A case near the front window, contains three Maori heads from New Zealand. They are all tattooed with the black juice of the betel-nut. Any thing more hideous than their empty eye-sockets, their striped cheek bones and ghastly white teeth cannot be imagined.
Along the windows at the opposite end of the great hall, may be seen skeletons of all kinds of animals, birds, fishes and reptiles. Here are skeletons of the horse, the buffalo, the grizzly bear, the elk, the walrus, and the ray. One of these last, caught in James river, has been presented to the Museum.
Those who have read the early history of Virginia may remember that it chronicles the fact that once when Captain John Smith, of wonderful memory, was one day bathing in the James River, he received a sudden shock, and many days elapsed before he recovered from it. It was supposed that he was struck by a ‘stingaree.’
The ‘stingaree’ is a corruption of the stinging ray—and such a specimen is shown in the Museum. The ray is a fish of the cartilaginous species, not having the vertebrated form. It has wings, each measuring about fourteen inches across the widest part; and it has a very long tail, in which is implanted a sting, which resembles in its effects a shock of electricity, and produces temporary paralysis. The ray darts in among a shoal of fishes, electrifies them, and then proceeds to devour them.
The microscopical division of the Museum on the library floor is of great value. It affords facilities for the study of natural history and comparative anatomy equal to the medical schools of Paris. This department contains a series of photographical publications of enlarged photographic pictures of the specimens, mounted on cardboard and bound in Russia leather. A set of this series, also a complete set of bound photographs of all the specimens contained in the surgical department of the Museum, with a sketch of the case attached, has been presented to all the governments and large public libraries of Europe. In return, these European governments and libraries have sent complete sets of like publications of their own. Several hundred volumes, handsomely bound, include these foreign gifts to the Army Medical Museum at Washington.
The primary object of the Army Medical Museum is to illustrate minutely the wounds and diseases of our late war, while the medical and surgical histories of the war, now being written under the supervision of the Surgeon-General, will show the processes of treatment and their results. Dr. J. J. Woodward, assisted by Dr. Otis, both of Pennsylvania, are charged with the writing of this history. Doctor Woodward is writing the medical history, and Doctor Otis the surgical history of this important national report. Five thousand copies of each will be issued by Congress. The first volumes of both histories have already come from the bindery of the Public Printer in handsome form. The first of the medical volumes is chiefly occupied with tabular statements of the diseases which prevailed, and the numbers dying of each, during the entire period of our civil war. The coming volumes will treat of these diseases, the treatment pursued, and will give photographs of the organs affected in each disease.
The Museum proper is divided into four departments, Surgery, Medicine, Anatomy, and Comparative Anatomy. These are all placed in the hall of the third story. We reach this by an outer iron stair-case, whose walls on either side are lined with sketches and plans of the battle-fields of Gettysburg and Antietam, in black walnut frames. Entering the long hall, we are confronted at once by the ghastly victims in the frames opposite, and the eyes are quickly withdrawn to glance up and down along the polished glass cases which line the walls. Above some of these cases droop the flags and standards, the swords and sabres which have survived the war. Models of ambulances, stretchers, and hospital tents, also have a place on the top of these cases.
More than four-fifths of the specimens in the Museum have been presented to it, or exchanged for duplicate objects, quantities of which are stored in the attic, ready for exchange. The Army Medical Museum belongs to the nation, and as its existence and object have been widely published, it is in daily receipt of new specimens. It has become an object of personal interest and pride to the medical fraternity of the country, each one of whom is invited to become a contributor to its pathological treasures. In a late official report, the Surgeon-General thus refers to the subject, which is of interest to all medical persons:
“It is not intended to impose upon medical officers the labor of dissecting and preparing the specimens they may contribute to the Museum. This will be done under the superintendence of the curator. In forwarding such pathological objects as compound fractures, bony specimens, and wet preparations generally, obtained after amputation, operation, or cadaveric examination, all unnecessary soft parts should first be roughly removed. Every specimen should then be wrapped separately in a cloth, so as to preserve all spiculæ and fragments. A small block of wood should be attached, with the number of the specimen and the name of the medical officer sending it inscribed in lead-pencil; or a strip of sheet-lead, properly marked with the point of an awl, may be employed for this purpose. In either case, the inscription will be uninjured by the contact of fluids. The preparation should be then immersed in diluted alcohol or whisky, contained in a keg or small cask. When a sufficient number of objects shall have accumulated, the cask should be forwarded to the Army Medical Museum, in Washington, D. C. The expenses of expressage will be defrayed in Washington. The receipt of the keg or package will be duly acknowledged by the curator of the Museum.”
When the first Army Medical Museum report was issued, January 1, 1863, the collection begun in August, 1862, numbered over thirteen hundred in all. Since then the collection has grown to the following proportions. In 1873 it contains over sixteen thousand objects. In the surgical department alone, there are over six thousand. In the medical department over eleven hundred. In the anatomical department over nine hundred. In the department of comparative anatomy over one thousand. In the microscopical department over six thousand. A library and photograph-gallery belong exclusively to the Museum. The side rooms and lower stories are used as the laboratories and work-rooms for preparing and mounting the specimens for exhibition. The Army Medical Museum is a great beginning—and yet only a beginning of one of the most unique, precious and important, pathological collections in the world.