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BROADENING THE BASE Action in support of the new building taken by local, county, and State medical societies in at least 19 States was reported to the Congress by the special committee of the American Medical Association, which also addressed its own communication to Congress on behalf of the national association, stressing "the urgent need to secure the preservation and full benefits" of the Museum and Library. "These collections," the committee said, "already the largest and most valuable of their kind in the world, are of the greatest importance, not only to the physicians of this country but to all whose welfare and lives depend on medical skill; and hence what we ask is emphatically for the general good." 6

Before further action toward a new building was taken, Surgeon General Barnes, who had retired in 1882, died in April 1883. His successor in office, Charles H. Crane, who had been Assistant Surgeon General since 1863, also died in October 1883, and was succeeded as Surgeon General by Robert Murray. 7

General Murray continued to press the movement for a new building, filing with Congress a printed document setting forth the "imperative need of such a building" and the "pressing necessity of placing in security these collections, probably the most valuable of the kind in the world." 8

General Murray's submittal was in support of bills introduced in the Senate by Senator Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut (S. 403) and in the House by Gen. William S. Rosecrans, Representative from California (H.R. 48), in December 1883, in the early days of the first session of the 48th Congress. 9 On 13 December 1883, Secretary Lincoln, renewed his recommendation, remarking that he did so the more strongly because the appropriation of $200,000