| National Museum of Health and Medicine (founded as the Army Medical Museum) |
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| NMHM 20111006c.jpg Exterior of the new NMHM, which opened at its new location on September 15, 2011. |
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| General information | |
| Location | 2500 Linden Lane, Silver Spring, Maryland |
The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) is a museum in Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., USA.[1] An element of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology[1](AFIP), the NMHM is a member of the National Health Sciences Consortium.[2]
The museum was founded by U.S. Army Surgeon General William A. Hammond as the Army Medical Museum (AMM) in 1862[3]; it became the NMHM in 1989[4] and relocated to its present site in 2011.
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The AMM was established during the American Civil War[4] as a center for the collection of specimens for research in military medicine and surgery.[5] In 1862, Hammond directed medical officers in the field to collect "specimens of morbid anatomy ... together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed"[5] and to forward them to the newly founded museum for study. The AMM's first curator, John H. 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.[5]
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.[5]
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 National Library of Medicine 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.[5]
Due to the closure of WRAMC, NMHM relocated to US Army Garrison-Forest Glen in Silver Spring, Montgomery County, Maryland.[6] Authority over the Forest Glen garrison was transferred from WRAMC to Fort Detrick in October 2008. The NMHM closed its exhibits on April 3, 2011, and reopened in a new building on September 15, 2011.
The NMHM embodies five collections consisting of about 25 million artifacts, including 5,000 skeletal specimens, 8,000 preserved organs[7], 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[8] by John Wilkes Booth. On display are a copy by sculptor Avarel Fairbanks of Lincoln's life mask and hands made by Leonard Volk in 1860, 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 during autopsy, pieces of Lincoln's hair and skull, and the autopsy surgeon's shirt cuff, stained with Lincoln's blood.[9]
Museum collections include:
Museum exhibitions feature several permanent exhibits alongside several rotating displays.
The museum offers a wide variety of programs on weekends, weekdays, and evenings throughout the year for adults and children, with topics ranging through a spectrum of medical, scientific, and historical subjects.[10]
Other exhibit information is available here.
The museum is located at 2500 Linden Lane in Silver Spring, Maryland, just a few miles outside the District of Columbia. It is open to the public, but security restrictions require a photo ID for all adult visitors.[11] It is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day except Christmas (when it is closed), and admission is free.[12]
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