Daily National Republican

WHAT IS DONE AT THE SURGEON GENERAL'S OFFICE.
A visit to the office of the Surgeon General is at the present time full of interest. Not only are the daily medical wants of our immense army being supplied, but material is being garnered and treasured up for the future advancement of military medicine and surgery. And this is as it should be, for it is well that the lessons now so painfully learned should not be altogether forgotten and passed over. The war, with its long train of evils, should at least furnish material by the knowledge of which suffering may hereafter be lightened, and the pangs of the wounded of future conflicts alleviated. From the "monthly report of sick and wounded," forwarded to the medical department, results of the highest value can be obtained.
This report is required by the regulations of the Medical Department to be transmitted monthly by every medical officer in charge of sick or wounded in the armies of the United States. When all are received, they collectively represent the condition of the disabled troops as they are found, not only under the care of their regimental surgeon, but also in the numerous general hospitals scattered throughout the land.
In making this monthly report, the medical officer is directed to insert in an appropriate tabular form the character and locality of all gunshot wounds; the nature of the missile producing them; the general treatment to which the patients have been subjected, and the final result of the case. Whenever it happens that the treatment of any patient may not yet have been terminated, the case is inserted in a column "remaining still under treatment."
The sending of this report is rigidly enforced, and surgeons delinquent in this respect are severely reprimanded. As soon as all reports for any given month or quarter are received into the Surgeon General's Office, the labor of consolidation is at once commenced.
To Surgeon J. H. Brinton, U. S. A., has been assigned the task of revising, consolidating, and preparing for publication the great mass of surgical material which is being daily accumulated. This consolidation is in itself a work of very considerable labor, and great caution is required in reducing the matter to such form as may be suitable for publication. Errors of every sort abound, and must be carefully eliminated before the work can be looked upon as in any way reliable. The consolidation above alluded to is effected in the following manner:
All the monthly reports of wounded received are carefully scrutinized; those in which inaccuracies are detected are at once returned to their authors for correction; those found to be correct pass into the hands of the clerks for analysis and transference to the consolidated tables. All injuries of a similar nature occurring in the U. S. A. general hospitals are thus collected on separate sheets, and the addition of certain columns marked "wounds received," "Returned to duty," "Discharged the service," "Died," "Remaining under treatment," indicate the number of cases of any given injury. Thus, by a single glance at the sheets headed "Gunshot fracture of the arm," may be detected the number of these injuries which have been received in any given quarter, throughout the entire army of the United States, the mortality attending them, and the number still remaining under treatment.
The results thus obtained are not to be looked upon as of mere theoretical and scientific nature; on the contrary, they possess, for the practical surgeon daily called upon to treat injuries received in battle, the highest possible value. For, by a careful study of the combined experience of the many able medical men now in the service of their country, it is certain that not only may new and useful modes of treatment be introduced, but, at the same time, objectionable doctrines and practices now in vogue be modified or abandoned.
The materials being now collected in the manner above described, exceed in extent any which have ever yet been presented to the surgical world. It has never happened in any previous war, on the part of any nation, that such strenuous efforts have been made, not only for the welfare of the soldier, but also for the advancement of professional learning. It is fortunate, indeed, for the interests of the medical profession, that the gentleman now filling the responsible office of Surgeon General combines at once the qualities of the accomplished surgeon and the man of science.
Another feature in the office of the Surgeon General is the Army Medical Museum. This institution was founded in August last by the present Surgeon General. At this moment the collection numbers nearly fifteen hundred objects, and is being daily and rapidly increased. The first printed catalogue, we are informed, is already in press. Short as has been the time which has elapsed since its formation, it is already the largest and most complete representation in the world of the fearful character of gunshot injuries.
But the object desired to be obtained by the Surgeon General in the formation of this museum was other than the mere bringing together of objects calculated to gratify a morbid curiosity. His aim was to unite. It was to present to the military surgeon, in a true light, the real nature of those wounds for which his profession and skill are every day invoked; to show to him their importance and their gravity; and to point out to him the true indications of treatment. The lesson which an examination of the collection thus most weightily imports, and strongly insists upon, is the necessity of some such special study to fit the practitioner of civil life for the arduous duties of the military surgeon. It was to aid this laudable enterprise of the Surgeon General that Congress, in its recent session, appropriated the sum of five thousand dollars. From what we have ourselves seen, of the present condition of the cabinet, we are well satisfied of the wisdom of such a grant.
We believe, in truth, that this museum, and the teachings which can be deduced from it, will hereafter go far towards training, for the service of the army, a class of men educated and informed, as to their duties, and well fitted to meet and fulfill the responsibility and labors of the military surgeon.