the Acute Respiratory Diseases" was written by Major Callender; the second section, "Pathology of Gas Gangrene Following War Wounds," by Maj. James F. Coupal, former Curator of the Museum. The richly illustrated volume, with
24 plates in lifelike color and 312 black-and-white pictures, was based to a large extent on material in the Medical Museum, and made use of the photography and artwork produced by the Museum staff, including Maj. Theodore Bitterman, S.C., Capt. R. W. French, Inf., and Messrs. Roy M. Reeve, F. E. Prior, Garnet Jex, L. W. Ambrogi, Walter Parker, and Edward V. McCarten, to whom grateful acknowledgement was made.7[1]
Major Callender's successor, Major Ash (fig. 69), was a native of Philadelphia and a medical graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. His 6 years of postgraduate experience in various hospitals had been supplemented by study in Vienna, where the young doctor and his slightly older colleague, Howard T. Karsner, both men destined to distinction, worked at the State Therapeutic Institute. Upon his return to the United States, Dr. Ash served 3 years on the staff of the Harvard University Medical School. There he became interested in tropical diseases — an interest which turned him to the Medical Department of the U.S. Army, which was outstanding in that field. He was commissioned in the Medical Corps in 1916.
On his second tour of duty at the Museum, from 1937 to 1947, he was to become known as the principal protagonist of the spreading registry movement, but during his first tour, 1929 to 1931, there was no further increase in the roster of registries. This may be partially accounted for by the "greatly increased" work of the Museum staff in the fields of diagnosis and consultation, following the issuance of The Surgeon General's Circular Letter No. 2, on 12 February 1929.
Histopathology and the Museum
This circular called to the attention of all Medical Department officers the fourfold functions of the Museum with reference to tissue pathology. These were, the letter said, "to obtain material for instruction and research ; to preserve material permanently for reference purposes; to act as a consulting service; to examine and diagnose surgical, biopsy, and autopsy material for stations at which adequate laboratory facilities and personnel for such diagnostic work are not available." The cooperation of all medical officers in selecting and sending in to the Museum "specimens presenting interesting pathological conditions" was urged, but the greater stress was laid on the diagnostic and consulting functions.
- ↑ 7 The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1929, volume XII, pp. v, vi.
