Army Medical Museum

The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM), originally known as the Army Medical Museum (AMM), is a museum in Washington, D.C., USA. An element of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), the NMHM is a member of the National Health Sciences Consortium. Army Surgeon General William A. Hammond founded the AMM in 1862 and it became the NMHM in 1989.

History


The AMM was established during the American Civil War as a center for the collection of specimens for research in military medicine and surgery. In 1862, Hammond directed medical officers in the field to collect "specimens of morbid anatomy ... together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed" and to forward them to the newly founded museum for study. The AMM's first curator, John Brinton, visited mid-Atlantic battlefields and solicited contributions from doctors throughout the Union Army. During and after the war, AMM staff took pictures of wounded soldiers showing effects of gunshot wounds as well as results of amputations and other surgical procedures. The information collected was compiled into six volumes of The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, published between 1870 and 1883.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, AMM staff engaged in various types of medical research. They pioneered in photomicrographic techniques, established a library and cataloging system which later formed the basis for the National Library of Medicine (NLM), and led the AMM into research on infectious diseases while discovering the cause of yellow fever. They contributed to research on vaccinations for typhoid fever, and during World War I, AMM staff were involved in vaccinations and health education campaigns, including major efforts to combat sexually-transmissible diseases.

By World War II, research at the AMM focused increasingly on pathology. In 1946 the AMM became a division of the new Army Institute of Pathology (AIP), which became the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in 1949. The AMM's library and part of its archives were transferred to the NLM when it was created in 1956. The AMM itself became the Medical Museum of the AFIP in 1949, the Armed Forces Medical Museum in 1974, and finally the NMHM in 1989.

Museum holdings
The NMHM embodies five collections consisting of more than 25 million artifacts, including 5,000 skeletal specimens, 10,000 preserved organs, 12,000 items of medical equipment, an archive of historic medical documents, and collections related to neuroanatomy and developmental anatomy.The museum's most famous artifacts relate to President Abraham Lincoln and his assassination on April 14, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth. On display is the bullet fired from the Deringer pistol which ended the President's life, the probe used by the US Army Surgeon General to locate the bullet, pieces of Lincoln's hair and skull, and the surgeon's shirt cuff, stained with Lincoln's blood.

Location and hours
The museum is located on the campus of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, five miles north of the White House. It is open to the public, but security restrictions require a photo ID for all adult visitors. It is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day except Christmas (when it is closed), and admission is free.

Planned move
With the planned closure of WRAMC, the NMHM will relocate to a new site on the campus of the National Naval Medical Center and near the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland by 2011. It will remain open in its current location until the move has been completed.