Kappes

THE MAIN HALL OF THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM.—WASHINGTON. This Museum occupies the scene of the assassinati. n of Presiden! Lincoln, in Ford's Theatre, which after that date became the property of the Government. It contains a collection of upwards of twenty thousand rare, curious and interesting objects, surpassing any similar collection in the world. It is visited annually by upwards of twenty-five thousand

persons.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM-ITS CURIOSITIES AND WONDERS.

Ford's Theatre-Its Interesting Memories-The Last Festivities-Assassination of President Lincoln-Two Years Later-Effects of "War, Disease, and Human Skill"-Collection of Pathological Specimens—The Army Medical Museum Opened-Purchase of Ford's Theatre-Its Present Aspect-Ghastly Specimens-Medical and Surgical Histories of the War-The Library-A Book Four Centuries Old-Rare Old VolumesThe Most Interesting of the National Institutions-Various OpinionsEffects on Visitors-An Extraordinary Withered Arm-A Dried Sioux Baby-Its Poor Little Nose-A Well-dressed Child-Its Buttons and Beads-Casts of Soldier-Martyrs-Making a New Nose-Vassear's Mounted Craniums-Model Skeletons-A Giant, Seven Feet High-Skeleton of a Child-All that Remains of Wilkes Booth, the Assassin-Fractures by Shot and Shell-General Sickles Contributes His Quota-A Case of Skulls-Arrow-head Wounds-Nine Savage Sabre-Cuts-Seven Bullets in One Head-Phenomenal Skulls-A Powerful Nose-An Attempted Suicide-A Proverb Corrected--Specimen from the Paris CatacombsAn "Interesting Case "-Typical Heads of the Human Race-Remarkable Indian Relics-"Flatheads "--The Work of Indian Arrows-An Extraordinary Story-A "Pet" Curiosity-A Japanese Manikin-Tattooed Heads-Representatives of Animated Nature-Adventure of Captain John Smith-A "Stingaree "-The Microscopical Division-Medical Records of the War-Preparing Specimens.

THE building in which Abraham Lincoln was assassin

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Tated will always retain a deep and sad interest in

the mind of the American people. It was well that it should be consecrated to a national purpose. None could be more fit than to make it the repository of the Pathological and Surgical results of the war,

From the dark hour of the great martyr's death, the light and music of amusement never again animated these dark halls. But in two years from the day of the tragedy, its doors were opened to the people, to come in and behold what war, disease, death, and human skill had wrought.

In obedience to an order from the War Department, issued in 1862, thousands of pathological specimens had accumulated in the office of the Surgeon-General. An ample and fit receptacle was needed for their proper care and display. And April 13, 1867, the old Ford Theatre, on Tenth street, between E and F, was opened as the Army Medical Museum.

Congress had already purchased the building of Mr. Ford, and used it for a time as the receptacle for the captured archives of the Confederate Government. Before it was opened as the Army Museum, its interior had been entirely remodeled, retaining nothing of the original building but the outside walls. It has been made fire-proof, aud is exclusively devoted to the uses of the Museum. The third story is the Museum hall, lined on its four sides with pictures and glass cases filled with ghastly specimens, beside many more in the interior of the room.

Over a square railing, in the centre of the hall, you look down upon the second story, and through that to the first. The lower floor is filled with busy clerks, sitting at tables, writing out the medical and surgical histories of the war.

The second floor, which is reached by light spiral stairs from the first, is largely devoted to the very valuable Medical and Surgical Library, which has been collected

THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM.

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since the opening of the Museum. It now numbers thirty-eight thousand volumes, some of which are rare books of extreme value. One of these was among the earliest of printed volumes. The art of printing was first used to give to the world religious and medical books. This treasure of the Medical Museum was published at Venice, in 1480, and is the work of Petrus de Argelata. It is bound and illuminated in vellum. Another choice book, is a copy of Galen, which once belonged to the Dutch anatomist, Vierodt, and copiously annotated by him. These, and many other valuable books, have been bought by the agents of the Museum, abroad, while many others have been received as contributions from physicians, and scientific societies interested in the growth of this national institution.

Louis Bagger, in a late number of Appleton's Journal, speaks of the Army Medical Museum as one of the most interesting, but least visited, of all the national institutions in Washington. It cannot fail to be one of the most absorbing spots on earth to the student of surgery or medicine; but to the unscientific mind, especially to one still aching with the memories of war, it must ever remain a museum of horrors. Its many bones, which never ached, and which have survived their painful sheaths of mortal flesh, all cool and clean, and rehung on golden threads, are not unpleasant to behold. But those faces in frames, eaten by cancer or lost in tumors, which you look up to as you enter, are horrible enough to haunt one forever (if you are not scientific) with the thought of what human flesh is heir to.

No! the Museum is a very interesting, but can never be a popular place to visit. I doubt if a sight at the Sioux