![]() ![]() 5 and the subsequent publication of the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, published both case histories and visual representations of the wartime cases. The Circular requested that, “All medical officers cooperate in this undertaking by forwarding to this office such sanitary, topographical, medical and surgical reports, details of cases, essays and the results of investigations and inquiries as may be of value for this work, which full credit will be given in forthcoming volumes.” Circular No. 2, which required that all physicians write and submit a case history or essay along with each specimen or photograph that was submitted to museum. The most effective vehicle for the transmission of this knowledge to the large body of American physicians was the Civil War case report. Illustration from the collection of the National Museum of Health and Medicine, formerly the Army Medical Museum 2 directed medical officers to “diligently collect and forward to the office of the Surgeon General all specimens of morbid anatomy, surgical or medical, which may be regarded as valuable together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed and such other matter as may prove of interest in the study of military medicine and surgery.” Once the project got underway American physicians saw the museum as a new source of medical vitality, a center of learning that could institutionalize pathology and lay the foundation to both reform and develop American medicine along more scientific guidelines. The museum was created to teach physicians the basic principles of military medicine. The museum was constructed for the purpose of “illustrating the injuries and diseases that produce death or disability during war, and thus affording materials for precise methods of study or problems regarding the diminution of mortality and alleviation of suffering in armies.” Military medicine was complex and at the beginning of the American Civil War most surgeons had little to no experience treating bullet wounds, camp, and hospital diseases. 2 May 21, 1862, which provided for the establishment of the Army Medical Museum. Surgeon General William Hammond issued Circular No. ![]() Surgeon General William Hammond, Image Courtesy of the National Archives ![]()
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