BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of Health and Medicine (Walter Reed) -- Exhibit: History of the Medical Museum

DC -- Natl Museum of Health and Medicine (Walter Reed) -- Exhibit: History of the Medical Museum:

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[1] NMHMHI_110327_01.JPG	[2] NMHMHI_110327_04.JPG	[3] NMHMHI_110327_05.JPG
[4] NMHMHI_110327_09.JPG	[5] NMHMHI_110327_13.JPG	[6] NMHMHI_110327_14.JPG
[7] NMHMHI_110327_17.JPG	[8] NMHMHI_110327_20.JPG	[9] NMHMHI_110327_23.JPG
[10] NMHMHI_110327_27.JPG	[11] NMHMHI_110327_28.JPG	[12] NMHMHI_110327_31.JPG
[13] NMHMHI_110327_34.JPG	[14] NMHMHI_110327_35.JPG	[15] NMHMHI_110327_37.JPG
[16] NMHMHI_110327_40.JPG	[17] NMHMHI_110327_41.JPG	[18] NMHMHI_110327_43.JPG
[19] NMHMHI_110327_46.JPG	[20] NMHMHI_110327_51.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. NMHMHI_110327_01.JPG: History of the Medical Museum
2. NMHMHI_110327_04.JPG: The Civil War and the Army Medical Museum: At the start of the Civil War, physicians knew little of today's medical practices. The germ theory was unfamiliar, sanitation uncommon, and x-rays unknown. Doctors routinely treated limb wounds with amputations; they probed wounds and often removed bullets with their fingers. They wiped their hands and instruments on the same bloody cloth as they moved from patient to patient.
3. NMHMHI_110327_05.JPG: To increase doctors' knowledge of what happened when a patient was wounded -- the interior damage and process of healing -- Surgeon General William Hammond established the Army Medical Museum to collect anatomical specimens as well as projectiles removed form wounds, together with reports of the cases. The Museum was set up much like 19th century natural history museums, which collected animal and plant specimens for scientific research and classification.
4. NMHMHI_110327_09.JPG: Collections and Exhibits: Although primarily engaged in cataloging and describing Civil War material, Museum staff broadened their activities after the war ended. In addition to anatomical specimens, photographs, and illustrations, the Museum collected medical instruments, both for evaluation for Army use and for exhibits. Contributions increased during and after the war, expanding into civilian medicine. In 1884, the fourth curator, John Shaw Billings, established what became the Billings Microscope Collection. Known for his design of the Johns Hopkins hospital, Billings also created the cataloging system for the National Library of Medicine, then called the Surgeon General's Library, which shared administration and quarters with the Museum until 1956.
5. NMHMHI_110327_13.JPG: From the beginning, Museum collections were placed on display and visited by doctors as well as the curious public. General Daniel E. Sickles, who donated his own amputated leg, returned regularly to visit it at the Museum. In the late 19th century, Museum exhibits displayed specimens of comparative anatomy, many types of pathological specimens, anthropological objects, and changing medical technology.
6. NMHMHI_110327_14.JPG: Expanding Medical Research: Museum curator Walter Reed's discovery that yellow fever was carried by mosquitos led to effective sanitary measures that allowed for the completion of the Panama Canal. Later Museum staff contributed to the development of a successful vaccine against typhoid.
7. NMHMHI_110327_17.JPG: World War I: The Museum met the crisis of World War I by aggressively expanding its efforts to confront emerging health problems. In coordination with other private and government efforts, Museum staff initiated education campaigns against sexually-transmissible diseases in both the military and civilian populations. The Museums also developed training materials for sanitation, dentistry, field medicine, and medical facilities. Using multi-media education, the Museum created posters, lantern slide shows, motion pictures including animation, illustrations, photographs, and three-dimensional models to train medical officers, troops, and civilians.
8. NMHMHI_110327_20.JPG: Emergence of the AFIP: Also during World War I, the Museum increased its cataloging of the vast number of pathological specimens, including autopsy materials, which were received from the front. To catalog these specimens and also to meet the external demand, the Museum began sharing its expertise by training pathological specimens and made its collections available through the publication of atlases.
9. NMHMHI_110327_23.JPG: On the Mall: While the AFIP was emerging, the Medical Museum became one of the most popular sites in Washington, receiving between 450,000 and 765,000 visitors each year in the 1960s. Although it occupied several different buildings in the years after its founding, the Museum spent most of its history at the Army Medical Museum Building, known as the "Old Red Brick." Located on the corner of Independence and 7th St, SW, the Old Red Brick was built in 1887 and housed the Museum for eighty years. In 1962, the building received National Historic Landmark status, but the designation was transferred to the Museum collections when the Old Red Brick was demolished in 1968 to make way for the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The Medical Museum then rejoined the AFIP at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
10. NMHMHI_110327_27.JPG: World War II again brought an expanded role for the Museum, including new research on tropical diseases. In 1944, the Army Institute of Pathology (AIP) was created as a division of the Museum; in 1946, the Museum became a division of the AIP. Becoming a tri-service organization, the Institute was renamed the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in 1949. The AFIP moved (separately from the Museum) to its present location at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 1955.
11. NMHMHI_110327_28.JPG: A Renewed Commitment: The Army Medical Museum, after a period as the Medical Museum of the AFIP and the Armed Forced Medical Museum, became the National Museum of Health and Medicine in 1988. Recalling its origin during the crisis of the Civil War, the Museum resolved to return to its national role of confronting contemporary health issues. Today, as in World War I, the Museum is reaching out in new directions, to new audiences, with new techniques for educating health professionals as well as the public.
12. NMHMHI_110327_31.JPG: Collections: Collecting has broadened to include materials documenting the technological and social dimensions of health and medicine as well as alternative medicines. New forms of preservation, such as plastination, have been used to maintain Museum objects. Staff are creating databases to catalog collections more thoroughly and make them more accessible to historical and medical researchers.
13. NMHMHI_110327_34.JPG: One of the primary fields of research for Museum curators is forensic anthropology. Staff members have participated in analyzing skeletal remains for medical and historical information at the 17th century burial ground in St Mary's City, Maryland; a War of 1912 burial ground; and other sites and museums. Research at an 18th-19th century family cemetery in Connecticut revealed early American beliefs about tuberculosis and vampires. Staff have also helped identify remains displaced from flooded cemeteries in Georgia and Missouri, and they have testified at hearings for the disinterment of John Wilkes Booth. Recently, staff have contributed their expertise in identifying victims of mass disasters such as the Oklahoma City bombing and USAir Flight 427 crash near Pittsburgh.
14. NMHMHI_110327_35.JPG: Education and Outreach: Public programs include tours, lectures, and films that treat specific aspects of health and medicine in greater detail, often bringing experts from throughout the country to discuss their fields with the public.
15. NMHMHI_110327_37.JPG: Exhibits: The current Museum floor ranges from older exhibits to recent installations. Newer exhibits emphasize health, especially individual lifestyle choices that affect health. Medicine is presented in the context of social and cultural history, and more scientific information is often offered. Future exhibits on nutrition and other aspects of health are in the planning stages.
16. NMHMHI_110327_40.JPG: Museum staff are also continuing to explore new types of medical imaging. These capabilities are enhanced by the Museum's unique position as a branch of the AFIP, a clinical setting where cutting-edge medical technology assists in pathological diagnoses. The Museum's Human Developmental Anatomy Center, a repository for human and comparative embryologic materials, has developed techniques for generating three-dimensional computer reconstructions based on thousands of microscopic sections. Using these techniques, staff are returning contemporary research value to historical Museum objects. The Center serves as a central repository for electronic information by making these images available electronically.
17. NMHMHI_110327_41.JPG: Staff research, as well as research on Museum collections by outside scientists and historians, has resulted in numerous publications in professional journals, lectures, and courses. Museum objects and exhibits have appeared in news features and documentary films on subjects such as the Civil War, the atomic bomb, and AIDS. The Museum continues to explore new forms of research, education, and outreach.
18. NMHMHI_110327_43.JPG: Bricks, ca 1887, removed from Army Medical Museum building when it was demolished in 1968.
19. NMHMHI_110327_46.JPG: Skull shot fracture and perforation, taken from the battlefield (Battle of the Wilderness), 1864.
20. NMHMHI_110327_51.JPG: To assist their documentation of wounds and healing, Museum staff also collected medical photographs and illustrations. Staff made portraits of patients at the Museum, often showing stages of healing. Some of these photographs were published in sets of fifty called "Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens." Most of the information collected, however, appeared in the six-volume "Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion," completed in the late 1880s.
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