Upon being named Surgeon General of the Army, William Hammond ordered that proper records be kept of the sick, wounded and deceased -- and introduced a system to classify diseases. A month later, on this date in 1862, Hammond announced plans to establish an Army Medical Museum to house specimens for research in military medicine and surgery. He directed medical officers to collect “specimens of morbid anatomy…together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed” for the museum to study. After World War II, the museum became a division of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. In 1989, the museum was renamed the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

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