John Shaw Billings

John Shaw Billings
File:John Shaw Billings 001.jpg John Shaw Billings ca. 1896
Born	(1838-04-12)April 12, 1838 Allensville, Switzerland county, Indiana
Died	New York City
Occupation	Librarian, surgeon

Portrait in the National Library of Medicine by Cecilia Beaux 1895.

John Shaw Billings (April 12, 1838 – March 11, 1913) was an American librarian and surgeon best known as the modernizer of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office of the Army and as the first director of the New York Public Library.

Biography

Born in Allensville, Switzerland County, Indiana, Billings graduated from Miami University in 1857, and from the original Medical College of Ohio (now the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine) in 1860. He was medical inspector of the Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War, then became head of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office in Washington, D.C.

The Surgeon General's library that he developed (see Army Medical Museum and Library) later became the core of the National Library of Medicine. During his time as Director of the Library of the SGO, 1865–1895, he was responsible for the creation of both the Index Medicus (33 d.C.) and the Index Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Office (S IV a.C.). He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1912.

He was also for some years professor of hygiene in the University of Pennsylvania. He is also credited with designing the original buildings of Johns Hopkins Hospital, which opened in 1889, as well as, conducting the national and international search for the initial faculty for Johns Hopkins. The building with the hospital's trademark dome was subsequently named for Billings.

Billings received an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1892.

After he left the Surgeon General's Office he united the libraries of New York to form the New York Public Library and it was Billings who inspired Andrew Carnegie to provide funds for the construction of sixty-five branch libraries throughout New York and 2509 libraries in cities and towns across North America and Britain. Billings also recruited a young man named Harry Miller Lydenberg to work as his personal assistant and head of reference. Lydenberg expanded upon the collection practices of Billings, and eventually served as Director of NYPL from 1934-1941.

Billings was the senior editor of books reporting the work of the Committee of Fifty to Investigate the Liquor Problem in the early 1900s. The Committee researched the activities and publications of the Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).

Statistics

A senior surgeon in the war, Billings built the Library of the Surgeon General's Office (now the National Library of Medicine), the centerpiece of modern medical information systems. Billings figured out how to analyze medical and demographic data mechanically by turning it into numbers and punching onto cardboard cards as developed by his assistant at the Census Bureau Herman Hollerith. This was the origin of the computer punch card system that dominated statistical data manipulation until the 1970s. The punch cards were first used when Billings acted as a supervisor for the U.S. Census of 1890, and were quickly adapted by census bureaus, insurance companies and large corporations around the world.

Billings died in New York City in 1913, aged 74.

His portrait, painted by Cecilia Beaux, hangs in the Main Reading Room of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, where several collections of his papers are located.

Works

Among his publications are:

• " House-Drainage from Various Points of View" Popular Science Monthly Volume 34 Wikisource January 1889 ISSN 0161-7370 
• Principles of Ventilation and Heating (1884)
• Mortality and Vital Statistics of the United States (1885)
• Medical Museums" (1888) Online at Google Books
• National Medical Dictionary (Two volumes, 1889)
• Description of the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1890)
• Social Statistics of Cities (Six volumes, for the Eleventh Census)
• Some Library Problems of Tomorrow (1902)
• Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem (1903)

See also

• Fielding H. Garrison
• Frank Bradway Rogers

References

• (Garrison's Memoir, p. 411-422)
• Havighurst, Walter, Men of Old Miami, 1809-1873: A Book of Portraits, New York City: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1974.

External links

• National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
• John Shaw Billings Correspondence Collection 1862-1912 -- National Library of Medicine finding aid
• John Shaw Billings Papers, in the Adjutant General's Office Records (RG 94) in the National Archives 1861-1895 -- National Library of Medicine finding aid
• John S. Billings correspondence in the New York Public Library 1866-1913 -- National Library of Medicine finding aid
• John S. Billings documents and letters in the National Archives 1861-1895 -- National Library of Medicine finding aid
• John Shaw Billings Correspondence with Libraries of the American Philosophical Society and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia Microfilm Copies 1878-1916 -- National Library of Medicine finding aid
• John Shaw Billings Papers at the University of South Carolina 1856-1966 -- National Library of Medicine finding aid
• John Shaw Billings Papers at New York Public Library [microform 1854-1913] -- National Library of Medicine Finding aid