SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
BULLETIN 240

SMITHSONIAN PRESS

MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Contributions
From the
Museum
of History and
Technology

Papers 34-44
On Science and Technology

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION · WASHINGTON, D.C. 1966

Publications of the United States National Museum

The scholarly and scientific publications of the United States National Museum include two series, Proceedings of the United States National Museum and United States National Museum Bulletin.

In these series, the Museum publishes original articles and monographs dealing with the collections and work of its constituent museums—The Museum of Natural History and the Museum of History and Technology—setting forth newly acquired facts in the fields of anthropology, biology, history, geology, and technology. Copies of each publication are distributed to libraries, to cultural and scientific organizations, and to specialists and others interested in the different subjects.

The Proceedings, begun in 1878, are intended for the publication, in separate form, of shorter papers from the Museum of Natural History. These are gathered in volumes, octavo in size, with the publication date of each paper recorded in the table of contents of the volume.

In the Bulletin series, the first of which was issued in 1875, appear longer, separate publications consisting of monographs (occasionally in several parts) and volumes in which are collected works on related subjects. Bulletins are either octavo or quarto in size, depending on the needs of the presentation. Since 1902 papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum of Natural History have been published in the Bulletin series under the heading Contributions from the United States National Herbarium, and since 1959, in Bulletins titled “Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology,” have been gathered shorter papers relating to the collections and research of that Museum.

The present collection of Contributions, Papers 34-44, comprises Bulletin 240. Each of these papers has been previously published in separate form. The year of publication is shown on the last page of each paper.

Frank A. Taylor
Director, United States National Museum

Contributions from
The Museum of History and Technology:
Paper 43



History of the Division of Medical Sciences

Sami Hamarneh

SECTION OF MATERIA MEDICA (1881-1898) 272

DIVISION OF MEDICINE (1898-1939) 276

DIVISION OF MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH (1939-1957) 281

DIVISION OF MEDICAL SCIENCES (1957 TO PRESENT) 290

A NEW DIMENSION FOR THE HEALING ARTS 292

FOOTNOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY 297

INDEX

Figure 1.—Early View of the United States National Museum, known for the last quarter of a century as the Arts and Industries building. Completed in 1881, it housed the Division of Medical Sciences from its establishment in 1881 as a Section of Materia Medica to the time of the writing of this paper. While the medical collection remained in the Department of Arts and Industries, by the end of June 1912 practically all other collections belonging to the fields of natural history and anthropology were transferred to the then new Natural History building.

Sami Hamarneh

HISTORY of the DIVISION of MEDICAL SCIENCES
In The Museum of History and Technology

By the early 1870’s, leading figures from both the health professions and the general public had begun to realize the necessity for having the medical sciences represented in the Smithsonian Institution. The impetus behind this new feeling resulted from the action of a distinguished American physician, philanthropist, and author, Joseph Meredith Toner (1825-1896), and came almost a decade before the integration of a new section concerned with research and the historical and educational aspects of the healing arts in the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1872, Dr. Toner established the “Toner Lectures” to encourage efforts towards discovering new truths “for the advancement of medical science ... for the benefit of mankind.” To finance these lectures, he provided a fund worth approximately $3,000 to be administered by a board of trustees consisting of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (only in some years), and the president of the Medical Society of the District of