September 21, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



'35 



cellent specimens of this l<ind, prepared under the direction of Pro- 

 fessor His of Leipzig, of Professor Cunningham of Dublin, and by 

 our own anatomist Dr. Wort man. These, however, are only 

 samples to show how the work should be done. We require sev- 

 eral hundred such specimens to illustrate properly regional anatomy 

 in relation to age and se.\, while the possible applications of the same 

 methods to the illustration of visceral displacements, hernias, and 

 deformities of all kinds, are boundless. As regards physiology, but 

 little can be done by museum specimens to illustrate function as 

 distinguished from form and structure. The so-called ' physiologi- 

 cal series ' in the Hunterian collection is a series of organs illustrat- 

 ing variations in different families of the animal kingdom, or at 

 different ages : in other words, it illustrates ontogenic and phylo- 

 genic development. The things students or teachers of physiology 

 are most anxious to see in a museum are specimens of instruments 

 and apparatus employed in experimental physiology, or in the 

 measurement of the special work of different organs, or in illustrat- 

 ing lectures on physiology. Illustrations of results obtained in ex- 

 perimental pathology often belong quite as much to physiology ; 

 as, for example, specimens of results of Gudden's atrophy method. 

 " The Army Medical Museum has only a beginning of such an 

 anatomical collection as I have indicated as desirable. Like all 

 other museums, it is richer in specimens illustrating osteology than 

 in any other branch of anatomy, simply because such specimens 

 are the easiest to obtain and preserve. We are accustomed to 

 think that human anatomy is nearly exhausted as a field for original 

 research, and that, at all events, every important organ or muscle 

 or nerve has been figured, described, and named. Granting this, 

 so far as the adult is concerned, although it is by no means true 

 even for him, we have still to study the development of each of 

 these organs, or groups of organs, as seen at different ages, and, 

 for some of them, in different races. As fast as these points are 

 seen to be of practical interest, either in connection with diagnosis 

 or the surgical treatment of disease, they are investigated ; but an 

 ideal museum should furnish the investigator the means for his 

 researches, and it must therefore collect specimens without special 

 regard to what is at present known to be their practical interest. 

 The collection of such series of specimens of each joint, region, and 

 organ, as I have in mind, including sections and dissections at dif- 

 ferent ages, from the earliest appearance in foetal life to extreme 

 old age in man, and in many cases in the lower animals, is a slow 

 process. Such specimens, and especially such series of specimens, 

 can only be prepared by a skilled anatomist, and there are few 

 such : hence the formation of our ideal anatomical collection, 

 limited though its scope may be, must be a work of time. 



" Having obtained the specimens, the next difficulty is so to pre- 

 pare and preserve them that they shall be available for study. 

 The great majority cannot be preserved in such a manner as to 

 retain their natural color, size, and texture. No doubt, more might 

 be done in this direction than is usually done. It is possible to 

 stain or paint portions of specimens in such a way as to give some 

 idea of the normal appearances ; but thus far, I think, experience 

 shows that the best medium for the permanent preservation of wet 

 pathological specimens is alcohol, and this will contract and harden 

 most tissues, and remove the color from nearly all. It is also an 

 expensive mode of preservation for large collections, and requires 

 constant care to prevent the effects of evaporation. It does not 

 follow, however, that such specimens are of little value, and that, 

 as some have urged, it would be better to seek to obtain records of 

 the results of disease by colored drawings or models. The path- 

 ological specimen, whether seen at the post-mortem, or years after- 

 ward in a museum, is, to the scientific pathologist or the practical 

 physician, merely a sign or hieroglyph of the morbid process which 

 has produced it : it is a result, in most cases, of interest not in 

 itself, but because of the preceding phenomena which it connotes. 

 As Sir James Paget has said, the same objection, viz., that museum 

 specimens are unfit for the teaching or the study of pathology, 

 might be made to the study of botanical specimens in an hecba- 

 rium. ' In both cases alike, the changes produced by preparation 

 are so far uniform that any one accustomed to recent specimens 

 (and no others should study either herbaria or pathological collec- 

 tions) can allow for them or " discount " them. Just as an anat- 

 omist can discern, in a recent specimen of disease, the healthy 



structure, so, but often much more clearly, can the pathologist or 

 any careful student discern in the prepared specimen the chief 

 characteristics of the disease.' Colored drawings, casts, and models 

 are of great value in supplementing original specimens, but they 

 cannot wholly replace them. 



" One of the most important sections of our museum is that 

 devoted to microscopy, including normal and pathological his- 

 tology and photomicrographic work. In the cabinets there are 

 nearly ii,ooo mounted specimens, illustrating almost every field of 

 microscopical research. Many of these were made twenty years 

 ago, and more, and were mounted by processes which have not 

 given good results ; so that Dr. Gray, who is in charge of this sec- 

 tion, estimates that about 3,000 will be set aside as worthless; but 

 the rest form a very valuable series, to which additions are being 

 constantly made, and materials for which we are specially anxious 

 to obtain. In connection with this section, a series of cultures of 

 chromogenic and pathogenic bacteria is kept up for museum ex- 

 hibits, and also to illustrate methods of work. 



" While the great majority of the specimens in a medical museum 

 have some relation to diagnosis, prognosis, or therapeutics, the 

 number of those which are of direct interest to the so-called prac- 

 tical physician is not very great. It includes models and casts 

 illustrating dermatology, morbid growths, the results of amputa- 

 tions, excisions, plastic operations, etc., and instruments, appa- 

 ratus, dressings, etc., of all kinds. Here also may be classed 

 hospital fittings and furniture, means of transportation for sick and 

 wounded, model cases of instruments, emergency chests, etc. Our 

 medical museum has a fair beginning of a collection of this kind, 

 including over a thousand specimens ; but many more are needed 

 to make it reasonably complete. If each medical man who devises 

 a stethoscope, a pessary, a speculum, an ophthalmoscope, or an 

 electro-therapeutic appliance with which he is well pleased, would 

 send a specimen to the collection, its increase would certainly be 

 rapid, and it could always show the latest improvement. 



" The Army Medical Museum contains what may seem a large 

 amount of material relating to human osteology, and especially 

 craniology, in its relations to North American ethnology, or the 

 history of the development of different varieties of man on this con- 

 tinent ; but it is not actually half large enough to permit of draw- 

 ing definite scientific conclusions from it. The majority of the 

 crania which it contains have been measured to a certain extent, 

 and the results have been published ; but many other measure- 

 ments are desirable to permit of comparison with series taken else- 

 where, and even measurements already made must be repeated by 

 later and better methods. We have been trj-ing some experiments 

 with composite photography and superimposed contour tracings 

 as a means of obtaining typical outlines and dimensions for race 

 groups of crania, and these give promise of good results. If the 

 collections of crania of North American Indians in Boston, New 

 York, Philadelphia, and Washington could be brought together, a 

 very much better average representation of the majority of tribes 

 or groups would be obtained than can be furnished by either of 

 these collections taken separately. By composite photography and 

 tracings, combined with uniform methods of measurement, we can 

 practically bring these collections together, and obtain results nearly 

 as satisfactory as if we had them all in one room. We have also 

 fitted up one large room with instruments and apparatus foranthro- 

 pometrv in its widest sense, including psychophysical investiga- 

 tion ; and it is intended to make this a complete laborator)- for 

 illustration of methods of work. 



" An important feature of our National Medical Museum should 

 be to show methods of research and of instruction for the benefit 

 of the investigators and teachers of the countrj-. This includes in- 

 struments and apparatus, and, to a limited extent, illustrations of 

 the modes of using them and of the results ; it also includes dia- 

 grams, models, etc., used for illustrating lectures. For e.xample : 

 as soon as Koch's researches became known in this countr)', phy- 

 sicians, and especially medical teachers who visited the museum, 

 asked if we could show them the apparatus used by Koch and 

 Pasteur in bacteriological work, and eagerly examined the few speci- 

 mens of cultures on solid media which we were able to exhibit. 

 The anatomist comes to the museum quite as much to see 

 methods of mounting and preservation as to see the specimens 



