March 2009 | Ian J. Kahn

Huge archive of medical illustrations and photos created by HMHM

The National Museum of Health and Medicine [part of the National Library of Medicine] has just created a massive archive of medical illustrations and photography. Best yet, it is *all* free and housed at flicker.
Per a very good Wired article:
An Army archivist is undertaking a massive project to digitize and make public a unique collection of rare and sometimes startling military medical images, from the Civil War to Vietnam. This previously unreported archive at the Army-run National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., contains 500,000 scans of unique images so far, with another 225,000 set to be digitized this year. Mike Rhode, the museum's head archivist, is working to make tens of thousands of those images, which have been buried in the museum's archive, available on Flickr. Working after hours, his team has posted a curated selection of almost 800 photos on the service already. "You pay taxes. These are your pictures," Rhode said. "You should be able to see them."
It is a remarkable collection. All images are being provided for free under a Creative Commons Attribution license. I look forward to see how this project evolves.
Thanks to CD at BoingBoing for the heads up.