The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-09-19
IS A CHAMBER OF HORRORS.
SIGHTS THAT ARE To BE SEEN IL
THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM.


in Battle on ExhibitiOn-Legs and
Arms shown in Bottles of Alcohol
nj the NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. He
roes Who Frequently Cali 10 See
Parts of Themselves.
From the Chicago Chronicle.
washington.-when Uncle sam starts
cut to do anything in Washington he is
art to do it with commendable thorough
ness. A 1od many years ago he decided
that a national chamber Of horrors was
needed as an adjunct to government and
So lie created the Army Medical museum
The Army Medical museum has been Gre
ated long enough to have passed beyond
the stage of a novelty, vet it is one of the
least-known places in Washington. This
is partly because there is nothing in the
least inviting about either its aspect or
It's smell. 1t is, moreover, beautifully
adapted for upsetting the most robust APP
petite that ever a picnicker brought TO
the national capital. 1t probably contains
more actual suffering-and the ocular
proof of it-than any other place on this
globe. Wax models of nearly every I'M
pleasant disease known to mankind are
grouped around its galleries and there are
enough skeletons in the place to furnish
a good-sized cemetery. Some of these
skeletons are notabilities and some are
not. but as they are all hung up in a
row, spoon fashion, they have demo-
cratic community of their own. Thou
sands of soldiers who were found dead on
the battle fields of the late war and as
many more who died in the hospitals are
represented in the Army Medical museum
by fragments of their anatomy illustrat-
ing just how they died. There are bullet
cleft bones from every part of the human
Frame skulls which show where the muir
derous 45-ealiber bullet struck the center
of the forehead, and yet others showing
where a shell shattered its victims skull.
1t Is not in any sense a pleasant place
to visit and the book kept on file shows
that not many beyond medical men and
students visit the place. The museum is
located in a red brick building next to the
national museum, and it is by many peo
pie supposed to be a part of that museum.
The museum proper is on the second
floor, and the mere entrance to the place
would scare nervous people. Facing the
doorway is a gigantic model of a human
skull. fully six feet high, with its jaws
agape and every tooth showing. IL the
visitor braves that and gets within, he
is confronted by dozens of tall glass cases
which, in their turn contain bottles and
jars filled with the pallid remnants of
what once were men. 1t is not CONDUCIVE
to good appetite for dinner to find one
self close to a large but unhealthy look
ing liver, lying carelessly displayed in an
ordinary washbowl, with sheet of glass
laid over the top. Investigation will
show that the bowl is Theoretically sealed
and is filled with alcohol, but it doesn't
look like it at the first glance.
.cSina the lixarc tho visitor Mill And
some miscellaneous organs which have
suffered from gun, pistol or saber. All
have grewsome significance, but many
have an interest for the layman beyond
that which science attaches to them. All
exhibit in one of the cases near the door
shows a piece of human skin eight inches
square, which was cut from the breast of
soldier This has been tanned like ordi-
nary white kid and is displayed in a neat
mahogany frame. In life the soldier whose
skin is shown had tattooed upon his
breast the American eagle and the stars
ana stripes. Just to the lef of the flag
and right over the heart the artist has,
apparently in fun, depicted a human neart
transfxed by dagger with two imita-
ton drops of blood oozing from the wound.
AS a specimen of tattooing it is ordinary
enough, but there is another chapter TO
the story. Right by the side of the frame
containing the skin is jar containing a
human heart BY the side of that is
lls
and brief and technical medical ticket
tells the story of the tragedy. 1t tells
how the man whose heart was once COW
cred by that piece of parchment was
stabbed to the heart right through the
picture representation he bore on his
breast. The stab shows plainly enough on
the parchment. The pierced heart is pre-
served in alcohol with the knife beside
it. The man was killed by the very means
the unconscious artist had depicted on his
breast years before.
If the ground floor of the museum is try
ing to weak nerves the gallery can be
counted upon to give even an undertaker's
assistant a thrill. II is lined with cases
containing realistic wax models of every
horrible disease known to mankind. Some
of the faces shown there are so hideous
in their suffering that they lnger in the
memory for days. Leprosy is all its types
is depicted. Smallpox has it's case, and so
on through the gamut of disease and
death. Not all the wax models are in the
galleries. There are two downstairs
which are possibly intended to head off
any investigation into the figures up
stairs. One is a lifelike reproduction of
a sailor who, according to the label on
him, was in the American navy. He is
afflicted with a trouble to which the scien-
lists give a siX-jointed name, but which
ordinary people call ''grog blossom" His
nose is swelled to the size of Corbetts
fist and is cplored a bright red. The fig
ure is contentedly. smoking pipe and
the work is so perfectly executed that it
is hard to believe the head is wax. Right
beside the sailor is another model Of the
head of a negro prince Great pendulous
pouches of skin hang from his jaws and
throat and the underlip is drawn away
from the shining teeth. There are other
things about this head which make it I'M
appetizing.
Not all the men whose debris fills the
cases of the Army medical museum died
on the field of battle. Some of them died
on the end of a rope, for the government
has kindly turned over to the museum the
bodies of at least two or three criminals
whom it had found. necessary to execute.
Two of the greatest criminals of Ameri-
can history are aIso represented here. In a
Jar of alcohol differing little from a dozen
others around it is the spleen of Guiteau.
II IS exhibited, not because it is the spleen
OF Guiteau, but simply because it is a re-
markably big spleen and shows something
OIL the ravages of malaria. The label says
the organ is twice the normal size, and
Is thought to have had a great deal to
40 with his mental condition. Right across
the aisle. in another alcohol bath, hangs
me spinal cord of Booth, the assassin of