Hammond, William

D.P. Botes, A.A. Tuinmann, P.L. Wessels, C.C. Viljoen, H. Kruger, D.H. Williams, S. Santikarn, R.J. Smith and S.J. Hammond, The structure of cyanoginosin-LA, a cyclic heptapeptide toxin from the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa, J. Chem. Soc. Perkin Trans., 1 (1984) 2311-2318. 

FIGURE 1.2. Surgeon General William A. Hammond s ambitious reforms of a tradition-bound U.S. Army Medical Department earned the talented administrator a court-martial. Exonerated of all charges years later, Hammond nevertheless rose to prominence in medical circles and was the founder of the American Neurological Association. From Harper s Weekly, 1863. Illustration courtesy of the National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Division. 

The calomel controversy was the cathartic climax to allopathic/ sectarian contentions during the Civil War. Although the allopaths held the upper hand throughout the conflict, the one casualty of this professional rivalry was one of their own William A. Hammond. Hammond had seriously miscalculated the lengths to which allopaths would defend their therapeutic faith, especially when it represented agents that so clearly defined their professional practice. It cost him his job, and it cost the Union Medical Department an able and progressive administrator. 

It had been noted that the so-called miasmatic fevers generally prevailed from mid-summer to the start of winter. See John T. Metcalfe, Miasmatic Fevers in Military Medical and Surgical Essays Prepared for the United States Sanitary Commission, edited by William A. Hammond (Philadelphia J. B. Lippincott, 1864), pp. 207-234. 

---