From Billings to Bigelow

FROM BILLINGS TO BIGELOW MICHAELJ. McNAMARA* John Shaw Billings demands a place in American history that is unique, but for reasons not thoroughly investigated his unique contributions to our society have been a well-kept secret. In this country, to most people, and particularly to the biomedical scientists and physicians, the name ofJohn Shaw Billings should be synonymous with libraries. Billings started his career as a military surgeon during the Civil War. After the war he was assigned to the surgeon general's office, where he was placed in charge of a small library that, under his direction, formed the foundation of the now world-renowned National Library of Medicine . Also, during his tenure in the surgeon general's office, recognizing the rapid growth of the world medical literature, he developed the first volume of the Index Medicus that cataloged the world medical and biomedical scientific literature by author, subject, and journal. It is still being published today. In 1879 he was recruited by The Johns Hopkins University to plan in detail the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was instrumental in recruiting the legendary founding dean of the medical college and its first professor of medicine, Dr. William Welch and Dr. William Osier, respectively. The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical School became the model of the present-day American medical educational system. In 1895 Dr. Billings was requested by the Board of Trustees of the New York Public Library to be its first director. He helped plan the remarkable neoclassical building with its architects, John Merven Carr ére and Thomas Hastings—an outstanding structure guarded by two stone lions named Patience and Fortitude. Originally, the collection in the New York Public Library consisted of the collections of the books of the Astor and Lennox Libraries, which merged their holdings with funds from the Tilden Trust to form the basis of the library. Billings *Department of Medicine, Medical College of Ohio, P.O. Box 10008, Toledo, Ohio 43699.© 1992 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 003 1-5982/92/3502-0770$01.00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 35, 2 ¦ Winter 1992 271 directed a library of some 350,000 volumes. He pledged that he would develop a library that would eventually rival the great libraries of Europe . When he died in 1913, there were over 3 million volumes in its collection; already it had become a world-class library. Despite these remarkable accomplishments, any one of which would be sufficient to ensure renown, Billings remains today a man in the shadows. How much in the shadows will be evident from the following tale of two visits that I made to the New York Public Library; the first a number of years ago, the second this year. My first visit, as I said, was a number of years ago when, on a visit to my native city, I went to see an exhibit of James Joyce's books and manuscripts at the library. After viewing the exhibit, my mind turned to John Shaw Billings. As I walked down one of the marble staircases leading to the great Astor Hall, I thought surely one of these portraits on the wall or maybe one of the marble busts must be Billings. No luck. Surely, along the opposite stairway. I was to be disillusioned. Carrére and Hastings had been immortalized in marble and were recessed in the walls of their architectural triumph, but Billings—who conceived the basic plan, who instructed these architects that the structure was to be spacious and inviting, and that it must have free public access, who commanded that the reading rooms should be situated where they would capture as much daylight as possible, and who made it a worldrenowned library—was nowhere to be found, either in stone or oil. I was disappointed and decided to find Billings wherever he was. I went to the information desk in Astor Hall. The young woman there did not know where there was any portrait or bust of Billings. In fact, she did not know who Billings was and referred me to the reference room or main reading room. I was greeted there by another young woman who, after admitting...