Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/114

AN ENDING AND A BEGINNING on head surgery by Dr. W. W. Keen, professor of surgery at the Jefferson Medical College and one of the most active surgeons of the Union Army in the Civil War. 5

The first annual session of the school closed with appropriate exercises on 28 February 1894, attended by most of the officers of the War Department. The distinguished Prof. William Osier of the Johns Hopkins University addressed the graduating class of five assistant surgeons, as did Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield commanding the Army, briefly, and Colonel Alden more at length. The address of the President of the Faculty doubtless was directed more to the assembled spectators, which included ex-Surgeons General Hammond, Murray, and Sutherland, than it was to the graduating class. In his address, he outlined the many duties and responsibilities of the Army doctor which were outside the work of the physician and surgeon as ordinarily understood, and described the school's courses of study designed to fit the medical officer for these military duties. Referring to the work of the Department of Clinical and Sanitary Microscopy, the colonel said:

Perhaps it is proper to say here to our non-medical friends that the day when bacteria were a scientific curiosity and their study a pastime or fad has passed. The investigation of these microscopic organisms and their effects lies at the very foundation of modern medicine and surgery, and of advanced medical and surgical practice. In this direction lies today our strongest hope and brightest prospect of preventing and arresting disease.6

Thus there was launched, in quarters provided by the Army Medical Museum, and using facilities furnished by it, the school which was to grow and develop into the Medical Department Professional Service Schools in 1923 and, in 1947, into the Army Medical Department Research and Graduate School, with its own quarters and facilities in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (fig. 38).

Even before the inauguration of the School in the Museum quarters, and, in fact, within a year of the occupation of the new building, the old question of lack of space and overcrowding had already been raised. In his annual report for 1888-89, Surgeon General John Moore said :

The question of space for the better accommodation of the present holdings of the Museum and for the additions which experience shows are to be expected, is already ob-