Army Medical Department

Army Medical Department AMEDD an organization of the U.S. Army responsible for operating the Army's fixed hospitals and dental facilities, providing preventive health services; carrying on medical research, development, and training institutions, as well as providing food inspection and animal care for the entire Department of Defense through its veterinary command. Its field hospitals are usually deployed to provide humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping, and other support operations, not in support of conventional battlefield situations, although the department does provide trained medical specialists to the Army's combat medical units. Although the Continental Congress had created a medical service on July 27, 1775, it was not until 1818, after the War of 1812 (when the Army had no medical department per se), that the U.S. Congress included the creation of a permanent Army medical service in a military reorganization act. At the beginning of the twentieth century, AMEDD was again restructured, and new branches were added, including the Nursing Corps.