Army Medical Museum and Library

  The Army Medical Museum and Library of the U.S. Army was built in 1887 at South B Street [now Independence Avenue] and 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC, which is directly on the National Mall. It was designed and built by Dr. John Shaw Billings to house the Army Medical Museum, the Library of the Surgeon General's Office, and some of the Army's medical records. Between 1893 and 1910, it also housed the Army Medical School.

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The Museum and the Library remained on the Mall until the 1960s, when they were moved to their present separate locations. The old building (known affectionately as "Old Red" or "The Old Pickle Factory") was razed and replaced by the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Successor Institutions

• The Army Medical Museum evolved into the present Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) and the National Museum of Health and Medicine, both now in the same building on the campus of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in northern Washington, D.C. Along with WRAMC, they are slated to move, by 2011, to a new site in Bethesda, Maryland, the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC).

• The Library of Surgeon General's Office, after various name changes (Army Medical Library, Armed Forces Medical Library) became the National Library of Medicine (NLM), then part of the U.S. Public Health Service in 1956. The NLM moved to the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda in 1961.