldwide communication in the sciences and humanities.
We are all proud today.
We are proud that the National Library of Medicine is
part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
We are proud of the contributions of the department
to the library's development.
We are proud of the interest and devotion of the Board of Regents,
the library's director and staff,
and its many friends who have worked so hard to make their dreams a reality.
We are proud for the American people,
and this great national resource for the public health
and the advancement of medical science.
One hundred and twenty-five years ago,
as one of his last official acts, Dr. Joseph Lovell,
Surgeon General of the United States,
authorized a budget item which called for
one hundred and fifty dollars for medical books.
Thus simply and modestly began the amassing
of the great collection which is today the National Library of Medicine.
This country owes a great debt to Dr. Lovell
and the generations of army officers
who followed him, for their vision and perseverance.
Great research and teaching libraries
do not fall full grown from the vine.
They require long hard years of nurture
and the gathering of materials
and the assembling of a skilled staff
with the development of a wide range of a facilities
for the people who use the library.
We say well done to all who have carried on
and who've added to the library's stature.
We hope that during the next hundred years,
we can carry out our responsibilities with equal success.
When we think of a library,
we tend to think of a repository,
a storehouse.
The picture in our mind is static.
Actually, the key to greatness in libraries is movement.
The most important thing about a library
is not what is there but how it is used.
The great library is not a hoard of knowledge but a relay station.
It is more a transmitter than a receiver.
The National Library of Medicine has passed this test
of greatness with high honors.
Someone has called a specialized library such as this one
the collective memory of the profession.
Like a human memory it sorts, sifts, analyzes,
and recalls information in a purposeful way.
The National Library of Medicine broadcasts
thousands of capsules of knowledge every year.
Who can say where and when the vibrations stop.
Who can say how many lives are touched and prolonged?
What is more, the improvement of medical communication
is high on the list of this library's objectives.
A few months ago, for example, the library proposed,
and I approved, a project to develop a computer-based system
for its bibliographical services.
Known as MEDLARS,
it will make use of the latest electronic equipment.
A pioneering venture in the library field,
it will be designed to process several hundred thousand pieces
of bibliographic materi... information each year.
I understand that in response to a specific request
for publication on a single disease category,
MEDLARS will be able to sort out and produce
a list chosen from over a million possible articles
in a very short time.
Mr. Chairman, congratulations to you
and the present and past members of the Board of Regents
who worked so hard to give this library this fine new home.
Congratulations also to the far-sighted legislators
who here demonstrated their concern
for the progress of medical research, medical education,
and medical care.
And congratulations to the members of the health professions
on the rebirth of this marvelous facility which belongs to them.
And I say to the staff of the library, you have our best wishes.
You carry our high expectations
as you set about your task in this new building
whose simple elegance of structure embodies at once
the great importance and the social usefulness of your work
to our country and to all mankind.
[Applause.]
[Chairman Daniels:] Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
When five years ago the act which gave this library legislative status,
and which assured the construction of this new building
would finally pass, it was all but inevitable that the sponsor
to that legislation should be the senior senator from Alabama.
No man of our generation,
no man in the history of this nation has done so much
in fashioning the legislative basis
on which major advances in health and welfare are built.
Senator Lister Hill will present the dedication address.
[Applause.]
[Senator Hill:] Chairman, Mr. Ambassador,
Secretary Ribicoff,
members of the Board of Regents,
distinguished guests and my friends.
I am honored to be with you on this very fine, historic occasion
and I feel privileged to be presented to you
by the chairman of the Board of Regents, Dr. Worth Daniels.
On this now hallowed ground that only a quarter of a century ago
was a sleepy Maryland farm,
we assemble here today to dedicate this new home
of the National Library of Medicine.
Although this library has been in existence
for more than a hundred twenty-five years,
it now takes its appropriate place
among this great complex of buildings devoted to the pursuit
of medical research and the prolongation of human life.
Five years ago, in reporting the legislation including the National Library of Medicine,
the Senate Labor and Public Welfare committee
summed up the importance of the library in these words,
and I quote:
"The United States of America is the fortunate possessor
of the greatest library of medicine in the world.
The value of its contents is truly incalculable,
in that if they were once destroyed,
they could never be replaced.
The library's importance is immeasurable
in that its services are essential to men and women
engaged in medical research throughout the world.
To our medical and dental schools,
to practitioners in the health fields throughout America,
To scientists, to scholars,
to public health workers, and hospital administrators,
and to our departments of government."
But my friends, this library is even more than this.
It is the repository of medical knowledge
painstakingly accumulated over the ages.
As the secretary has well said,
this library is the collective memory of mankind.
Its purpose is to provide and maintain the record.
For in a fundamental sense, it is the guardian
of the research results, that they be fruitfully exploited
and incorporated in new efforts, new problems, and new achievements.
To you librarians, the heirs of the inspired founders of the National Library of Medicine,
those immortals John Shaw Billings,
Robert Fletcher,
and Fielding H. Garrison.
To you who are the guardians of this knowledge,
which has been accumulated over centuries,
and to you whose proud task it will be
to preserve and enshrine the advances of tomorrow.
We at this hour turn over this magnificent building
which will be a repository
of ancient truths and future discoveries.
May your beacon light ever be those words of beauty,
those words of profound meaning from the Old Testament:
"Great is truth, and mighty above all things."
[Applause.]
[Chairman Daniels:] Thank you, Senator Hill.
The history of medicine is a proud history
and we of the medical professions cherish it.
We are happy today to remember
that the cradle of our western civilization
and of medicine was in Greece,
and we are happy to have with us the ambassador
of the royal Greek government,
His Excellency Alexis S. Liatis,
who will make a presentation on behalf of his government.
Mr. Ambassador.
[Applause.]
[Mr. Liatis:] Dr. Daniels, Mr. Secretary,
Senator Hill, ladies and gentleman.
It's a privilege for me to attend this ceremony,
and on behalf of the town of Kos, formally present
to the National Library of Medicine,
this cutting--
I'm awfully proud to see how thriving it is--
from the venerable tree under which says,
according to legend, Hippocrates, the father of medicine,
examined his patients and taught his students
some twenty-five hundred, twenty-five centuries ago.
This ancient tree of Hippocrates
is the most important site in the central square of Kos.
With a circumference of nearly fifty feet,
it is said to one of the oldest and largest
living trees in Europe.
Its heavy branches extend in all directions around it,
and pillars have been built to support their weight.
The town of Kos with a population of about ten thousand
is the capital of the Dodecanese Island
by the same name which lies in the southeast of the Aegean Sea.
A prosperous port in antiquity,
it was also a center of health and medicine
by reason of its [?] climate and its renowned ferrous and sulfuric springs.
Among the other centers of medical science in the Greek world
of the fifth century BC,
[?] Lindos on the nearby island of Rhodes [?]
Kos achieved the greatest fame as the birthplace and home of Hippocrates.
The torch of pioneering in medical science,
which was lit on the little island of Kos
twenty-five hundred years ago has now passed on to this country.
Hippocrates, I'm sure would agree
as the citizens of his town of Kos do agree,
that it is in strong and able hands.
Thank you.
[Applause.]
[Chairman Daniels:] Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
In the spring we will plant this tree
on the beautiful grounds outside this building.
May this tree and this library flourish together
and may the long future be as great as the splendid past.
It is now my duty to bring this dedication exercise to a close
by calling on General William J. Moran,
Deputy Chief of Chaplains of the United States Army,
to pronounce the benediction.
Will all rise.
[General Moran:] Almighty God, creator of the heavens and the earth,
who sustains the universe in law and order,
who redeems man from destruction,
and crowns him with glory and honor,
whose spirit ever works in the world to fulfill thy holy purposes.
We give thee thanks for this occasion which has brought us together.
We thank thee for the spectacular advances
made by medical science through the years
and for the significant contributions
of many outstanding people from all over the world.
As undefeated souls,
may we sustain the shocks of these volcanic days,
master their handicaps,
turn their threats into challenges
and at last, make even the wrath of men to serve thee.
We pray this in thy holy name, Amen.
[Ceremony is over.]
[THE END Produced by NATIONAL MEDICAL AUDIOVISUAL FACILITY M-594]