NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE RECEIVES DENTIST'S WORLD WAR II SLIDES, PHOTOGRAPHS AND U.S. MILITARY RECORDS

The National Museum of Health and Medicine has received slides, photographs and military records from the estate of U.S. Army Maj. John J. Lucas, D.D.S., who died in 1993 at the age of 82. He served as a dentist aboard the Shamrock, a U.S. Army hospital ship, for nearly a full year during World War II.

Lucas enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942 and served briefly as a first lieutenant with the Dental Corps of the 67th Medical Regiment at Camp Barkeley in Texas before being deployed to Europe aboard the Shamrock. As a dental officer he was responsible for examining, diagnosing, and treating diseases, abnormalities, injuries and defects of the teeth. He also performed oral surgery as required.

During World War II the U.S. Army Transport Service operated 26 hospital ships and 3 foreign-flag ships, which were manned by civilian crews. The medical staff was Army personnel. The bed capacity for all of the Army hospital ships was 26,755. Individual ship capacities varied from 286 to 1,628.

Most of the hospital ships were former passenger liners/troopships that were disarmed, repainted, and rearranged for hospital use. The Shamrock, which entered World War II service on Sept. 4, 1943, was previously known as the Comfort, Havana, Yucatan, and Agwileon. While aboard the Shamrock, Lucas was part of military campaigns in Naples, Rome and the south of France.

Lucas was discharged in early 1946 with the rank of major and had received two campaign ribbons and three service stars.

After his discharge, Lucas was a dentist at the Hershey Industrial School, later renamed the Milton Hershey School, in Hershey, Pa., where he also lived. He started a private practice in Hershey in 1951. He retired in 1992.

A 1933 graduate of the Temple University School of Dentistry in Philadelphia, Lucas had a private dental practice at two offices in the Scranton, Pa. area before he enlisted.

He was a past president of the Pennsylvania. Society of Dentistry for Children, receiving its distinguished service award, which was renamed the "John J. Lucas Distinguished Service Award". He was also a life member and served as president of the Harrisburg Area Dental Society, Fifth District Dental Society, and the Pennsylvania Academy of General Dentistry.

Lucas held fellowships in the American College of Dentists, the International College of Dentists, the Academy of General Dentistry, and the American Society of Dentistry for Children. He was a member of the American Dental Association.

He was active in Scouting for more than 50 years, serving as district chairman and executive board member of the Keystone Area Council and was a recipient of Scouting's Order of Merit, Silver Beaver Award, and the St. George Scouting Award.

"He practiced dentistry for 59 years," said his son-in-law, Alan Frame of York, Pa. "He received many awards for service to his profession and community."

"My father never stopped learning about his profession or what he could do for others," added his daughter, Mary Ellen Lucas Frame, who noted that she found her father's scrapbooks and other paperwork concerning the Shamrock when she was cleaning out her parents' home and decided to donate everything to the museum after talking to the museum's archivist. "We felt that since the Shamrock was an integral part of World War II whatever information there was on it needed to be preserved."

The donation was handled by Michael Rhode, archivist, and Tabitha Oglesby, assistant archivist of the Otis Historical Archives, which holds manuscripts, documents, archives, films, prints, slides, paintings, photographs, illustrations, and institutional records related to health and medicine. Material includes the records of the Army Medical Museum and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, but all material is not necessarily institutionally related.

There is a small reference library with journals and monographs. The archival collections consist of more than 400 collections that are about 3,000 linear feet and if laid end to end would stretch for over a mile. Of this, there are about 1,000 films and about 300,000 photographs in all media dating from the 1850s.The collections are strongest in the late 19th and early 20th century periods. For more about Otis Historical Archives, look at www.natmedmuse.afip.org/collections/archives/archives1.html.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine, founded to study and improve medical conditions during the American Civil War, is an element of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Its specimens and artifacts were the first museum collection in the country and are currently the only in Washington, D.C. to be registered by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark.

The Secretary of the Interior, who has designated only 2,340 districts, sites, buildings, and structures for listing in the National Register, selected the museum's collection because of its "exceptional value in commemorating and illustrating the history of the United States." The museum is open every day except Dec. 25 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The museum is located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Ave. and Elder Street, NW, Washington, D.C. The web site is www.natmedmuse.afip.org and the telephone number is 202-782-2200. Admission and parking are free.