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154 basis of the system, was "not systematically carried out in its application, so that it does not altogether answer the purpose for which it was intended * * *. Not only is it difficult or even impossible to classify a specimen under the headings that the catalog numbers furnish, but also it is impossible to observe the numerical order in the different groups without disturbing the natural order in which the specimens should stand." 11

Before the new system could be fully installed, Major Carroll died, Dr. Healy resigned, the new classification was abandoned, and the older system was reinstated by Dr. Lamb, who was made custodian as well as pathologist. Under this system, there were "collected together in one place all specimens illustrating any one disease * * * the subarrangement being according to the organ involved." Under this plan, as an example, it had been possible to select in a few minutes specimens to be loaned to a Tuberculosis Congress meeting in Baltimore without having to look for specimens in "twenty or more places." 12

More responsible than anyone else for the classification and cataloging of specimens was Dr. Daniel Smith Lamb (fig. 51), who joined the Museum staff as a hospital steward in 1865, took an M.D. degree from Georgetown University in 1867, while still on duty at the Museum, was appointed Acting Assistant Surgeon in 1868, served the Museum in that capacity until the rank was abolished by Congress in 1892, and then became pathologist to the Museum, and continued as such until his voluntary retirement in 1920 — a total span of active service to the institution of 55 years, followed by occasional consulting assistance during the remainder of his long life of 86 years.

Dr. Lamb commenced his service at the Museum under Dr. Joseph J. Woodward and continued it under Dr. George A. Otis and Dr. David L. Huntington. In 1883, when John Shaw Billings, the great administrator and bibliographer, was put in charge of the Museum as well as the Library, Dr. Lamb became, in effect though not in name, the active Curator of the Museum's collections, and so remained under the administration of Walter Reed, whose other responsibilities absorbed so much of his time and attention that the task of keeping up the Museum's pathological collections was largely left to the pathologist. 13