Army Medical Museum

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Please Take Over This Page and Apply to be Editor-In-Chief for this topic: There can be one or more than one Editor-In-Chief. You may also apply to be an Associate Editor-In-Chief of one of the subtopics below. Please mail us [1] to indicate your interest in serving either as an Editor-In-Chief of the entire topic or as an Associate Editor-In-Chief for a subtopic. Please be sure to attach your CV and or biographical sketch. Template:Infobox nrhp 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

Image:Army Medical School.jpg
The Army Medical Museum and Library building housed the Army Medical Museum beginning in 1887.

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.

References

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External links

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Acknowledgement and Attribution Regarding Sources of Content

Some of the initial content on this page may be incorporated in part from copyleft sources in the public domain including wikis such as Wikipedia and AskDrWiki. Drug information for patients came from the The National Library of Medicine. Infectious disease information may have come from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Differential Diagnoses are drawn from clinicians as well as an amalgamation of 3 sources: 1.The Disease Database; 2. Kahan, Scott, Smith, Ellen G. In A Page: Signs and Symptoms. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2004:3; 3. Sailer, Christian, Wasner, Susanne. Differential Diagnosis Pocket. Hermosa Beach, CA: Borm Bruckmeir Publishing LLC, 2002:7 .

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