Origins of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System

The Armed Forces Medical Examiner System (AFMES) is the only medicolegal death investigation system of the US federal government. Its origins can be traced to three dried tissue specimens placed on a shelf by a Civil War Surgeon General in 1862. The collections and the library of the Army Surgeon General spawned the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), the National Museum of Health and Medicine, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and the National Library of Medicine. Pathologists of the Army Medical Museum performed the autopsies of assassinated Presidents Lincoln and Garfield and assisted with that of Kennedy. The now defunct AFIP created the first forensic pathology training program approved by the American Board of Pathology and then the AFMES. Col Ed Johnston, CAPT Charlie Stahl, and Col Dick Froede were the original pioneers of the AFMES.

A Century of Veterinary Pathology at the A.F.I.P., 1870–1970; Dr. Woodward on Bovine Pleuropneumonia

Joseph Janvier Woodward, M.D., Surgeon and Brevet Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, was the first pathologist at the Army Medical Museum, precursor of today's Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. In 1870 he reported a histologic study of pleuropneumonia of cattle, then a serious epizootic disease in the United States, which is: (1) The first histologic study of this disease, (2) the first scientific contribution to veterinary pathology in the United States, and (3) the first contribution to veterinary pathology from the Museum. This long-forgotten paper is reprinted here to celebrate the centenary of the latter event and to pay homage to the memory of its author.