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Very Good. The price is for the collection of seven (7) photographs. Each photograph is 7.5" x 9.5" and is mounted on 11" x 14" heavy card stock. A description is printed on a separate piece of paper, mounted on the verso of the card stock. Three photographs (nos. 302, 304, 311) have a gilt caption on the recto of the card stock, with the number entered in ink: Surgical Photograph No. __/ Prepared under the supervision of Assistant Surgeon George A. Otis, U.S.A./ By Order of the Surgeon General./ War Department./ Surgeon General's Office, Army Medical Museum. Four photographs (nos. 187, 319, 328, 331) have a printed caption at the bottom of the verso of the card stock: Surgeon General's Office./ Army Medical Museum./ Surgical Photographic Series. "There are 400 Surgical Photographs. They are also known as the Photographic Series, especially in contemporary Museum correspondence, but as more series were createdthis term proved inadequate. Most of these photographs were taken at the Army Medical Museum in the 1860s and 1870s to illustrate interestingsurgical operations or difficulties. The photographs usually show either a damaged bone or a soldier showing his wound. . . . Some of the photographs . . . were distributed individually when requested. . . . The photographs were also bound in volumes of 50 to make an eight-volume set titled Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens. The first volume of 50 photographs was printed in an edition of 40 sets which were distributed to Medical Directors in the Union Army. By January 1869, the next three volumes containing photographs 51 through 200, along with the first volume, were being made available to interested parties, including the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland. In 1871, the first five volumes were formally published as Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens taken at the Army Medical Museum. The final three volumes had apparently been published by late 1881 to complete the set. . . . Otis wrote 375 of the 400 labels used in the Surgical Photographs. Otis' labels on the reverse of the photographs are packed with information. . . . After the title, the patient was identified, usually by name, rank, company, regiment and state. . . . The particulars of the case are given in a succinct manner with proper credit to the doctors concerned in the case. The battle in which the soldier was wounded is identified" (from the Preface by Michael Rhode to Photographic Atlas of Civil War Injuries: Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens, Otis Historical Archives, Edited by Bradley Bengtson & Julian Kuz, pp. vi-viii). ABE allows for only 5 photographs per listing. I have included four of the seven photographs, and the description on the verso of one of the photographs. I can supply photos of the other three photographs upon request, as well as the caption on the verso of each photograph. Other references for this series of Civil War photographs are: Frank Freemon, Microbes and Minie Balls. An Annotated Bibliography of Civil War Medicine, p. 131; and Stanley Burns, American Medical Publications with Photographs, p. 1233. Seller Inventory # 16391
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