LibraryandMuseumof theSurgeonGeneral'sOffice

The Library of the Surgeon General's Office, later called the Army Medical Library, was the institutional medical literature repository of the U.S. Army Surgeon General from 1836 to 1956 when it was transformed into the

National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...

History

The 19th century

The Library of the Surgeon General's Office was established in 1836 when

Joseph Lovell Dr. Joseph Lovell (December 22, 1788 – October 17, 1836) was the 8th Surgeon General of the United States Army, (April 18, 1818 – October 17, 1836), Family He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of James S. and Deborah (Gorham) Lovel ...

, then Surgeon General, purchased reference books and journals for his office. In 1840 the library published its first list of publications in a manuscript notebook. In 1864, the library printed its first catalog containing 2100 volumes. In 1867, the Library, along with the new Surgeon General's office, was moved to

Ford's Theatre Ford's Theatre is a theater located in Washington, D.C., which opened in August 1863. The theater is infamous for being the site of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth entered the theater box ...

, site of the tragic assassination of President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

in April 1865. (The theater had been closed and remodelled in the intervening two years.) The new Office/Library site was taken over by the U.S. Army to house a cluster of important post-Civil War medical activities of the Surgeon General's Office. The most significant were the archive of Civil War medical records (essential for verification of veterans' pension claims), the Army Medical Museum (now the

National Museum of Health and Medicine The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) is a museum in Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, DC. The museum was founded by U.S. Army Surgeon General William A. Hammond as the Army Medical Museum (AMM) in 1862; it became the NMHM in ...

), the editorial offices for preparation of the multi-volume '' Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion'', and the Library of the Surgeon General's Office. The library published its first list of bibliographies in 1869 and in 1871, the decided to develop its collection nationally. The library's goal was to "contain every medical book published in this country and every work relating to public health and state medicine." This collection would be "as complete as possible in all publications relating to military organizations, medicine, and allied sciences." The library strove to provide "an universal library of references". In 1879 the library began publishing ''

Index Medicus ''Index Medicus'' (''IM'') is a curated subset of MEDLINE, which is a bibliographic database of life science and biomedical science information, principally scientific journal articles. From 1879 to 2004, ''Index Medicus'' was a comprehensive b ...

'', a periodical listing the titles of current medical articles, books, reports, and other medical literature. This achievement, as well as the creation of the ''

Index Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Office Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...

'' (1880), was largely the legacy of Dr.

John Shaw Billings John Shaw Billings (April 12, 1838 – March 11, 1913) was an American librarian, building designer, and surgeon. However, he is best known as the modernizer of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office of the Army. His work with Andrew Carn ...

, Director of the Library from 1865 to 1895. When the Army's needs outgrew the capacity of the former theater, several of the units were moved in 1887 to a new building, the

Army Medical Museum and Library The Army Medical Museum and Library (AMML) of the U.S. Army was a large brick building constructed in 1887 at South B Street (now Independence Avenue) and 7th Street, SW, Washington, D.C., which is directly on the National Mall. It was desig ...

, on the nearby

National Mall The National Mall is a Landscape architecture, landscaped park near the Downtown, Washington, D.C., downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institut ...

(7th Street and South B Street Independence_Avenue.html" ;"title="Independence Avenue (Washington D.C.)">Independence Avenue">Independence Avenue (Washington D.C.)">Independence Avenue SW, the present site of the Smithsonian's

Hirshhorn Museum The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was des ...

The 20th century

From 1920 to 1925, the library was directed by Major General

Robert Ernest Noble Robert E. Noble (November 5, 1870 – September 18, 1956) was an American physician and a career officer in the United States Army. A veteran of the Philippine–American War, United States occupation of Veracruz, World War I, and the Occupation ...

. In 1922, the library was renamed the "Army Medical Library" (AML). In 1927, using funds from the

Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh are four museums that are operated by the Carnegie Institute headquartered in the Carnegie Institute complex in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Carnegie Institute complex, which includes t ...

, ''Index Medicus'' merged with the ''

Quarterly Cumulative Index A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinati ...

'' forming the ''

Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus ''Index Medicus'' (''IM'') is a curated subset of MEDLINE, which is a bibliographic database of life science and biomedical science information, principally scientific journal articles. From 1879 to 2004, ''Index Medicus'' was a comprehensive ...

''. From 1937 until 1942, the library ran a program, "Medicofilm," which provided microfilm access to medical literature to patrons. In 1941 the library published ''

The Current List of Medical Literature ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'' a "rapid finding aid" to all current articles and microfilm copies in the library's possession. Handwritten subject card

The AML administration opposed a proposed reorganization and created the

Association of Honorary Consultants to the Army Medical Library Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal * Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry * Voluntary associat ...

as a lobbying group to keep the facility within the U.S. Army.

Chauncey Leake Chauncey Depew Leake (September 5, 1896 – January 11, 1978) was an American pharmacologist, medical historian and ethicist. Leake received a bachelor's degree with majors in biology, chemistry, and philosophy from Princeton University. He rec ...

headed the group and important contributions were made by

Michael DeBakey Michael Ellis DeBakey (September 7, 1908 – July 11, 2008) was a Lebanese-American general and cardiovascular surgeon, scientist and medical educator who became Chairman of the Department of Surgery, President, and Chancellor of Baylor College ...

Joseph McNinch Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

and Harold W. Jones. A transfer to the

Public Health Service In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

(PHS) was strongly opposed, with one alternative being incorporation under the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. In 1952, the facility was renamed the "Armed Forces Medical Library". On 13 March 1956, Senators

Lister Hill Joseph Lister Hill (December 29, 1894 – December 20, 1984) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented Alabama in the U.S. Congress for more than forty-five years, as both a U.S. Representative (1923–1938) a ...

and

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

submitted Bill S.3430 to Congress, which promoted "the progress of medicine and advanced national health and welfare by creating the National Library of Medicine". On 3 August 1956 President

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

signed the legislation which transformed the "Armed Forces Medical Library" into the "National Library of Medicine". The Library collection was thus transferred from the control of the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

to that of the PHS of the

Department of Health, Education and Welfare The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

. Several collections of the library's papers are held at the National Library of Medicine.

References

Sources

Larkey, Sanford V, ''The Army Medical Library Research Project at the Welch Medical Library'', Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1949 April; 37(2): 121–124.
*Miles, Wyndham D., ''A History of the National Library of Medicine: The Nation's Treasury of Medical Knowledge''; U. S. Government Printing Office, 1992.

External links