136 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 294 



themselves ; the physiologist does not expect to see function 

 directly exhibited, but he does hope to find information about 

 kymographs and constant-temperature apparatus, and he wants to 

 see whether Kiihne's artificial eye is so useful for teaching purposes 

 that he ought to get one to illustrate his lectures. 



" Medical museums are not, as a rule, freely open to the public, 

 nor are they collected or arranged with reference to interesting or 

 instructing non-professional persons. The Medical Museum at 

 Washington is the chief exception to this rule ; and it is so, because 

 it was placed in Ford's Theatre, the scene of the assassination of 

 President Lincoln. Many visitors to Washington, both men and 

 women, wished to see this memorable spot, and, in doing so, neces- 

 sarily went through the museum. This gradually led to the ad- 

 justing of the specimens exhibited with a view to the fact that they 

 were to be seen by a number of non-professional persons of both 

 sexes. Certain groups of specimens were put aside and not shown, 

 except to persons known to be physicians, while other groups were 

 given prominent places because they interested the public, although 

 not of great professional or scientific value. 



" I have time for only a very condensed statement of the wants 

 of our National Medical Museum. In the first place, it needs the 

 intelligent interest and friendship of the medical profession of this 

 country. To a very considerable extent it has had this. Were it 

 otherwise, it would not be what it is, nor where it is. But it needs 

 more of it, and it can never have too much. Every medical man 

 in this country should help a little, and provide for the perpetua- 

 tion of his name as that of a physician interested in the progress of 

 the profession, by sending at least one specimen to it. It is om- 

 nivorous in its demands for material, as will be seen by the circular 

 which it has recently issued. But I will name as special wants, 

 human embryos, especially those of a very early age ; monstrosities 

 and malformations of all kinds in man or in the lower animals ; 

 results of old injuries, such as fractures or dislocations, or of sur- 

 gical operations, such as excisions, stumps, etc. ; injuries and dis- 

 eases of the eye, ear, and nose ; new growths of all kinds ; diseases 

 of the brain and spinal cord ; and specimens illustrating the con- 

 dition of bones, joints, brain, larynx, and other organs, in extreme 

 old age. 



" In the second place, it needs a regular supply of funds from the 

 general government. To form and keep in proper condition such 

 a medical museum as this should be, is a more difficult and expen- 

 sive matter than those not acquainted with such work would sup- 

 pose ; and the gifts of specimens from the profession must be 

 supplemented by ample means for the preparation, preservation, 

 and proper display of these specimens, and also for the purchase 

 of apparatus and typical specimens of foreign work, in order that 

 the museum may be always able to show the latest state of knowl- 

 edge and the best ways of doing things. 



" The annual appropriation for the museum at present is SS.ooo. 

 This is sufficient, except that the printing of the catalogue, of 

 which I shall speak presently, must be an extra charge ; but the 

 medical profession should see to it that the amount is not reduced 

 in the rhythmic spasms of partial economy with which some of our 

 statesmen are afflicted. 



" The third need of the museum is a series of the right kind 

 of descriptions of its specimens, given on labels and in a catalogue. 

 Unaided by such descriptions, it has for each man that which he 

 can see in it, and no more. One man will see nothing but an old 

 piece of bone, a shapeless mass of tissue bleached by alcohol, a 

 case of old dingy brass instruments. Another will see in the same 

 things a rare joint atrophy, implying curious abnormal nerve-in- 

 fluence; a leprous nodule, whose history, if we knew it, would 

 reach back through the lazar-houses of the middle ages to the far 

 east, and whose bacilli may be the lineal descendants of those that 

 ve.xed Naaman the Syrian ; a case of microscopes illustrating the 

 development of that instrument, from the first rough iron tube of 

 the spectacle-maker of Nuremberg, to the delicate and complicated 

 instrument through which we now peer curiously into that world 

 which lies within the world of unassisted vision. By our labels 

 and catalogues we must tell men what to see, but to do this we 

 must first see ourselves. The aphorism that a first-class museum 

 should consist of a series of satisfactory labels with specimens at- 

 tached, means a good deal. Something has been done in this 



direction, as you will see on inspection of the cases ; but I often 

 wonder what sort of labels a man who has spent years in investi- 

 gating the normal and abnormal structure and relations of one 

 organ would write for our specimen of that organ. Such help as 

 this we need, — kindly, truthful criticism, the pointing-out of errors 

 and of new points of view for this mass of material. 



" We also need a series of printed catalogues. One of these 

 should be in the form of compact handbooks relating to particular 

 sections of the collection, and intended partly for the use of visitors 

 while in the museum, and partly as a ready means of letting dis- 

 tant friends know what material it most needs in different depart- 

 ments. It should also print a complete illustrated catalogue of the 

 whole collection, for the use of the investigators and teachers of 

 the profession. Congress has been requested to grant authority 

 for the printing of such a catalogue by the government printer. 

 The material for it is nearly ready, and it would make three vol- 

 umes, each the size of one of the volumes of ' The Medical and 

 Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.' " 



A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF METEOROLOGY. 



As the literature of the several branches of science is increasing 

 in volume, new scientific journals springing up every month, and 

 valuable material being published in popular serials, bibliographical 

 work comes to be an absolute necessity. This accounts for the 

 numerous attempts at indexing the existing Uterature, and thus 

 economizing the valuable time of scientists. A bibliography of any 

 branch of science, once published, becomes the most fruitful source 

 for further progress, as it is only thus that existing researches can 

 be profitably made use of. Duplication of old work is avoided, and 

 the compilation of the existing literature on a certain problem, 

 which, without such an aid, is a source of indescribable annoyance 

 and waste of time, is made easy. It is particularly in great scien- 

 tific institutions, whose collaborators are numerous and frequently 

 stationed in distant places, that, by the help of bibliographies of 

 this kind, a large amount of labor and money is saved, the funds 

 appropriated for their publication being thus well invested. The 

 benefit to the advancement of science accruing from complete 

 bibliographies is self-evident, and we need not dwell upon it. 



The scientific bureaus of the United States Government have al- 

 ways been well aware of these facts. The great subject-catalogue 

 of the Army Medical Museum, the bibliographies of the United 

 States Geological Survey and of the Bureau of Ethnology, as well 

 as those published by the Smithsonian Institution, testify to this ; 

 and their value is highly appreciated by all students, and has 

 greatly aided the progress of science. 



In this connection we may mention the ' Index to the Literature 

 of the Spectroscope,' by Alfred Tuckerman, and that of the litera- 

 ture of columbium by Frank W. Traphagen, published among the 

 Smithsonian miscellaneous collections. In an introduction to the 

 former. Professor Langley well says, " With the rapid accumula- 

 tion of scientific memoirs and discussions, published from year to 

 year in numerous journals and society proceedings, a constantly 

 larger expenditure of time and labor is required, by both the inves- 

 tigator and the student, to learn the sources of information and the 

 condition of discovery in any given field. Hence is felt the grow- 

 ing need of classified indexes to the work done in the various fields 

 of research, and hence the growing tendency of the age to supply 

 such demand." 



The great scientific societies consider these subjects among those 

 calling for the most careful and immediate consideration ; and thus 

 the second of the bibliographies mentioned above sprung from the 

 recommendations of the committee on indexing chemical literature, 

 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 



In meteorology the want of a bibliography is sorely felt. It is 

 therefore with great gratification that we learn of the completion of 

 the ' Signal Service Bibliography of Meteorology,' — a work anx- 

 iously looked for by all meteorologists and geographers. In its 

 present form, it consists of a card-catalogue, which is in use in the 

 bureau of the Signal Office. In his last annual report. General 

 Greely, the chief signal-officer says, — 



" The practical value of such a bibliography has been fully shown 

 by its constant use in current office-work, and, in addition to the 



