collection of crania, by then numbering 2,206 specimens, was transferred to the Museum of Natural History. 14[1]
Exchanges of duplicate and supernumerary specimens with other institutions and individuals, and purchase of private collections increased the holdings of the Museum. Among the former was the exchange of pictures and models, suitable for class demonstration, which had been prepared for use in the projected Army Medical School, vetoed by Secretary Stanton, for a cabinet of pathological specimens collected by professors of the National Medical College of Washington, which had taken over the buildings on H Street vacated by the Museum and which, under its present name of the School of Medicine of George Washington University, still occupies the site. Among the latter was the purchase at Richmond, Va., on 22 April 1868, from the widow of Prof. William Gibson, University of Pennsylvania, of a collection of 413 specimens, 54 casts and wax models of human anatomy, and 42 oil paintings by Sully of various diseased conditions. 15[2]
Still another source of specimens for the Museum's collection was the medical staff of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, better known as the Freedmen 's Bureau. Col. L. A. Edwards, chief medical officer of the Bureau, appealed on 6 June 1868 to "all Acting Assistant-Surgeons in the employment of the Bureau, and especially those who are in charge of Freedmen's Hospitals, [to] avail of every opportunity of contributing to the Anatomical and Pathological collections of the Army Medical Museum." Officers were especially urged to make, or have made, autopsies and to forward to the Museum "all pathological specimens of interest thus obtained." 16[3]
Praise From Foreign Visitors
By 1871, when Dr. Woodward's description of the Museum was published in Lippincott's Magazine, the surgical section consisted of about 6,000 mounted specimens and 350 plaster casts, the medical section of 1,150 specimens, and the microscopical section of more than 4,000. The anatomical section included nearly 1,000 human skulls and skeletons, of which 376 had been transferred by the Smithsonian in exchange for Indian weapons, utensils, and other artifacts, while a still larger number had been contributed by medical officers. 17[4] The section of comparative anatomy (fig. 27) included more than 1,000 animal
- ↑ 14 (1) Lamb, op. cit., pp. 52-54, 56, 57, 75, 76, 81, 89, 91, 97, 108, 114. (2) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), pp. 118, 119.
- ↑ 15 (1) Lamb, op. cit., pp. 48, 49, 56. (2) Lamb, The Military Surgeon, 53 (1923), pp. 116, 117.
- ↑ 16 War Department Records, Office of the Surgeon General. On file in National Archives.
- ↑ 17 (1) Woodward, Lippincott's Magazine, VII (1871), pp. 235-238. (2) Lamb, op. cit., p. 56.
