Figure 32.—Dr. John Shaw Billings, famed Librarian, fourth Curator of the Museum (1883-1893), and father of its collection of microscopes.
Division of the Surgeon General's Office, and Maj. John Shaw Billings (fig. 32) was named as Curator of the Museum as well as Librarian.[1]
Dr. Billings was 45 years of age when he was detailed for the double duty of Librarian-Curator. Born in Indiana in 1838, he was educated at the "old" Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, and received his M.D. degree at the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati. Four years of wartime service as a brilliant operating surgeon and medical administrator led to his detail in the Office of the Surgeon General where, among other duties, he was assigned to the care of the little library of that office. This library, started in 1836, had grown, by 1865, to fewer than 2,000 volumes. When, 30 years later, Colonel Billings relinquished his post as Librarian, the collection had grown to 115,000 bound volumes and 184,000 unbound pamphlets and papers.[2] Moreover, this vast collection of medical information had been made accessible and usable by the publication
