History of Medicine

Medical historian Fielding Garrison was born in Washington, D.C., and studied at Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University. After joining the Surgeon General's office in 1891, he served as assistant librarian (1899--1922) of its medical library, the largest in the world. It was there that he launched his outstanding career as librarian-scholar and medical historian.

Garrison served in the Army Medical Reserve Corps during World War I and remained in the army until 1930, when he was appointed head of the medical library at Johns Hopkins. Under his stewardship, the Johns Hopkins's medical collection was greatly strengthened and became one of the finest in the world.

Garrison also achieved prominence as America's leading medical historian with his steady output of scholarly works and textbooks. His most important volume, An Introduction to the History of Medicine (1913), became a standard reference and helped contemporary physicians and those of later generations understand the history of medicine and its importance in their own practices.

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