Reviewers on TripAdvisor call it “cool” and “disturbing.” Dinglefielder remarks it as “fascinating nightmare.” Journalist Michael Turtle writes, “But even with the warm rays streaming in through the windows, it was eerie to be alone.”
Simply put, the National Museum of Health and Medicine offers macabre and magic all at once — perfect for an autumn night. Located near Washington DC, with its sleek modernist exterior and the world’s largest microscope collection, the National Museum of Health and Medicine reveals miracles behind how historical artifacts inspire medical innovation, promote interdisciplinary arts, and connect mothers and daughters together.
Andrea Schierkolk is the Public Programs Manager at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. She explained how the museum has been around for over 160 years under the United States Department of Defense. During the Civil War in 1862, the museum collected anatomical material and projectiles that inflicted the wounds of soldiers. These samples represented case histories for many patients and a legacy of what it was like to be a surgeon on the battlefield.
Museum history
One example of how the museum acquires and processes an historical artifact starts in the Gettysburg Battle. When a cannonball struck General Sickle’s left leg, he had to undergo amputation and anesthesia. Under the surgical tent, the doctors placed the leg in a fancy velvet box, shipped part of his body to the museum. It was July, hot, and smelly.
Back in Washington DC, the box came through the mail with a calling card consisting of compliments about the General. Doctors cleaned the specimen until they retrieved Sickles’ tibia and fibula.
From 1862 to 1865, the museum wrote three surgical volumes and three medical volumes to reference all known types of injuries and wounds. Displayed in a special collection, bones like Sickles’ were immortalized for researchers, writers, and even for himself. People could visit the museum to study how a cannonball causes trauma to a leg bone. They could see the drawings, who the surgeon was, and Sickle’s regiment. They could learn that Sickles would be able to walk again, did not get an infection, and even visited the museum himself to reunite with his leg.
In the late 1940s, the museum became associated with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, where doctors continued to send samples to the facility. Onsite, doctors continued to analyze and try to help diagnose various conditions.
Currently, the museum houses 25 million artifacts that document how the human body reacts to trauma or diseases through healing. The museum isn’t limited to anatomical materials, though; the collection includes archival records, photographs, artwork, books, and histological materials. Using the museum’s brain slide and microscope collection, researchers examine brain tumors, the effects of PTSD, and Parkinson’s disease. Ultimately, the museum became a repository for materials used in diagnosis and research.
Museum Initiatives
The National Museum of Health and Medicine impacts and influences its diverse audience through its programs and services.
Working with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency to ensure curatorial preservation and personal closure, the National Museum of Health and Medicine can help family members reunite with lost bodies before burial. When the DPA conducts archaeological digs at Vietnam or Laos or Thailand of service members who were fighting in the Vietnam War, for instance, they exhume and return remains home. Sometimes, the physical anthropologists and forensics anthropologists in the National Museum of Health and Medicine help analyze and identify remains.
“We may not collect these remains, but we provide expertise,” Schierkolk said.
Featuring robust educational partnerships, the National Museum of Health and Medicine allows people to explore their collection for all different reasons. Middle and high school students might go on field trips for forensics and physiology class, holding a preserved organ encased in plastic or resin. College researchers can utilize the museum resources to support their thesis projects. Adults can attend lecture series or tours that further their learning journey.
“We actually have a notebook from the Civil War times that a gentleman had in his pocket,” Schierkolk explained. “A bullet hit the book, and it didn’t penetrate his body — that saved his life.”
Moreover, Kindergarteners to second graders might visit to learn about human organ and body functions. Children also have the opportunity to participate in the teddy bear clinic program, witnessing doctors and pediatricians give their teddy-bears a check-up.
“It’s really cute. It’s a non-confrontational and friendly way for children to learn about their bodies without it being scary,” Schierkolk said. “Next time they visit their pediatrician, they’ll remember how friendly these doctors were, and they won’t be afraid.”
Museum Memories
Schierkolk recalls one profound experience a mother and daughter had in the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
During the teddy bear clinic, the mother and daughter started looking at one of our exhibits that showed traumatic brain injury, which was a common war injury. As the mother looked at the specimens, she told her daughter: this is what your father’s injury looked like.
It was the first time the mother explained the condition to her daughter. By looking at a traumatic injury together, this moment helped take away the emotion involved—the sadness and the fear associated with the father’s disease.
“Instead of the daughter seeing something that made her mom sad or made her dad hurt, she could understand,” Schierkolk explained. “Now she understands — why his head hurts, why he has headaches, or what he said.”
Explaining tough and vulnerable topics with emotional distance ironically allows people to deepen their relationships. The museum becomes a safe space to talk about a topic that was previously difficult and uncomfortable to mention.
Another incident Schierkolk remembers is with an artist and therapist who were creating an exhibit called Fractured. She created portraits of famous figures who had traumatic brain injuries and tore them to pieces. The paintings never looked the same.
As the artist toured the museum and examined the brain collection, she realized that bringing her patients in could provide clarity and connection. She could say, this specimen looks like John. That one looks like Bill. The one over there—it’s you, Tom.
Every shared experience in the National Museum of Health and Medicine contributes to lifting the weight of processing an accident or traumatic event.
“Our museum can be a vocabulary,” Schierkolk said.
Museum Advancements
Schierkolk explained how medical innovations became a valuable way of communicating conditions between loved ones. During the Iraq and Afghanistan War, 3D Printing was a novel breakthrough. In the Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s 3D Printing Laboratory, doctors could print titanium joints or plates for a patient’s skull. Acting as an implant or scaffold, the titanium model would shape and grow a patient’s bone.
When people endured traumatic brain injuries, doctors took a CT and MRI scan to capture images for 3D Printing. Before surgeries or inside operating rooms, doctors used 3D Printing to understand the recovery process. They could use this tool to show families what a patient had been through, which is especially valuable in situations like aphasia, a condition that affects a patient’s ability to communicate.
The doctors would say: Here’s how we fix this. We’re going to go through physical therapy. We’re going to go through speech therapy. We’re going to go work with a psychiatrist and a psychologist. Slowly, the healing process comes together. After the surgery, the procedure, the medication, there will always be an ending.
“When someone says to you, you’ve had a subarachnoid hemorrhage, visualizing that can be very difficult,” Schierkolk said. “If you can see it with your own eyes, it’s a little easier to relate.”
The National Museum of Health and Medicine plays a huge role in documenting the evolution of technology today. Housing mundane tools from a surgical needle to a scalpel, these materials piece together history.
Military medicine caused many medical advancements, such as the invention of a Band-Aid that contains innovative clotting agents during the Iraq and Afghanistan War. Using the exoskeleton of a shrimp, the Band-Aid material could prevent traumatic bleeding on the battlefield, saving countless lives. Today, they could be found in CVS and Walgreens.
Similarly, in the Korean War, military technology spearheaded a blood-cleaner device and dialysis treatment for kidney disease and diabetes, as well as artificial spleens that could diagnose HIV using nanoparticle magnets. Schierkolk explained how this machine could benefit emergencies that call for rapid action and rural communities without extensive resources.
By facilitating research, the National Museum of Health and Medicine also helps tackle global public health issues like Ebola or HIV.
“We don’t necessarily do the research. We invite you in,” Schierkolk said. “If you’re interested in studying tropical diseases and transmission, here’s a collection [at the museum] that might be useful to you.”
Museum takeaways
Overall, Schierkolk hopes that the National Museum of Health and Medicine creates an environment that empowers and inspires people. Visitors can recognize the work of public health specialists, neuroscientists, medicine practioniters, and educators that spans centuries. It memorializes artifacts that come from painful moments, helping future stories live. It becomes a place to understand the human body: its magnitude, fragility, and resilience.
