A medical museum is an institution that stores and exhibits objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest that have a link to medicine or health. Displays often include models, instruments, books and manuscripts, as well as medical images and the technologies used to capture them (such as X-ray machines). [1] Some museums reflect specialized medical areas, such as dentistry, nursing, this history of specific hospitals, and historic pharmacies.
Professional organisations of medical museums include the Medical Museums Association, who publish The Watermark (the quarterly publication of the Archivists and Librarians in the History of the Health Sciences), [2] and The London Museums of Health & Medicine. [3]
Many medical museums have links with medical training providers, such as medical schools or colleges, and often their collections were used in medical education. They were often private, "granting access only to students and practising physicians". [4]
The starting point of all considerations on the historical development of modern museums is contained in the solution of two problems; collecting problem and institutionalization problem.
A collection is a precondition for the existence of a museum, and the collection and preservation of certain objects is a precondition for the creation of a collection. In this sense, collecting has often been the basis on which significant collections have been formed throughout history. Thus, e.g. collecting a wide variety of objects, from works of art, through scientific instruments, technical inventions to natural rarities, was closely linked to Roman conquests, which ...
After the conquest of Greece and Asia in the second century BC, and great interest for the Greek cultural heritage that was transferred to Rome resulted in the creation of not only private but also public collections, libraries and botanical gardens. [5]
In addition to collecting rare and marvelous things, collectors also collected medical items, and so many artifacts were found not only in collectors' collections of doctors and pharmacists, but, more or less sporadically, in many offices, churches and even individual homes. This primarily refers to objects that have been attributed to magical, religious and therapeutic properties (relics, bezoars, corals and objects of Narwhal tusk), etc.
Collections, which at the beginning of the development of human civilization was religious medicine, as one of the earliest represented forms of healing, in Mesopotamia in ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, etc., the first collectors' collections were formed even before the emergence of Renaissance cabinets of rarity - considered the forerunners of modern museums. [5] Institutionalization Although collecting alone does not always and necessarily lead to its institutionalization, on the basis of current knowledge, studies on presenting the museum's past, these problems are interconnected. [5]
Accordingly, the museums of medicine have found out of individuals' preferences for collecting, which has most often been the basis on which significant medical collections have been formed throughout history, and subsequently the medical museums we know today.
Similar to Aristotle's Lyceum, similar establishments were established in Alexandria, Pergamon, Syracuse, Sicily, and Rhodes, but of which Alexandria, known as the Museum of Alexandria, reached its greatest glory. [6]
One of the first museums to have a medical collection was a library established at Alexandria School of Medicine. Concerning the Library of Alexandria and the Medical Museum, there is doubt as to whether it was a unified institution or not. It is also uncertain whether their founder was Ptolemy I Soter 20 or his son Ptolemy Philadelphia. ^ Also, the literature states that Demetrius of Phaleron, a peripatetic philosopher and disciple of Theophrastus, and perhaps Aristotle, who began to collect books for library from all over the world during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter, played an important role in the founding of the Library. . The idea of forming a library containing universal works is linked to the expansionist policy of Alexander the Great, which was close to the Ptolemies. Alexander believed that the domination of the world required learning about the thinking and languages of different civilizations through the study of their texts. [5] [7]
Not only mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, inventors and philosophers, such as Archimedes, Aristarchus of Samos, Euclid and Eratosthenes, have found fame in the Alexandrian Museum throughout history, but also physicians. Thanks to Herophil of Chalcedon (335 - 280 BC) and Erasistratus of Samos (330 - 250 BC). [8] [9] [10] [5]
Within this Museum, the Alexandria Medical School was created and became famous for its achievements, especially in the field of anatomy and physiology. Heprophy, most likely influenced by the Egyptian tradition of body embalming, was the first physician to investigate the human body through autopsy and vivisection, establishing a scientific method and describing the structure of many organs. [5]
The museum in Alexandria was, as an integral part of an academy or university, a meeting place of different cultures, scientific debates and discoveries, a place of learning and "concentrating" the knowledge of the Hellenistic world, because, as Pomjan says, it was not a museum in today's sense of the word, and therefore "no owes its glory to no collection, but rather to its library and the team of scientists who have formed a community within its walls, " [11] [12] though in terms of art collecting There are different opinions in the Alexandrian Museum. [13] [11]
When the Muslim army conquered Alexandria in 642, after defeating the Byzantine army at Battle of Heliopolis, the commander asked Caliph Umar what to do with the museum and library, or books. He gave the famous answer: "They are either contrary to the Koran, which means that they are heretical, or they agree with him, which means that they are superfluous."
In 2002, eleven stores of glass and concrete were erected on the coast where the ruins were located. On the granite wall facing south, the letters of most of the scriptures are engraved, which is a kind of promotion of national, cultural and linguistic diversity preserved in this building. It has the largest public reading room in the world, as well as specialized ones: children's books, rare books, manuscripts and microfilms. An integral part of it is the Museum, also modeled after ancient times. [14]
A rarity cabinet, or Italian studios, originated in the Renaissance cultural milieu and thus established a new model of collecting. As the Renaissance period was crucial for the development of medical sciences, primarily anatomy, which was still based on Galen's second-century teachings, medical subjects in the Renaissance offices were more numerous and varied than in medieval treasuries. In addition to mummified parts of the human body and skeletal remains, there were more and more medical and scientific instruments in the collections.
Otherwise, the cabinet of rarities themselves was usually one or more square or rectangular rooms, interconnected, holding art and natural objects that had "rare and unusual features", with the division of collections into artistic (Latin : curiosa) artificalia and natural rarities (Latin : curiosa naturalia). [15]
In the late 19th and early 20th century, a new concept of medical museums was developed, largely influenced by the development of education and industrialization, which, unlike education, had a detrimental effect on the life and health of the working class of the Western world. The industrialization of individual countries, accompanied by the increasing migration of population to large industrial centers, has resulted in the intensive development and consolidation of cities, as well as the increasingly ill, exposed to poor hygienic conditions in factories and workers' settlements. Under the new conditions, a stronger development of museums is occurring as part of the general culture and memory of a people, and among them the first medical museums aimed at the general public, among other things, with the aim of enlightening the population. In medical museums, visitors were required to acquire new knowledge about the structure of the human body, the functioning of organs and organ systems, and information about healthy lifestyles, infectious diseases and their prevention. In order to bring their exhibitions closer to the numerous visitors of different educational levels, interactive museum exhibits were used, using modern technical means of communication with the public - sound conferences with recorded contents, diaries and slides, films, models of the human body and more. [16]
High-profile medical exhibitions such as Body Worlds and Bodies: The Exhibition, have spurred debate as to the ethics and value of such displays. Historians such as Samuel Alberti have sought to place this "tension between education and sensation" into a broader historical context of freak shows and anatomy displays. [17]
Projects such as Exceptional & Extraordinary have engaged with such controversy and used it as a platform to "examine our attitudes towards difference and aim to stimulate debate around the implications of a society that values some lives more than others." [18]
Anatomy is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its beginnings in prehistoric times. Anatomy is inherently tied to developmental biology, embryology, comparative anatomy, evolutionary biology, and phylogeny, as these are the processes by which anatomy is generated, both over immediate and long-term timescales. Anatomy and physiology, which study the structure and function of organisms and their parts respectively, make a natural pair of related disciplines, and are often studied together. Human anatomy is one of the essential basic sciences that are applied in medicine, and is often studied alongside physiology.
The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The library was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts. The idea of a universal library in Alexandria may have been proposed by Demetrius of Phalerum, an exiled Athenian statesman living in Alexandria, to Ptolemy I Soter, who may have established plans for the Library, but the Library itself was probably not built until the reign of his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The Library quickly acquired many papyrus scrolls, owing largely to the Ptolemaic kings' aggressive and well-funded policies for procuring texts. It is unknown precisely how many scrolls were housed at any given time, but estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 at its height.
A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying and/or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers and specialists. Museums host a much wider range of objects than a library, and usually focus on a specific theme, such as the arts, science, natural history or local history. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often tourist attractions, and many attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world attracting millions of visitors annually.
The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining items that are of interest to an individual collector. Collections differ in a wide variety of respects, most obviously in the nature and scope of the objects contained, but also in purpose, presentation, and so forth. The range of possible subjects for a collection is practically unlimited, and collectors have realised a vast number of these possibilities in practice, although some are much more popular than others.
Herophilos, sometimes Latinised Herophilus, was a Greek physician regarded as one of the earliest anatomists. Born in Chalcedon, he spent the majority of his life in Alexandria. He was the first scientist to systematically perform scientific dissections of human cadavers. He recorded his findings in over nine works, which are now all lost. The early Christian author Tertullian states that Herophilos vivisected at least 600 live prisoners; however, this account has been disputed by many historians. He is often seen as the father of anatomy.
Erasistratus was a Greek anatomist and royal physician under Seleucus I Nicator of Syria. Along with fellow physician Herophilus, he founded a school of anatomy in Alexandria, where they carried out anatomical research. As well, he is credited with helping to found the methodic school of teachings of medicine in Alexandria whilst opposing traditional humoral theories of Hippocratic ideologies. Together with Herophilus, he is credited by historians as the potential founder of neuroscience due to his acknowledgements of nerves and their roles in motor control through the brain and skeletal muscles.
Cabinets of curiosities, also known as wonder-rooms, were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Although more rudimentary collections had preceded them, the classic cabinets of curiosities emerged in the sixteenth century. The term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art, and antiquities. In addition to the most famous and best documented cabinets of rulers and aristocrats, members of the merchant class and early practitioners of science in Europe formed collections that were precursors to museums.
The Mouseionof Alexandria, which arguably included the Library of Alexandria, was an institution said to have been founded by Ptolemy I Soter and his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Originally, the word mouseion meant any place that was dedicated to the Muses, often related to the study of music or poetry, but later associated with sites of learning such as Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum.
Science in classical antiquity encompasses inquiries into the workings of the world or universe aimed at both practical goals as well as more abstract investigations belonging to natural philosophy. Classical antiquity is traditionally defined as the period between the 8th century BC and the 6th century AD. It is typically limited geographically to the Greco-Roman West, Mediterranean basin, and Ancient Near East, thus excluding traditions of science in the ancient world in regions such as China and the Indian subcontinent.
The Alexandrian school is a collective designation for certain tendencies in literature, philosophy, medicine, and the sciences that developed in the Hellenistic cultural center of Alexandria, Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
Praxagoras was a figure of medicine in ancient Greece. He was born on the Greek island of Kos in about 340 BC. Both his father, Nicarchus, and his grandfather were physicians. Very little is known of Praxagoras' personal life, and none of his writings have survived.
The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) is a museum in Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. The museum was founded by U.S. Army Surgeon General William A. Hammond as the Army Medical Museum (AMM) in 1862; it became the NMHM in 1989 and relocated to its present site at the Army's Forest Glen Annex in 2011. An element of the Defense Health Agency (DHA), the NMHM is a member of the National Health Sciences Consortium.
Ancient Greek astronomy is the astronomy written in the Greek language during classical antiquity. Greek astronomy is understood to include the Ancient Greek, Hellenistic, Greco-Roman, and late antique eras. Ancient Greek astronomy can be divided into three primary phases: Classical Greek Astronomy, which encompassed the 5th and 4th centuries BC, and Hellenistic Astronomy, which encompasses the subsequent period until the formation of the Roman Empire ca. 30 BC, and finally Greco-Roman astronomy, which refers to the continuation of the tradition of Greek astronomy in the Roman world. During the Hellenistic era and onwards, Greek astronomy expanded beyond the geographic region of Greece as the Greek language had become the language of scholarship throughout the Hellenistic world, in large part delimited by the boundaries of the Macedonian Empire established by Alexander the Great. The most prominent and influential practitioner of Greek astronomy was Ptolemy, whose treatise Almagest shaped astronomical thinking until the modern era. Most of the most prominent constellations known today are taken from Greek astronomy, albeit via the terminology they took on in Latin.
Lazar "Laza" Lazarević was a Serbian writer, psychiatrist, and neurologist.
Surgeons' Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland, is the headquarters of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd). It houses the Surgeons' Hall Museum, and the library and archive of the RCSEd. The present Surgeons' Hall was designed by William Henry Playfair and completed in 1832, and is a category A listed building.
A cadaver, often known as a corpse, is a dead human body. Cadavers are used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Students in medical school study and dissect cadavers as a part of their education. Others who study cadavers include archaeologists and arts students. In addition, a cadaver may be used in the development and evaluation of surgical instruments.
The history of pathology can be traced to the earliest application of the scientific method to the field of medicine, a development which occurred in the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age and in Western Europe during the Italian Renaissance.
The University Library Svetozar Marković(Serbian: Универзитетска библиотека Светозар Марковић) is the main library in the University of Belgrade system, named after Svetozar Marković, a Serbian political activist in the 19th century. It is located on King Alexander Boulevard, close to the Faculty of Law and adjacent to the Faculties of Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Architecture. Serves the educational and scientific needs of students, academics, and scientists. Library Day is 24 May, a day commemorating Slavic educators St. Cyril and Methodius. At the founding of the library, the collection contained 57,254 publications consisting of monographs and serials. Today, the library contains roughly 1,700,000 publications.
The Alexandria School of Medicine is one of the oldest empirical educational institutions in the history of medicine initiated during the Hellenistic period in the city of Alexandria. At one historical juncture, in Egypt, they united all the different medical doctrines that originated in the East and in Alexandria, and merged into one universal "critical mass of knowledge" the Alexandrian empirical school. As the Alexandria School grows more developed Medical Schools in Knossos and in Knidos over time lost their meaning and significance.
Milan Jovanović Stojimirović was a Serbian journalist, diplomat, manager of the Archive of Serbia, and chronicler of Old Belgrade. His vast collection of paintings, sculptures and artifacts were bequeathed to the Museum and National Library in Smederevo.