The Age of Museum Medicine: The Rise and Fall of the Medical Museum at Birmingham's School of Medicine

Abstract

While much has been written in the last few decades on the history of medical education, less attention has focused on the subject of medical museums, which were central to instruction at medical schools during the nineteenth century. This article aims to readdress the question of provincial medical education in England and shed some light on museums, which, if one were judging by their rules, regulations, and costliness, were among the most important services offered by these educational institutions. Originally founded by innovative medical practitioners and supplemented with donations from wealthy patrons and local doctors, museums were reorganized, updated and enlarged into and beyond a subsequent era of hospital and laboratory medicine. Given their centrality to medical education before the Second World War, it is suggested this period might even be referred to as an age of museum medicine.

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