John Shaw Billings

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Shaw Billings

John Shaw Billings (born April 12, 1838 in Switzerland County , Indiana , † March 11, 1913 (according to other information on March 10, 1913) in New York , New York ) was an American surgeon and librarian . He is best known as the actual "founder" of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office , today's United States National Library of Medicine .

Life

Billings earned an undergraduate degree from Miami University in 1857 and an MD from the Medical College of Ohio in 1860 with a medical degree. He initially worked as a prosector (demonstrator) in anatomy . Since 1862 he was a military surgeon in the United States Army . He made a contribution to the withdrawal of the wounded after the costly Battle of Chancellorsville and served in the most dangerous conditions during the Battle of Gettysburg . In 1864 he took over the management of the Invalid Reserve Corps and was subsequently entrusted with a large number of different assignments, including the collection and processing of medical and surgical reports of the Civil War . Billings was promoted to Colonel and Deputy Surgeon General of the United States Army until 1890 . He showed a special talent for the planning and construction of hospital buildings. His pioneering design for the Johns Hopkins Hospital was accepted. He also designed the Army Medical Museum (later the National Museum of Health and Medicine ) and the Library of the Surgeon General's Office , which he jointly directed in 1883, and later the Brigham Hospital in Boston. In the years before 1883 he had already made a contribution to the Library of the Surgeon General's Office , for which he collected the available medical literature of his time, systematically recorded, cataloged and classified and thus made available. In 1894 he received a professorship in hygiene at the Army Medical School in Washington. Billings was involved in the planning and statistical analysis of the American censuses of 1880 , 1890 and 1900 . Together with Herman Hollerith , he developed the punch card and made sure that it was introduced in the census.

In 1895 Billings was discharged from military service to accept a professorship in hygiene at the University of Pennsylvania , where he had previously given lectures in hygiene. By this time he had expanded the library's holdings from just under 1,400 to over 300,000 volumes. All new entries were included in the Index Medicus, which he founded . Billings was appointed director of the newly established New York Public Library in 1896 and contributed significantly to the architectural and organizational planning of the library, which opened in 1902.

Billings published numerous publications on mycology , hygiene , ventilation and sanitary engineering , hospital architecture and administration, (military) medical statistics and population statistics , nosology and medical topography (which diseases are found where and where), as well as medical history , especially the history of surgery . He wrote obituaries (Biographical Memoirs) for Joseph Janvier Woodward , Spencer F. Baird, and Francis A. Walker for the National Academy of Sciences .

In 1878 John S. Billings was one of the founders of the Washington Cosmos Club . From 1879 to 1886 he was Vice President of the short-lived National Board of Health (a predecessor institution of today's United States Public Health Service ), 1880 President of the American Public Health Association (APHA). In 1881 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1883 to the National Academy of Sciences , whose treasurer from 1887 to 1898 and a member of the board of directors from 1896 to 1907, and also in 1883 to the American Association for the Advancement of Science , 1913 into the American Philosophical Society . Billings was a member of the founding board of trustees of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1902 , where he was initially vice chairman and chairman from late 1903 until his death. Billings held honorary doctorates from the following universities: Edinburgh (LL. D., 1884), Harvard (IX. D., 1886), Oxford (DCL, 1889), Munich (MD, 1889), Dublin (MD, 1892), Budapest (MD , 1896), Yale (LL. D., 1901) and Johns Hopkins (LL. D., 1902).

John Shaw Billings had been married to Kate M. Stevens since 1862 and the couple had five children. Billings was predisposed to cancer and had to undergo multiple operations. He died of pneumonia after an operation. His grave is in Arlington National Cemetery .

Writings (monographs)

  • The Principles of Ventilation and Heating and Their Practical Application (1884)
  • Report on the Mortality and Vital Statistics of the United States as Returned by the Tenth Census (1885)
  • Description of the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1890)
  • The National Medical Dictionary (1890)
  • Ventilation and Heating (1893)
  • The History of Surgery (1895)
  • Report on the Local Statistics of the Eleventh Census (1895)
  • Vital Statistics of Boston and Philadelphia (1895)

literature

Web links

Commons : John Shaw Billings  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b John Billings. In: nasonline.org. Retrieved April 28, 2018 .
  2. ^ A b American Philosophical Society: Member History. In: search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved April 28, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter B. (PDF; 1.2 MB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Accessed April 29, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Billings, John Shaw
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Billings, John S .; Billings, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American surgeon and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Switzerland County , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH March 11, 1913
Place of death New York , New York