fireproof building, adequate for the present needs and reasonable future expansion of these valuable collections. Such a building should be absolutely fireproof; no expenditure for mere architectural display is required. It is believed that a suitable structure can be erected at a cost not to exceed $250,000." 3[1]
The movement for a new building was furthered by Surgeon General Barnes in a letter of December 1881, to Secretary of War Robert T. Lincoln, son of the President. The Library, he said, contained 51,500 volumes and 57,000 pamphlets, while the 22,000 specimens of the Museum were "unique in the completeness with which both military surgery and the diseases of armies are illustrated." These collections, he added, "although originally founded chiefly" for purposes of military medicine, "have proved to have manifold uses in connection with the general progress of medical science in the United States, especially in relations to the public health, uses which are perhaps of equal importance to the nation."
As to the worth in money to be placed on the collections, The Surgeon General wrote that the value of that part of the Government property collected in the old building "which could be replaced by money" could not be less than $250,000, but that "much of it could never be replaced, either by time or money."
Surgeon General Barnes had the satisfaction of seeing his recommendation approved by Secretary Lincoln on 6 January 1882, and made the subject of a special message to Congress by President Chester A. Arthur, on die 19th of the same month. 4[2]
On 28 February 1883, almost at the end of the second and final session of the 47th Congress, and too late for further action, the House Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds reported favorably on the bill, H.R. 7681, appropriating $200,000 for a building in the vicinity of the National Museum and the Smithsonian Institution:
The collections of records, books, and museum specimens, * * * in imminent danger of destruction, are of great national importance * * *. The Library now contains about 70,000 volumes * * *. The museum is by far the best collection of materials relating to military medicine and surgery in existence. They number over 20,000 specimens * * *. Some 40,000 persons visited the museum during the year 1881 * * *.
The medical profession throughout the country have presented to the committee a large mass of testimony commending the unequaled collections, both of the Library and
- ↑ 3 Documents with Reference to Proposed Building for the Army Medical Museum and Library of the Surgeon General's Office" — Copy of Report No. 1991, annex B, Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, on H.R. 7681, 47th Congress, 2d session, 28 February 1883.
- ↑ 4 Senate Executive Document 65, 47th Congress, 1st session.
