The "department of museum display and gross technique" was, he said, the "most important non-professional department" and the one which had "gravitated to the lowest level of all." He continued:
From 1919 to 1922 this department was in charge of Captain C. F. Silvester, Infty (Res), an excellently trained technician and administrator. During this period he not only supervised the preparation and display of a large amount of war material but published many articles on museum technique of such importance that the Army Medical Museum enjoyed an eviable position of leadership in this field. Since that time the work of this department has been done by a succession of enlisted men from the detachment at Walter Reed General Hospital or the Army Medical School who have been detailed temporarily to the Army Medical Museum for this purpose. Desultory efforts to supervise this work have been made by the Curator and his assistants when time could be spared from other duties, but only the mounting of rare and important specimens could be given this attention and all others requiring more than the simplest technique have of necessity been either destroyed or dumped in large vats in duplicate storage. 4[1]
Inadequate Space, Insufficient Personnel
Even this attenuated attention to museum display had been further diluted by reduction in staff from three enlisted men to one, who was due to retire for age in a few weeks, with no trained replacement on hand. In the circumstances, preparation of special exhibits for display in the building and at various scientific meetings was "taking many hours of time from the more important duties of the curator and his assistants" and the "undertaking of modernizing the general museum exhibit" was "out of the question."
On the clerical and administrative side, the loss of Capt. Theodore Bitterman, principal clerk, through retirement in 1931 without replacement, "was probably the most serious handicap to the successful administration of the museum." The loss of this experienced administrator had imposed upon the Curator multitudinous details requiring attention.
The Department of Photography, headed by Roy M. Reeve, was "inadequately staffed by a succession of enlisted men of the Medical Department who as soon as they have become sufficiently trained to be of any real help in the advancement of the department have either been transferred elsewhere or have accepted more remunerative positions with civilian institutions." Mr. Reeve's advances in the field of color photography, keeping up the tradition of leadership in the photographic arts established by Dr. Joseph J. Woodward and Dr. Edward
- ↑ 4 Among the published articles of Capt. Charles F. Silvester were: (1) Mounting War Collections at the Army Medical Museum. International Association of Medical Museums Bulletin, pp. 49-53, December 1922 (2) Typewriting Labels on Museum Jars. International Association of Medical Museums Bulletin, pp. 83-86 December 1922.
