Number One

Shortly after Surgeon General Joseph Barnes asked John Shaw Billings to devote all his spare time to the Library in late 1867, Billings determined to itemize the collection, introducing for the first time unique identification numbers to each volume, and then to publish an updated catalogue. The collection had been formally inventoried only three times previously. Barnes had an inventory published in 1864, the first since the initial 1840 list. A revised listing was issued in 1865.

For the 1867-68 catalogue, Billings assigned a number to each volume in the collection. This system of enumeration was then continued, after number 6,984, for each volume acquired by the library and so served as an accession number.

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It is unknown why this volume was given the first number. Although the author's name might indicate an alphabetical orientation, it is neither the earliest alphabetical entry nor does the subsequent enumeration follow that pattern. Noteworthy, however, is that the book was given to the Library in 1865 by George A. Otis, who at the time was working in the Surgeon General's Office in both the Library and the Medical Museum on the compilation of the surgical history of the war.

The Albinus book also bears the bookplate of Dr. James Drew McCaw. From 1856 to 1859, while living in Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Otis co-edited the Virginia Medical Journal. His partner at the publication was Dr. James Brown McCaw, whose grandfather was Dr. James Drew McCaw. In 1859 Otis left Richmond for Springfield, Massachusetts, and seems to have been given this book, which was inherited by his friend.

Items from the Surgeon General's Library