848 JOHN SIIAW BILLINGS. 



justified l)y the brilliant career of Billings. He obtained his medical 

 education and received the degree of M. D. at the Medical College 

 of Ohio in 1860. The outbreak of the Civil War found Billings 

 Demonstrator of Anatomy in this College. He was appointed First 

 Lieutenant and Assistant Surgeon in the United States Army in 

 April, 1862, and throughout the war was actively employed in that 

 department of the service. 



He was married in 1862 to Miss Kate M. Stevens of Rochester, 

 N. Y. and in December of 1864 was transferred to the Surgeon Gen- 

 eral's office in the War Department where he remained on active duty 

 for the next thirty years and until relieved at his own request, on 

 October 1st, 1895. His duties during this period were of the most 

 varied character. Such only as could be performed by a man of the 

 highest ability and almost unequalled capacity for work. Among his 

 activities were the Report upon the Conditions of Barracks and Hospi- 

 tals, 1870, Hygiene of the United States Army, 1875. In 1879 he 

 was detailed as member of the National Board of Health, that most 

 promising but ill-starred attempt at a central sanitary authority 

 which, notwithstanding its character and noble contributions to 

 science, was finally destroyed by the political activities of jealous 

 rivals and for many years had no competent successor. 



The examination of barracks and hospitals brought to his notice 

 the defects in the ordinary systems of Aentilation and heating and 

 his book upon Ventilation and Heating was one of the results of this 

 study, and the Johns Hopkins Hospital was another and even more 

 important contribution. It is not too much to say that this group of 

 buildings has been a model and the study for all establishments of 

 this sort. The interest which Billings had in the construction of 

 hospital buildings did not cease with the completion of this task. 

 One of the last of his activities was his service as consultant in the 

 designing of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. His 

 knowledge of vital statistics was profound and his writings upon this 

 fundamental branch of medical science are many, among the best in 

 our own or any other language. His extensive and accurate reports 

 upon the Medical and Vital Statistics of the United States and of the 

 Census reports of 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910 are achievements of 

 especial importance. 



He will perhaps be longer remembered for his service to medical 

 literature than in any of his even greater activities. From the time 

 of his assignment to the care of the Library of the Surgeon General's 

 office he labored most strenuously not only for the increase of the 



