(source)
|
William Alexander Hammond
(28 Aug 1828 - 5 Jan 1900)
American physician and surgeon-general who was a strong proponent of civilian public health and military preventive medicine. Appointed by President Abraham Lincoln, he held the post of Surgeon General of the United States Army during the Civil War, from 1862 to 1864. He founded the Army Medical Museum(1862), sponsored the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, and proposed the establishment of an Army medical school and an Army general hospital.
|
Science Quotes by William Alexander Hammond (1 quote)
It seeming impossible in any other manner to properly restrict the use of this powerful agent [calomel, a mercury compound, mercurous chloride], it is directed that it be struck from the supply table, and that no further requisitions for this medicine be approved by Medical Directors. ... modern pathology has proved the impropriety of the use of mercury in very many of those diseases in which it was formerly unfailingly administered. ... No doubt can exist that more harm has resulted from the misuse [of this agent], in the treatment of disease, than benefit from their proper administration.
W.A. Hammond, Surgeon General, Washington D.C., 4 May 1863
W.A. Hammond, Surgeon General, Washington D.C., 4 May 1863
— William Alexander Hammond
'Circular No. 6,', in William Grace, The Army Surgeon's Manual (1864), 121.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
