Wesley

POWELL, John Wesley; John S Billings, Bernhard OrnsteinABAA

Autograph Letter Signed and accompanying Albumen Photograph of a Tailed Man 1879-80

1879ref. 422485Washington D.C. 1879. Very Good. Autograph Letter Signed by John Wesley Powell Director of the Bureau of Ethnology in Washington D.C. together with an accompanying photograph which he sent in 1880 to John S. Billings a surgeon and a statistician on medicine in the U.S. Army. The one page letter is written on "Smithsonian Institution Bureau of Ethnology" letterhead dated: "Ap. 27" 1880 and is addressed at the bottom to "Dr. John S. Billings Surgeon U.S.A. Army Medical Museum." Some water staining to the edges and related blurring to the manuscript text still legible and three-inch tear repaired with tape on the verso good only. The Albumen Print measures 9 ½ x 12 inches laid down on a cardboard mount 11 x 16". Contemporary manuscript caption in ink on the bottom margin of the mount: "3824 Photo. Tailed man" and on the back in French which identifies the photograph as a being from the Society of Anthropology in Berlin. Dated "Oct. 18" with "1879" inserted in pencil. Light soiling and toning to the mount with a tear to the top margin of the mount very good. The photograph of a tailed man which Powell takes "pleasure in sending" to Billings is an enlargement of the photo taken in 1879 by Surgeon-General Bernhard Ornstein chief physician of the Greek army. The original photo sent to the Berlin Anthropological Society sparked a decade-long debate about whether such protuberances were "atavistic tails" or "pathological protuberances." Powell was a celebrated naturalist and explorer who despite losing an arm in the Civil War led the first known passage through the Grand Canyon in 1869. When Congress created the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879 Powell was named its first director a post he held until his death. John Shaw Billings is best known as the modernizer of the Surgeon General's Library the nation's first comprehensive library for medicine. He also started Index Medicus a monthly guide to contemporary medicine that ran until his retirement at the Medical Museum and Library. A nice association. unknown books

Between the Covers- Rare Books, Inc. ABAA · Estados Unidos1500,00 US$≈ 1342,64 €

Wesley

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