British Museum
Medical museums at present are largely an extinct subtype of museum with a quantity of notable exceptions, such because the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in Glasgow, Scotland. The origins of the medical museum date back to Renaissance cabinets of curiosities which frequently featured shows of human skeletal materials and different materia medica. Apothecaries and physicians collected specimens as a part of their professional activities and to extend their professional status amongst their peers. As the medical profession placed higher emphasis on educating and the apply of materia medica within the late sixteenth century, medical collections grew to become a fundamental part of a medical scholar’s schooling. New developments in preserving soft tissue samples long term in spirits appeared within the seventeenth century, and by the mid-18th-century physicians like John Hunter were using private anatomical collections as instructing tools.
The Portland Art Museum acknowledges and honors the Indigenous peoples of this area on whose ancestral lands the museum now stands. We also want to recognize that Portland at present is a community of many diverse Native peoples who proceed to live and work here. We respectfully acknowledge and honor all …
