Page:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology-ItsFirstCentury.djvu/44

BACKGROUND AND BEGINNINGS

During these early months of the Museum's life, its quarters were moved twice. The first move was from the "top of my desk," as Brinton wrote, to some "shelves put up for the purpose in my rooms in the Surgeon-General's office," then located in the old Riggs Bank Building (fig. 8) at the corner of President Place (now Pennsylvania Avenue) and 15th Street, NW., Washington, D.C. From these shelves, on the second floor rear of the bank building, the growing collection was soon removed to rooms in a building at 180 Pennsylvania



Avenue, NW., which stood on lots since numbered as 1719-1721 (fig. 9). While in this building, the first catalog was issued, but as increasing numbers of specimens came in from the hospitals and the field, new and larger quarters were imperatively demanded.

While he and Dr. Woodward were "pushing" on the medical and surgical history of the war, and compiling lists of sick and wounded, Dr. Brinton was scouting Washington, on the lookout for suitable quarters for the growing Museum. The only place he could find that was both suitable and available was a building on H Street, NW., between 13th and 14th Streets, opposite the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. The building, which belonged to the Washington philanthropist, W. W. Corcoran, is variously described in