62 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1914. 
the cases, and in many instances they furnish the only means of 
representing a subject. 
The section dealing with the history of medicine has 8 exhibits, 
beginning with magic medicine, which is followed by psychic or 
mental remedies, and the medicines of the American Indians, the 
Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Greeks and Romans, and the other 
more eastern nations. Of modern medicines there is 1 case of animal 
products, 10 cases of vegetable products, and 1 case of organic 
chemical products. Among the special features are 2 screens of 
portraits of eminent American physicians, 2 pillar screens with 
pictures of medicinal plants, and exhibits illustrating the compo- 
sition of food, including milk and bread, the utilization of food, 
with an example of a day’s ration, and the composition of the 
human body. The instruments used in connection with the practice 
of medicine are also represented. 
The exhibition as at present constituted is of great cultural value, 
but its importance in this respect could be much enhanced by certain 
additions, including more botanical illustrations, both as colored 
pictures and as mountings of actual plants. This it is hoped can 
soon be done and the collection given more room. The reserve series, 
however, is the one which appeals most to the profession. It is 
supposed to contain a fairly complete representation of drug mate- 
rials, all of which, together with the specimens on exhibition, have 
been carefully identified and catalogued, but the division has never 
been supplied with an adequate laboratory through which these 
materials could be rendered as fully serviceable as is implied in the 
scheme of the division. The collection should also be kept up to 
date, all newly discovered substances pertaining to the subject being 
promptly added, and, furthermore, all specimens in at least the 
reserve series should be in a condition retaining their full natural 
properties. On such a basis the division would become in the truest 
sense, as was intended, a place of reference, where makers and testers 
of drugs could always find accurately determined samples of all the 
natural products of which medicines are made. Its importance has 
always been recognized by the Government, but, through the inade- 
quate support given the honorary curator, it has not been possible 
to fully or properly carry out the objects to which his time was so 
long and earnestly devoted. It is the purpose to place this division 
on a better working basis at the earliest opportunity. 
PHOTOGRAPHY. 
During a long period there has been gradually assembled a 
large amount of material designed to illustrate the history and 
development of photography. This work of collecting was begun 
by Mr. T. W. Smillie, chief photographer of the Institution and 
