THE HISTORICAL MEDICAL MUSEUM. 



In our notices in the August number of 

 " Knowledge " allusion was made to the Historical 

 Medical Museum, organised by Mr. Henry S. 

 Wellcome, and formally opened by Dr. Norman 

 Moore, the President of the Section of the Interna- 

 tional Medical Congress which dealt with the history 

 of medicine. The idea of forming a museum illus- 

 trating the history of the healing art occurred to 

 Mr. Henry S. Wellcome several years ago, and 

 the remarkable collection of rare and curious objects 

 of historical interest connected with surgery, 

 medicine, and the allied sciences brought together 

 from all parts of the world is now housed at 54a, 

 Wigmore Street, London. 



Dr. Norman Moore in the course of his opening 

 address said that the Museum, which had been 

 recognised as a part of the History of Medicine 

 Section of the International Medical Congress, 

 formed a most important addition to its studies. 

 He reviewed the formation of earlier museums, all 

 of which are relatively recent creations and usually 

 developments from libraries. In the reign of 

 Elizabeth, John Dee formed one of the first, a 

 collection of mathematical and astronomical instru- 

 ments and of various curiosities in his library at 

 Mortlake, but the first considerable museum in 

 England was that of John Tradescant, father and 

 son, at Lambeth. The catalogue of the Trade- 

 scantian Museum was printed in 1656, and shows 

 that it had fifteen sections, among which were 

 beasts, birds, reptiles, weapons, and man)- dried 

 plants and fruits ; for the Tradescants were primarily 

 gardeners and collectors of herbs. Their museum 

 went to Elias Ashmole, and was re-arranged at 

 Oxford, where most people have seen the unique 

 head and foot of the dodo, the body having been 

 destroyed in one of those periods of darkness to 

 which all universities are liable. 



Another great museum was formed in London by 

 James Petiver, an apothecary to the Charterhouse, 

 who was educated at Rugby School and at St. 

 Bartholomew's Hospital. He was a botanist and 

 entomologist, but the many sea captains whom he 

 came to know, brought him every kind of curiosity 

 from all over the world. Sir Hans Sloane bought 

 his collection and others, made a great one of his 

 own, and bequeathed the whole to the nation. 



All these early museums were associated with 

 libraries and contained every kind of specimen, and 

 this form the British Museum still retains. The 

 museum of Francis Calceolari, of Verona, is described 

 in a folio of eight hundred pages printed in 1622, 

 and a picture of the museum showed the original 

 form which developed into such a collection as is the 

 British Museum. The specimens were in a well- 



proportioned room, paved with variegated marble 

 and surrounded by an ornate sort of dresser with 

 drawers and shelves. At one end were books and 

 on the shelves all round were specimens. On one 

 side was a statue of Atlas bearing the world, showing 

 the regions whence the specimens had come, and on 

 the other Minerva, showing that all learning was 

 included in the collection. 



The gift of Dr. William Hunter to the University 

 of Glasgow was another museum of this type. It 

 contains pathological, anatomical, and natural history 

 specimens, manuscripts, pictures, early printed books, 

 Greek and other coins. 



A more limited kind of museum succeeded these 

 vast collections, of which a type is the collection of 

 anatomical preparations formed by Edmund King, 

 surgeon to St. Bartholomew's, in the seventeenth 

 century. Of these specialised museums the greatest 

 was that of John Hunter, now under the care of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields. 



The museum, which they were there to open 

 was the first established in England to illustrate 

 the history of medicine, and it might justly be 

 regarded as a further step in the establishment of 

 the subject as a regular study. 



The origins of medicine might be studied in two 

 directions. In the hall in which they were 

 assembled could be seen two figures which typify 

 these. There was Ixtilton, the Mexican god of 

 healing, his head covered by a grotesque mask, a 

 necklace of the teeth of the sperm whale round his 

 neck, a curious instrument of enchantment in his 

 right hand, seeming to have uttered some strange 

 and terrifying ejaculation as he extended his left 

 hand. Near him was the Apollo Belvedere, the 

 most perfect of the sculptured representations of 

 men ; his face showed, the highest flights of 

 thought and powers of observation. The figure of 

 Ixtilton suggested charms, amulets, and magical 

 ceremonies. The figures of Apollo and of his son 

 Asklepios suggested observation, experiment, and 

 reasoning. 



It is always useful when considering the develop- 

 ment of any phase of human activity which began 

 at a time before written records were made, to study 

 what is done at the present day by uncivilised people, 

 and one section of the Historical Medical Museum 

 is devoted to what one might call superstitious 

 medicine, to the fancies and fetishes of savages and 

 the ways and implements of witch doctors. For 

 instance, in the entrance hall we find one of the 

 rough figures from the outside of a village, into 

 which scores of sufferers have driven spikes and 

 nails, indicating the places in which they felt pain 



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