author
William A. (William Alexander) Hammond
1828–1900
Best known as a Civil War–era Surgeon General, he also helped lay the groundwork for neurology as a distinct medical specialty in the United States. His career mixed military reform, medical writing, and a lasting interest in the study of the nervous system.
2 Audiobooks
Fasting Girls: Their Physiology and Pathology
by William A. (William Alexander) Hammond
Sleep and Its Derangements
by William A. (William Alexander) Hammond
About the author
Born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1828, William Alexander Hammond trained as a physician at the University of the City of New York and entered the U.S. Army medical service while still a young man. During the Civil War, he served as the 11th Surgeon General of the U.S. Army from 1862 to 1864 and is widely credited with founding the Army Medical Museum, now the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
After his army career, Hammond became one of the best-known American specialists in diseases of the nervous system. Sources consistently describe him as an important early figure in American neurology, and his writing and private practice helped bring the field into clearer public view at a time when it was only beginning to take shape.
He remained a prominent and sometimes controversial medical voice through the late 19th century. By the time of his death in 1900, he had left a mark both on military medicine and on the development of neurology in the United States.