National Museum of Health and Medicine

Government Executive August 1, 2000

The National Museum of Health and Medicine, a division of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, was known as the Army Medical Museum and was located on the national Mall until the late 1960s.

Today the museum is dedicated to health promotion and information exchange. What you will find at the museum are exhibits on human reproduction, the functioning of the human body, DNA testing and sexually transmitted diseases. Artifacts on display include microscopes, dental instruments and early X-ray machines. A display on Civil War medicine includes part of the bullet that killed Abraham Lincoln. Also of note is the unusually titled exhibit "From Lancets to Leeches: A Brief History of Bloodletting."

  • Medical hero whose name is familiar but whose role in medicine isn't: Walter Reed, the Army doctor who, while working in Cuba, proved that mosquitoes transmitted yellow fever.

    National Museum of Health and Medicine
    Open daily, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
    6900 Georgia Ave. N.W., Washington
    (202) 782-2200
    www.natmedmuse.afip.org

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    National Museum of Health and Medicine
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