History

In 1862, in the midst of the American Civil War, Surgeon General William Hammond established the Army Medical Museum to serve as a center for the collection of specimens for research in military medicine and surgery. 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 museum's first curator, John Brinton, visited mid-Atlantic battlefields and solicited contributions from doctors throughout the Union Army. During and after the war, museum staff took pictures of wounded soldiers showing the 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, museum staff engaged in various types of medical research. They pioneered photomicrographic techniques, established a library and cataloging system which later formed the basis for the National Library of Medicine, and led the museum into research on infectious diseases. Museum staff proved the cause of yellow fever, contributed to research on vaccinations for typhoid fever, and during World War I, were involved in vaccinations and health education campaigns, including major efforts to combat sexually-transmissible diseases.

By World War II, research at the museum focused increasingly on pathology. In 1946, the museum became a division of the new Army Institute of Pathology (AIP), which developed into the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in 1949. The museum's library and part of its archives were transferred to the National Library of Medicine when it was formed in 1956. The Army Medical Museum then became the Medical Museum of the AFIP in 1949, the Armed Forces Medical Museum in 1974, and the National Museum of Health and Medicine in 1989.

The museum was located on the campus of the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center until 2011 at which time it moved to Silver Spring, Maryland and became part of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (now known as the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command).

On August 23, 2015, the museum joined the Defense Health Agency as a division of the Research and Engineering Directorate.

Resources

Robert S. Henry's "The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology: Its First Century 1862-1962" (Office of the Army Surgeon General Army, 1964) (PDF 41 MB).

In 2011, prior to its disestablishment, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology published "Legacy of Excellence: The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1862–2011.". "Legacy of Excellence" was published by the Borden Institute, the publishing arm of the U.S. Army Medical Department. Find Legacy of Excellence online at https://medcoe.army.mil/borden-tb-loe.

Former Locations of the National Museum of Health and Medicine