Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1941

WILLIAM ALEXANDER HAMMOND (1828-1900) A treatise on hygiene with special reference to the military service. J. B. Lippincott 1863 xvi, 13-604 pp., 2 plates (front., double plate (plans)), 74 illus. 23 cm.

Hammond, one of the founders of neurology in the United States, was born in Annapolis, Maryland and studied medicine at the University of the City of New York where he graduated in 1848. After a year at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, he entered the Army Medical Department as an assistant surgeon. Hammond served at various posts in New Mexico, Kansas, Florida, and at West Point before resigning from the service in 1860 to become professor of anatomy and physiology at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he reentered the Army where his outstanding performance earned him appointment as Surgeon General in 1862. Unfortunately he clashed with Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and was ultimately dismissed from military service in 1864. Following his dismissal from the Army, he moved to New York where he established what soon became a highly successful neurology practice. He became a lecturer in neurology at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons, professor of neurology at the University of the City of New York, and also later at the Bellevue Hospital Medical College. Hammond was vindicated by Congress in 1878, restored to his former rank, and given full retirement benefits. He then returned to Washington, D.C. where he remained in private practice until his death. During Hammond's tenure as Surgeon General he accomplished many reforms which transformed the medical services of the army and made them much more efficient and effective. Hammond's many achievements included the institution of a major program of hospital construction, creation of a special hospital and ambulance corps, inauguration of the Medical and surgical history of the War of the Rebellion (see No. 2300), and establishment of the Army Medical Museum which is now the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. It was during his extremely busy time as Surgeon General that the present work on military hygiene was written and published. Hygienic standards were still very poor in the United States Army and soldiers often died because of inadequate medical care, poor sanitary conditions, and lack of attention to proper shelter and nutrition. Hammond noted that there was no comprehensive, up-to-date treatise on the subject and so he prepared this work to meet that need. A thorough and detailed book, it contains many of the ideas and principles that Hammond instituted in his reform of the army medical service.

See Related Record(s): 2300