274 Institutes, Museums, Libraries 



Taylor, who described the museum in Endeavour (vol. 1, no. 2, 3 p., April 1942) 

 and published the Catalogue of an exhibition of scientific apparatus pertaining to 

 medicine and surgery (840 items, 36 p., Oxford 1947). Dr. Taylor was assisted 

 by Dr. S. F, Mason. See Taylor's note in Nature (164, 738-39, 1949). 



HUNGARY 



— Budapest — 



Historical section of the museum for hygiene: 



The section was directed by Professor Tibor Gyory of Nadxtovar (1869-1938). 



The present situation of the museum is not known to me, because a pohte request 

 for information addressed to the Director on 15 Feb. 1949 received no answer. 



The following note was kindly sent to me by Claudius F. Mayer in March 1951. 



The full title of the museum was Nepegeszsegiigyi Intezet es Muzeum (Public 

 Health Institute and Museum). Address: Eotvbs ucca 4, Budapest. The museum 

 was intended to be an exhibit for health education. It was very rich in material 

 related to industrial hygiene and industrial medicine. It was under the direction of 

 Georg Gortvay, M.D., a public health officer and a medical officer of the Health 

 Ministry of Hungary. 



The museum had a small collection of old medical and surgical instruments which 

 was much enlarged at the time of an International Exposition held in 1927. The 

 enlargement was chiefly by collection of material on Hungarian medical folklore, 

 again for purposes of public health-education. A special exhibit was arranged for 

 showing the history of quackery. This exhibit was under my immediate direction 

 and arrangements (in 1927-29). 



I do not know what happened in recent years. I met Gortvay in 1937 but, at 

 that time, he was already the head of another group in the State Health Insurance 

 system of Hungary. Gyory died next year; but he had very little to do with the 

 museum, except as a higher government employee in matters of supervision. 



ITALY 



— Florence — 



Istituto e Museo di storia della scienza (Palazzo Castellani, Piazza dei Giudici, 



Firenze ) : 



The Museum owns a very rich collection of instruments, some of them used by 

 Galileo, Torricelli, members of the Accademia del cimento, etc. 



The director is Prof. Dott. Andrea Corsini, assisted by Dott. Maria LmsA 

 BoNELLi. The latter pubfished an illustrated description of it in the Archives in- 

 ternationales (no. 6, Janv. 1949, p. 452-56, 2 pi.). 



— Pavia — 

 Istituto di farmacologia: 



Includes a Raccolta di storia della farmacia, described by P. Mascherpa in 

 Chimica 1943, no. 8, 34 p. 



— Rome — 



Musaeum Kircherianum: 



This museum was created about the middle of the seventeenth century by the 

 Jesuit father Athanasius Kircher (1602-80). According to Kircher's encyclo- 

 paedic tendencies, the museum included objects of every kind — antiquities, archae- 

 ology, ethnography, natural history, etc. It also included a number of mathematical 

 and physical instruments. The Museum does not exist any more as such, its collec- 

 tions having been divided among the other Roman museums; it is possible, how- 

 ever, to reconstruct it in one's imagination, because of the elaborate description 

 of it by another Jesuit, Filippo Buonanni or Bonanni (1638-1735): Musaeum 

 Kircherianum (522 p., foho, with 169 engraved plates, Roma 1709). Pp. 302-12, 

 fig. 65-81, describe the Instrumenta mathematica. 



Information kindly obtained from Giorgio Levi della Vida and Pietro Baro- 



