Partly-printed vellum DS as president, signed “R. B. Hayes,” one page, 17.75 x 11.75, January 26, 1880. President Hayes appoints Philip S. Wales as "Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, and Surgeon General, in the Department of the Navy, with the relative rank of Commodore." Signed at the conclusion by Rutherford B. Hayes and countersigned by Secretary of the Navy Richard W. Thompson. Lower left retains the original blue Navy Department seal. In very good to fine condition, with overall creasing, intersecting folds, and fading to Hayes' signature, which remains completely legible.



Philip Skinner Wales served as the 11th Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and the seventh to hold office as Surgeon General of the Navy. An event of great importance to the Medical Corps in his administration was the founding of the Museum of Naval Hygiene in Washington, which when united later by Surgeon General Tryon with the old Naval Laboratory and Department of Instruction at Brooklyn, were the nucleus of the present Naval Medical School for the postgraduate instruction of young naval medical officers.