Garrison joined the staff of the Army Medical Library as a clerk in 1891. (The AML was to become the National Library of Medicine many years after Garrison's death.) He became Assistant Librarian in 1899 and Principal Assistant Librarian in 1912. He joined the Officers Reserve Corps as a Major in 1917 (Lieutenant Colonel, 1918 and Colonel, 1920). Garrison was assigned to index medical literature. In this he worked closely with John Shaw Billings. He helped create and compile the Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office. His editorial responsibilities also included the Index Medicus, of which he was Associate Editor (1903–1912) and Editor (1912–1927). He was also Associate Editor of the Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus for 1927–1929. Garrison wrote the first comprehensive treatise on the history of medicine and "gained recognition as the foremost American authority on the subject" (according to the Dictionary of American Biography). He prepared plans and collected material for the history of the U.S. Army Medical Department during World War I. In all, he served on staff at the AML for almost 40 years.
From 1930, Garrison was lecturer in the history of medicine and librarian of the Welch Medical Library of the Johns Hopkins University. He was also a much-respected editor and translator, as well as an accomplished classical pianist.
Garrison died April 18, 1935, in Washington, D.C., and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.
Garrison was a close friend of noted literary critic H. L. Mencken, with whom he exchanged 400 letters, some of which have been published in Mencken's collected letters. Mencken was a pallbearer at Garrison's funeral.
Garrison's book Introduction to the History of Medicine was the first comprehensive American publication on the history of medicine. For this book he compiled a bibliography of major works in the history of medicine. This listing, later amended by Leslie Morton, was eventually published as a separate piece. Garrison and Morton's A Medical Bibliography is still widely regarded as a standard in medical historical bibliography.
3rd Edition, revised and enlarged; Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Co, 1921.
Garrison, Fielding (1929). An Introduction to the History of Medicine with medical chronology, suggestions for study and bibliographic data (Fourth ed.). Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company. (NLM) 54830820R.
Garrison, Fielding (1915). John Shaw Billings A Memoir. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. hdl:2027/nyp.33433082549811. (NLM) 55230270R.
Arnold, Jr., H.L. (1943), Fielding H. Garrison, the Caduceus and the United States Army Medical Department, Bull. Hist. Med., 13:627-30 [Contains a 1935 letter from Garrison to Arnold].
