December 12, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



829 



of the war. Probably Dr. Billings had an 

 important share, for here, as elsewhere, no 

 matter what his relation was to a body of 

 men and officers, his peculiar talents soon 

 found their influential place. 



It becomes clear from what I have al- 

 ready said that his capacity to turn with 

 ease from one task to another must have 

 become by this time very well known to 

 his superiors. His own desire was to re- 

 turn to the field, but the promise to so 

 indulge him probably failed owing to the 

 somewhat abrupt termination of the war. 

 Meanwhile he was required to deal with 

 the voluminous medical reports sent in by 

 the medical staff of the Potomac Army. 

 The records of this work and of his other 

 more individual surgical contributions are 

 scattered through the voluminous medical 

 and surgical history of the war. Here as 

 elsewhere he left in these papers his mark 

 as a man of many competencies. 



Some of the duties to which he was as- 

 signed before his retirement were curiously 

 outside of the work of a military surgeon 

 and he seems to have been lent by the War 

 Department for a variety of governmental 

 services. Thus while busy with the early 

 work in connection with the museum and 

 library, he was also occupied with the 

 organization of the United States Marine 

 Hospital Service in 1870. In 1872 he was 

 vice-president of the brief lived National 

 Bureau of Health, and was for a long 

 period in charge of the division of vital 

 statistics of the eleventh census of the 

 United States. 



During his career as a surgeon in the 

 years before 1895, he became an authority 

 on military medicine and public hygiene 

 and revived his interest in hospital con- 

 struction to which he had given a great deal 

 of thought. He was one of five who sub- 

 mitted in 1875, by request, plans for the 



construction of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. 

 His careful study of the conditions re- 

 quired in a hospital were accepted. They 

 included many things novel at that time 

 which it is not needful for me to dwell 

 upon here, but some of them were very 

 original changes from the organization and 

 construction to be found in hospitals at 

 that period. 



During these years he went to Baltimore 

 from time to time and lectured on the his- 

 tory of medicine and on hygiene. He also 

 supervised the planning and construction 

 of the Barnes Hospital of the Soldiers' 

 Home, Washington, D. C, and later the 

 buildings needed for the Army Medical 

 Museum and the Surgeon General's Lib- 

 rary. His final constructive work late in 

 life was his connection with the plans for 

 the Brigham Hospital in Boston and during 

 many years he was continually consulted 

 by institutions or cities in regard to hos- 

 pitals and hygiene questions of importance. 



The great work of John Shaw Billings 

 which gave him finally a world-wide repute 

 began at some time after 1864, when he 

 was asked by the surgeon general to take 

 charge of the army medical museum created 

 under Surgeon General Hammond by the 

 skillful care of Surgeon John H. Brinton. 

 His formal assignment "in charge of the 

 Museum Library Division and as curator of 

 the Army Medical Museum" dates from 

 December 28, 1883, but he had been infor- 

 mally librarian for many years before that 

 time. It is quite impossible here to enter 

 ink) any detailed account of the ingenuity 

 and power of classification which has made 

 this museum the greatest presentation of 

 the effects of war on the bodies of men. 

 It is, however, essential to say a few words 

 about the varied capacities which built up 

 and made finally available to scholars the 

 library of the surgeon-general, now the 



