"The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery was created by an act of Congress of August 31, 1842, which abolished the Board of the Navy Commissioners and established the bureau system in the Navy Department...The central functions of the Bureau have been formalized and expanded but remain essentially unchanged. They are the care of the sick and injured of the Navy; the administration of naval dispensaries and hospitals; the medical examination of prospective officers and enlisted men and of naval personnel seeking examination or ordered to undergo it for various administrative purposes; and the practice of preventive naval medicine, including inspections of ships and stations to determine the degree of adequacy of food, water supply, arrangements for heat and air, cleanliness, and related factors of health...The records of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in the National Archives and described in this inventory may be divided into two main parts: Records of the Washington headquarters, 1812-1945, and records of naval medical establishments located in the field, 1813-1944." A list of chiefs of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (1842-1948) precedes the inventory. The inventory of headquarters records includes: correspondence (1842-1941), medical journals and reports on patients (1812-1940), medical certificates and casualty lists (1828-1931), sanitary and other reports (1907-45), personnel records (1824-1910), fiscal records (1893-1926), and photographs (1900-1944). Field records include: case files for patients at naval hospitals and registers thereto (1813-1944), records of the Naval Medical School and its predecessors (1880-1911), and other field records (1859-1920).