National Museum of Health and Medicine
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The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) 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. Surgeon General William A. Hammond founded the NMHM in 1862.
Called the Army Medical Museum at the time of its founding, the NMHM was originally intended to serve as a base for the study of medical treatments during the American Civil War. In 1862, Hammond put out a call to all Union Army field surgeons to "forward specimens of morbid anatomy" to the newly founded museum for research. In modern times, it plays host to 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.
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.
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.
