Jonathan Messersmith Foltz was commissioned an assistant surgeon in the Navy in 1830.Less than two years later he became the Navy’s first surgeon general. President Grant appointed him Chief BUMED in July 1869. Wood served as fleet surgeon for the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. After a career that included service in the Seminole Wars and Mexican-American War, Dr. The first surgeon general, Commodore William Maxwell Wood, was commissioned an assistant surgeon in the Navy in 1829.And certainly, some of the senior physicians serving in 1871 could boast of careers extending back over 40 years into the first years of Navy medicine. 3 Unlike the birthdays of the Hospital Corps (17 June 1898), Nurse Corps (), Dental Corps (22 August 1912), and Medical Service Corps (4 August 1947), the legislation did not establish this corps of physicians. The 153 physicians serving in the Navy on 3 March 1871 would not have considered themselves plank owners. Rather, the passage of the Appropriations Act on 3 March 1871 elevated the status of Navy physicians, granting them rank relative to their line counterparts, 2 acknowledging their role as staff corps, and establishing the title of “surgeon general” for the Navy’s top medical officer/head of the Navy Medical Department. An important date in the annals of Navy medicine to be sure, but this date does not represent the advent of uniformed physicians in the Navy nor the start of the Navy Medical Department.
Navy has recognized 3 March 1871 as the anniversary of its corps of physicians (i.e., the Medical Corps).
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