The site of the Army Medical Museum and Library was Independence Avenue and 6th Street, SW in Washington, DC.. After President Lincoln's 1865 assassination at Ford's Theater, the theater was converted into a facility to house Army medical records. The Army Medical Museum and Library was built to accommodate the massive volume of records that could no longer be contained at the Ford's Theater location. It opened in 1887 and housed the Army Medical Museum, the Library of the Surgeon General's Office, and the Army Medical School (1893-1910). During World War II, Dr. DeBakey's duties in the Surgical Consultants Division included researching and drafting all of the Surgeon General's medical policy orders, as well as articles for Health, a classified publication circulated to medical officers. He spent many hours researching in the Surgeon General's Library, and later became a leading advocate for the library's move to the NIH campus. In the 1960s, the Museum and Library were moved to their present, separate locations, and the Independence Avenue building was razed. Today, the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum occupies the lot. The Army Medical Museum evolved into the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at 6900 Georgia Avenue NW, Washington DC, and the National Museum of Health and Medicine, 2500 Linden Lane, Silver Spring, Maryland. The Library became the National Library of Medicine, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland.
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