The chest measurements, at moment of respiration, averaged 33.11 inches for Americans, 32.84 for Irish, 33.56 for Germans, 33.01 for Canadians and 32.93 for English. The detailed statistics of height and size bear out the statement that, as a rule, only healthy foreigners migrate from the Old to the New World and healthy natives from the old to the new States; both conclusions are quite reasonable, when the anticipated and real hardships of migration are considered.
Considering the figures relating to occupation, it is found that the ratio of unfitness for army life was 409 in a thousand among persons engaged in in-door pursuits, and only 349 in a thousand, in persons of out-door callings.
Taken by trades and professions, it appears that of journalists 740 in a thousand were disqualified, physicians 670, clergymen and preachers 654, dentists 549, lawyers 544, tailors 473, teachers 455, photographers 451, mercantile clerks 416, painters 392, carpenters 383, stone-cutters 376, shoe-makers 362, laborers 358, farmers 350, printers 335, tanners 216, iron-workers 189. The average ratio of disability among professional men was 520 in a thousand, merchants 480, artisans 484, and unskilled laborers 348 only.
The journalists, doctors and clergymen were the unhealthiest professional men, and teachers and musicians the healthiest. Brokers were the unhealthiest of the mercantile class, and shop-keepers and peddlers the healthiest. Iron and leather-workers were the healthiest of the artisans; in the first occupation, partly, because only robust men can follow it. Paper-makers, tailors and upholsterers appear to have been the unhealthiest trades. Of unskilled occupations, so-called, for the purposes of this work, miners and mariners were the healthiest, and watchmen, bar-keepers and fishermen the unhealthiest. Explanation is found in the case of watchmen, in the number of old and broken-down men following that vocation. The ratio of single men found disqualified was 393 in a thousand, and of married men 447 in a thousand; the difference, however, being no argument against marriage, as the latter class embraces a larger proportion of men beyond middle age.
Congress has provided liberally for the publication of Dr. Baxter’s medical statistics of drafts and recruitments, and the volume will contain shaded maps and diagrams, to aid in exhibiting and contrasting the results of his unique studies of the physical status of the nation.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM—ITS CURIOSITIES AND WONDERS.
Ford’s Theatre—Its Interesting Memories—The Last Festivities—Assassination of President Lincoln—Two Years Later—Effects of “War, Disease, and Human Skill”—Collection of Pathological Specimens—The Army Medical Museum Opened—Purchase of Ford’s Theatre—Its Present Aspect—Ghastly Specimens—Medical and Surgical Histories of the War—The Library—A Book Four Centuries Old—Rare Old Volumes—The Most Interesting of the National Institutions—Various Opinions—Effects on Visitors—An Extraordinary Withered Arm—A Dried Sioux Baby!—Its Poor Little Nose—A Well-dressed Child—Its Buttons and Beads—Casts of Soldier-Martyrs—Making a New Nose—Vassear’s Mounted Craniums—Model Skeletons—A Giant, Seven Feet High—Skeleton of a Child—All that Remains of Wilkes Booth, the Assassin—Fractures by Shot and Shell—General Sickles Contributes His Quota—A Case of Skulls—Arrow-head Wounds—Nine Savage Sabre-Cuts—Seven Bullets in One Head—Phenomenal Skulls—A Powerful Nose—An Attempted Suicide—A Proverb Corrected—Specimen from the Paris Catacombs—An “Interesting Case”—Typical Heads of the Human Race—Remarkable Indian Relics—“Flatheads”—The Work of Indian Arrows—An Extraordinary Story—A “Pet” Curiosity—A Japanese Manikin—Tattooed Heads—Representatives of Animated Nature—Adventure of Captain John Smith—A “Stingaree”—The Microscopical Division—Medical Records of the War—Preparing Specimens.
The building in which Abraham Lincoln was assassinated will always retain a deep and sad interest in the mind of the American people. It was well that it should be consecrated to a national purpose. None could be more fit than to make it the repository of the Pathological and Surgical results of the war.
From the dark hour of the great martyr’s death, the light and music of amusement never again animated these dark halls. But in two years from the day of the tragedy, its doors were opened to the people, to come in and behold what war, disease, death, and human skill had wrought.
In obedience to an order from the War Department, issued in 1862, thousands of pathological specimens had accumulated in the office of the Surgeon-General. An ample and fit receptacle was needed for their proper care and display. And April 13, 1867, the old Ford Theatre, on Tenth street, between E and F, was opened as the Army Medical Museum.