NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE RECEIVES ARTIFACTS USED BY WORLD WAR I ARMY MEDICAL OFFICER
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The National Museum of Health and Medicine has received a U.S. Army map case used in France during World War I by U.S. Army Maj. Charles G. Mixter when he was an assistant surgeon for the U.S. Army's Fourth Corps under the command of Gen. Pershing. The case, 9 inches high and 5 ½ inches long when closed, opens to three panels 9 inches high and 16 ½ inches wide. It is made of brown leather, with a carrying strap, and closes with snaps. It contains a small, ¾-inch wide compass permanently affixed to the inside cover, and a folded map, dated 1912 of the Lorraine region of France, in an attached clear plastic pouch. Found inside the map case were special orders relieving Mixter of duty on Oct. 30, 1918, triage instructions, a sketch of traction apparatus, tips for treating non-transportable wounded, and blank forms.

The artifact was donated by Dr. Charles G. Mixter III of Exeter, N.H., a general surgeon on staff at Exeter Hospital known as a leader in the development of minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery. Medicine runs in the family, as Mixter's two brothers, Roger Conant Mixter, Jr. practices plastic surgery in Wisconsin and Thomas Van Ness Ballintine was a pediatric surgeon in Pennsylvania until his untimely death.

"Information on my grandfather is actually hard to find," Mixter said. "He was born in Swampscott, Mass. and I am not sure of the dates of birth or death."

Family records show that Mixter's grandfather attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School, and completed his surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was then a clinical professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, next the surgeon-in-chief at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, and finally a consulting surgeon at Children's Hospital in Boston.

Mixter's special interests were in the area of general surgery and he was known for his work in gallbladder surgery as an early advocate of cholangiography, which is the practice of using X-ray equipment to examine the bile ducts. He was also the inventor of a minimally invasive surgical instrument still in use today called the "Mixter Clamp."

The historical collection at the National Museum of Health and Medicine documents changes in medical technology since the early 17th century and includes objects ranging in size from a suture needle to a two-ton MRI magnet, such as X-ray equipment, microscopes, surgical instruments, numismatics, and anatomical models. The collection is made available for the education of medical professionals, Department of Defense personnel, historians, and the public through exhibits in the museum, loans to other institutions, and individualized study.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine was established in 1862 when U.S. Army Brig. Gen. William Alexander Hammond, the U.S. Army Surgeon General, issued orders that directed all Union Army medical officers "to collect, and to forward to the office of the Surgeon General all specimens of morbid anatomy, surgical or medical, which may be regarded as valuable; together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed, and such other matters as may prove of interest in the study of military medicine or surgery."

Today, the museum is an element of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), a tri-service Army, Navy, and Air Force agency of the Department of Defense with a threefold mission of consultation, education, and research. Within the AFIP there are 22 subspecialty departments with more than 120 pathologists. The board of the AFIP includes the surgeons general of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Public Health Service.

The museum's more than 24 million specimens and artifacts were the first in the country to be registered by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark and it is the only museum collection in Washington, D.C. with this status. 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. Docent led tours are offered to walk-in visitors at 1 p.m. on the second and fourth Saturday of each month. The web site is www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum and the telephone number is 202-782-2200. Admission and parking are free.