THE U.S. ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT FOLLOWING THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR, AS DEPICTED IN A GROUP OF 15 ORIGINAL PHOTOS.
[Washington, D.C.? ca. 1899]. A collection of photos, several showing the medical training or treatment of service men. Ten of the images, 5 x 7 in., are mounted on stiff card stock, the other five, 4 3/4 x 6 1/2 in., are not mounted. All the photos are very good, clear. In twelve of the images, the same Army medical doctor [Frank G. Atwood] is shown: using a skeleton to teach anatomy to a group of privates (1); bandaging the head of an injured soldier who sits beside a bed with a blanket belonging to the "U.S.A. Med. Dept. 1887" (1); attending a bed-ridden patient (3) or a patient in his office (1); examining the teeth of other service men (3); listening to the heart of another soldier using his ear (1); preparing medicines (1); and with his horse and medical bag, presumably on the grounds of a post hospital (1). The remaining photos show another man bandaging the ankle of an officer (1); an examination table on a swivel base (1); and a troop of soldiers standing at attention with their rifles on a parade ground (1). These photos are likely all from Atwood's time at the U.S. Army medical department in Washington, D.C. Item #66627
Dr. Frank G. Atwood was born in Woodbury, Connecticut in 1875. He studied veterinary science at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1896. He also took post-graduate courses at Yale Medical School, and at Johns Hopkins University, studying general medicine and surgery. At the outbreak of the Spanish American War he served with the Medical Department of the U.S. Army in Cuba caring for the sick and injured soldiers there. Following the conflict he returned to Washington, D.C. "where he was stationed at the General Hospital in the medical department of the United States army caring for the sick and wounded in the capital city for ten months, when he returned to New Haven and resumed the practice of the veterinary science." [see: "Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County," by Everett G. Hill (NY: 1918), Vol. II, pp. 704-5 ]. Dr. Frank G. Atwood advertised his services as a veterinarian in a W.C.T.U. community cookbook publication, "Proved Receipts," from Clinton, Madison, and Guilford, Connecticut (1904), and included his photograph which helped to identify him as the physician in these photos.
His obituary, published in the New York Times on Sept. 15, 1936, states that as a "pioneer research student under Dr. Osler, he was active in the Spanish War in the work to stamp out yellow fever." He also operated a large veterinary hospital in New Haven, Connecticut for a quarter century.
Price: $950.00