MUSEUM LOANS SIX BONES FOR EXHIBIT IN MONTANA

The National Museum of Health and Medicine has loaned six bones from its Civil War Skeletal Collection to the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont. Borrowed from the Washington, D.C. museum's specimens collected between 1862 and 1869, the objects are two leg bones, two vertebral specimens, and two skulls that will be on display through March 2002 in an exhibit titled, "Weapons That Changed the West: From Flint to Fusion." The Montana museum describes its new exhibit as one that will "tell the sociological, technological, and military stories that have shaped the West." Founded in 1957 as a part of Montana State University, the Museum of the Rockies is the largest natural history museum in its region with 94,000 square feet under one roof and includes a planetarium and a fully interpreted living history farm on 11 adjacent acres. For information, call (406) 994-2251 or visit their web site at www.montana.edu/wwwmor.

"It is always a pleasure to be able to contribute to the success of an exhibit at another museum," said Lenore Barbian, Ph.D., assistant curator of the anatomical collection at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. "This will ensure that thousands of people who might not be able to easily visit us in Washington, D.C. will at least be able to see some of our specimens in another part of the country."

Loaned to the Museum of the Rockies are:

	Vertebrae with a musket ball embedded in it from Pvt. William Plews Jr., a Union soldier in the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers, who was wounded on May 3, 1863 in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Va. Treated in a field hospital for several days, Plews was transported to a division hospital in Annapolis, Md. on the steamer State of Maine and died on June 8 after several unsuccessful attempts to remove the ball.
	Vertebrae with an arrowhead embedded in it, taken in 1869 from the spine of an unknown man who was killed by Native Americans at an outpost near Fort Concho, Texas. Four other arrowheads were also removed from other parts of his body.
	A portion of the lower left femur with a musket ball embedded in it from Sgt. Sewell Douglas, age 28, a Union soldier in the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery, who was wounded on May 19, 1864 at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Spotsylvania, Pa. and died of an infection.
	A right femur with a musket ball attached from Capt. G. M. Albright, age 36, a Confederate soldier who was wounded on July 2, 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg, Pa. and after an amputation in Frederick, Md. died on July 16.
	A cranium from an unknown Confederate soldier who died on July 17, 1864 from a shrapnel fracture.
	A cranium from an unknown Confederate soldier who died in Antietam, Md. from a shrapnel fracture.
The National Museum of Health and Medicine began as the national repository for Civil War injuries in 1862 when Surgeon General William Hammond directed medical officers in the field to collect "specimens of morbid anatomy . . . together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed" and to forward them to the newly founded museum for study. The collection continues to support advances in clinical research. In addition to the 2,000 specimens in the Civil War Skeletal Collection, the anatomical collection at the National Museum of Health and Medicine includes about a dozen other collections of anatomical and pathological skeletal specimens; medical research collections containing slides, tissue blocks, and related documentary materials; fluid-preserved gross organs, and other miscellaneous material.