First plans for the Library-Museum building, 1880, drawn by the architectural firm of Cluss & Schulze, following instructions of Billings. The Library wing is on the left, Museum wing on the right.

the world.... There are filed in the Record and Pension Division, over sixteen thousand (16,000) bound volumes of hospital records. . . . Aside from their historical value, these records are daily searched for evidence needed in the settlement of large numbers of pension and other claims, for the protection of

the Government against attempted frauds, as well as for the benefit of honest claimants. These valuable collections are now in a building which is peculiarly exposed to the danger of destruction by fire. . . .

Perhaps because the Hayes administration and the 46th Congress were both nearing their end no further action was taken, but Barnes and Billings had succeeded in opening the door.

The following year, with a new President in office and a new Congress soon to convene, Surgeon General Barnes repeated his request for a building. Secretary of War Robert T. Lincoln agreed that Barnes had a good case, and forwarded the proposal to President Chester A. Arthur, who approved and transmitted the communications to the Senate and House on January 19, 1882. Both houses printed pertinent documents on the proposed building.

Barnes, Billings, and other officers now had to persuade Congress to agree. The general offered to guide Representative James Singleton and other members of the House Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (the committee that would decide whether or not a new building should be constructed) through Ford's, and show them the condition of the structure. At least one congressman, Representative Strother Stockslager, toured Ford's with the Surgeon General and later emphasized its unsafe state during debate. 10 Barnes also went to Capitol Hill and talked to the House Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds."

Without detracting from the importance of General Barnes' (and his successors, General Charles Crane's and Robert Murray's) talks and correspondence with members of Congress, it appears that almost all of the lobbying for the proposed building was directed by Billings. When the Senate and House referred the President's message to committees on public buildings, Billings made a list of the names and home towns of each member of the House committee. 12 He then wrote to prominent physicians in the home states of these congressmen, explained the necessity for a library-museum building, and asked them to influence their legislators. Thus he began a letter writing campaign that would last more than 3 years to encourage American physicians to persuade representatives and senators to vote for the building.

Owing to his voluminous correspondence in search of books, journals, and other medical literature; his founding of Index Medicus; his manifold activities in the American Public Health Association, American Medical Association, and National Board of Health; and the publication of Index-Catalogue; Billings was known to and respected by medical editors and leaders in state and national medical societies. Therefore when he asked physicians to help obtain a new building for the national medical Library and museum, many of them responded enthusiastically. William Pepper, professor at the University of Pennsylvania medical school, and Horatio C. Wood, professor in the same school and editor of Philadelphia Medical Times, contacted Representative Shallenberger. James G. Thomas, past president of the Georgia State Medical Association, wrote to Representative Philip Cook, and also asked a Dr. Cooper of Cook's home town.

to influence the congressman. Professor Austin Flint, Jr. of Bellevue Hospital Medical College wrote to Frank Hiscock, a powerful member of the House Committee on Appropriations. A physician whose identity we do not know of Scranton, Pennsylvania, persuaded a score of his colleagues to send a petition to Representative Joseph Scranton. Jerome Cochran, professor at Medical College of Alabama; William W. Dawson, professor at Medical College of Ohio and a future president of the American Medical Association; David W. Yandell, editor of American Practitioner in Louisville, Kentucky; Thomas Wood, editor of North Carolina Medical Journal; and James F. Hibberd, past president of the Medical Society of Indiana, promised to help. 13

Billings, his associates or his friends, had petitions printed for physicians to sign and send to congressmen. Billings kept a supply at hand to pass out on request. 14 Christopher Johnson, professor at University of Maryland Medical School and former president of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, obtained the signatures of 32 physicians on a petition and presented it to Representative Robert McLane. Robert A. Kinloch, professor at Medical College of South Carolina and former editor of Charleston Medical Journal, circularized petitions and also talked with a Carolina senator. Claudius H. Mastin, a future president of the American Surgical Association, passed around a petition which he presented to Representative Hilary Herbert and also chatted with his friend Senator John Morgan, who agreed to back the building. Granville P. Conn, secretary of New Hampshire Medical Society, James R. Chadwick, founder of Boston Medical Library, and William Pepper circulated petitions. 15 Representative Perry Belmont received a petition signed by Fordyce Barker, Austin Flint, Cornelius R. Agnew, and other physicians; Representative Will Aldrich received a petition from 22 physicians and surgeons of Chicago; Representative Leopold Morse heard from physicians of Boston and Representative Stanton Peelle from Theophilus Parvin, Allison Maxwell, and other physicians of Indianapolis. 16

Several editors publicized the campaign for a building through editorials, published letters, and new items. John V. Shoemaker of Medical Bulletin, Philadelphia, told Billings to send a memo of the facts that he would like to have emphasized and Shoemaker would write an editorial. The first editorial, "A new building wanted," appeared in the March 1882 issue. It noted the size and usefulness of the museum, Library, and Civil War record collection, the crowded, unsafe state of the building, and ended with this appeal:

Let every physician consider the cause his own, and work earnestly for its success. Speak at once to your senators and representatives, telling them how important it is that this subject should receive favorable consideration and prompt action. Write to them when the bill is introduced and get your friends to do likewise, and we are certain that the present Congress will perform its duty and provide a suitable edifice for the treasures of the Surgeon General's Office.

Thereafter as the occasion demanded Shoemaker ran news items about the Library, museum, building, and Index-Catalogue."

TO THE HON

My Dear Sir:

We desire to call your special attention to the application for a fire-proof building for the Army Medical Museum and Library at Washington, which is now before the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds of the House and Senate respectively, and to respectfully urge that you exert your best influence to have this application granted with the least possible delay.

This Library is now the most complete and valuable collection of its kind in existence, and its practical utility to all medical writers and teachers in this country will be greatly increased by the publication of its Index Catalogue, which, so far as issued, has received the highest praise in all parts of the world, and which should be finished as rapidly as is possible consistent with preserving the completeness and accuracy which characterize the volumes already printed.

The Museum is also in its way the most complete in the world, and with the Library forms a contribution to Scientific and Practical Medicine of which we, as American Physicians, are justly proud.

At present these collections are stored in a building which is not fire-proof. is situated in the midst of highly inflammable buildings, is entirely too small to permit of the proper display and management of their materials, and is so unsuited to its purpose that they should not remain in it a day longer than is necessary.

In this connection we invite your special attention to the importance of keeping the Library and Museum together, as being mutually illustrative and used by the same investigators. We would respectfully but strongly protest

One of several petitions drawn up by Billings or one of his friends, to be signed by physicians and presented to Congress.

Thomas Minor, a prolific contributor to Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic, informed Billings that he would write about the institutions and he did. Lancet-Clinic gave the proposed building some of its earliest publicity, a long published letter by William Dawson in January 1882. 1 Henry C. Lea published editorials and items in his weekly Medical News. After Congress failed to take up legislation for the building in 1882, Lea told his readers:19

18

against the proposal, which we understand has been made, to have this Library transferred to the building which is to be provided for the National Library, and thus to separate it from the Museum and remove it from the management which has made it so successful.

It is our opinion that special Scientific Libraries should be in the same buildings with the Museums, Laboratories, Observatories, etc., which pertain to their special subjects, and should be under the direction of men specially familiar with them-who will thus have the strongest inducement to do good work, and who will have the cordial co-operation of all those specially interested in the

matter.

The Library of the Surgeon General's Office is practically the Medical Section of the National Library, but it should not be merged with the latter nor be in the same building with it.

The completeness and prosperity of this Library is a matter of great interest to the medical profession of this country; it is the one thing by which the National Government can give powerful aid to scientific medicine and a higher medical education, and we sincerely hope that this Congress will not adjourn without having granted the request for a new building or having made the necessary appropriations for continuing the Index Catalogue, and for obtaining every new medical book and journal as soon as published.

Begging you to give this matter your special attention and favorable consideration, we are

Yours, very respectfully,

It is the clear duty as well as interest of the profession to bestir itself in this matter. Let every physician who can, either in person or by letter, convey his views to a senator or congressman, urge upon him the importance of providing a fireproof building for the library and museum (which ought never to be separated), of keeping the library under the control of the Surgeon General, and of providing for the completion of its index catalogue, the usefulness of which can hardly be overestimated.

And Lea listed the names and states of representatives on the committee in charge of library legislation.