The Past and Present of Medical Museums in Portugal

Transcription

1 museum history journal, Vol. 7 No. 1, January, 2014, The Past and Present of Medical Museums in Portugal ANA DELICADO University of Lisbon, Portugal This article examines the emergence, expansion and transformations of museums of medicine in Portugal. It aims to further the understanding of these museums by placing them in relation to multiple settings: the appearance of similar institutions throughout Europe, the development of medical teaching and research in Portugal, and the growth of scientific museums. It seeks to identify the individual and institutional actors behind the creation of museums, their motivations and the purposes these institutions aim to serve. The article shows that, although the trend for setting up these museums started in the eighteenth century and gained significant momentum in the early decades of the twentieth century, most of them were short-lived and failed to meet their creators expectations and intentions. It is only in recent years that the twin purposes of protecting historical medical heritage and promoting the public understanding of medical sciences have supported the growth of medical museums and exhibitions. keywords exhibitions, medical heritage, medical sciences, hospital, collections, Portugal Introduction A wide array of different institutions can be found under the label medical museums, displaying material relating to medical practice, biomedical research, pharmacy, public health, body matters, and diseases. Some share a resemblance to museums of the history of science, since they mainly contain scientific instruments and equipment, while others are closer to natural history museums, with systematic collections of preserved specimens of the human body (bones, complete skeletons, organs, and foetuses) or anatomical models. This article seeks to briefly characterize the emergence and development of medical museums in Portugal. It aims to address the following set of research questions: which institutions and individual actors were involved in the creation of medical museums; what motivated them and which objectives they intended to ß W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2014 DOI / Z

2 THE PAST AND PRESENT OF MEDICAL MUSEUMS IN PORTUGAL 19 fulfil; how have these objectives changed over the years; how do these museums fit in the international context; and how are they influenced by more general trends in science related museums in Portugal. 1 The emergence of medical museums in Europe and Portugal Although a detailed description of the history of medical museums is beyond the aims of this article and can be found in other works, 2 the genesis and development of Portuguese museums can only be understood by taking into account their international counterparts, in particular European museums. The first museums of medicine were anatomical museums and were mainly used for medical education. They emerged from the late eighteenth century within universities or institutions for medical education in Italy (Naples, Bologna, Florence, Pavia), Netherlands (Leiden), Austria (Vienna), Switzerland (Basel), France (Musée Fragonard of the National School of Veterinary of Alfort, Museum of Anatomy of Montpellier) and the United Kingdom (Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, St Bartholomew s Hospital in London, Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh). 3 Despite their specific histories and characteristics, a common trait of these museums are anatomical preparations, based on preserved tissues from human corpses, or wax models (of body parts, organs, skin diseases), the latter allowing a higher degree of lifelikeness (similarity to human skin 4 ) at a lower cost. 5 The anatomical museums were intended primarily for medical students. 6 Weiss states that the anatomical exhibitions and museums that display the human body played a crucial role in the production and dissemination of anatomical knowledge and also certainly influenced the changes and reflect the understanding of anatomy and body. 7 For Vincente, the fragments of human and animals in alcohol jars act as visual evidence of advances in science and medicine. 8 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett considers that the display of human remains illustrates conceptual links between anatomy and death, in what may be considered museums of mortality. 9 Despite their professional training purpose, many of these museums were open to the general public and some were specifically aimed at them, such as the Rackstrow London Museum of Anatomy and Curiosities, a commercial institution operating in the eighteenth century, 10 or Joseph Kahn s Museum in London, 11 a public anatomy museum of the nineteenth century dedicated to medical education, used both for the training of medical students and for the enlightenment of the general public. The popularity of these exhibitions is explained by the high public interest in issues pertaining to sexuality, evolution, phrenology, and racial typologies. These museums often had a section devoted to venereal diseases, such as syphilis, with the aim of preventing the spread of illnesses and promoting moral restraint. 12 The last decades of the nineteenth century also witnessed the emergence of museums of health promotion, such as Parkes Hygiene Museum, founded in 1876 in London, the Museum of Hygiene in Berlin (1885), and the Museum of Hygiene in Dresden (1912). 13 Aimed at the general public and not just specialists, these museums covered topics such as the biology of the human body, bacteriology,

3 20 ANA DELICADO infectious diseases, sanitation, or public health. Given their educational purposes, they contained mainly iconography and three-dimensional models and animations, as exemplified by the transparent man of Dresden, a life-size model of the human body made of see-through plastic, with skeleton, organs and arterial, venous and lymphatic systems. 14 Pharmacy museums have an even longer history. According to Griffenhangen, Stieb, and Fischer, the earliest example of pharmaceutical history exhibits can be found in the reconstruction of an apothecary shop at the Dresden Museum in the seventeenth century. 15 Dedicated museums of pharmacy emerged later: the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum in London dates from 1842, the Pharmacy Museum of the University of Basel from 1924, the German Pharmaceutical Museum from 1938, and the Pharmaceutical Museum of Krakow from In the 1930s there were over 230 pharmaceutical collections in Europe. 16 Museums of the history of medicine appear later than their anatomical counterparts (the first were created in the early twentieth century). These museums were formed mostly from collections of instruments and equipment no longer used in medical practice or teaching, assembled by universities, but also by medical practitioners, scientific societies, professional associations, hospitals and public health services, and business companies related to the health sector. 17 Some examples of this kind of museum are the Boerhaave Museum in the Netherlands (founded in 1907), the Wellcome Museum of Medical History in London (1913), or the Museo di Storia della Medicine La Sapienza in Rome (1938), but also House Museums honouring prominent figures in medicine (Alexander Fleming in London, Pasteur and Claude Bernard in Paris). This type of museum can be considered as part of the strategies of the medical profession for acquiring power and authority. 18 Given the difficulty of representing medical knowledge, greater emphasis is placed on the individual figure of the physician. Collections of medical instruments can also be found in museums of history of science, such as the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford. 19 In Portugal, the creation of museums of medicine is linked to these international trends but also to the development of education and research in medical sciences. The Marquis of Pombal s reform of the University of Coimbra in 1772, inspired by the Enlightenment movement, 20 encompassed the creation of the Faculty of Medicine and associated resources (teaching hospital, clinic and pharmacy, anatomical theatre), in which practical classes were taught. 21 In 1825, two Royal Schools of Surgery were set up in Lisbon and Oporto (renamed in 1836 as Medical-Surgical Schools), respectively in the hospitals of São José and Santo António, together with Schools of Pharmacy. 22 The Republican regime would later (1911) convert these schools into Faculties integrated in the Universities of Lisbon and Oporto. 23 Just like elsewhere in Europe, the first museums to have been created within these medical schools were museums of anatomy, containing preserved human specimens and wax models. The earliest museum was the Anatomical Cabinet and Museum of the Oporto School, founded in 1837 by Vicente de Carvalho and José Bernardo Joaquim Pinto, an exhibition of anatomical preparations used in the practical lessons of surgery. 24 In 1911, with the establishment of the Faculty of

4 THE PAST AND PRESENT OF MEDICAL MUSEUMS IN PORTUGAL 21 Medicine, the museum was reorganized by Pires de Lima and Hernani Monteiro: the teaching collections served the methods of comparative human anatomy and teratology. 25 This museum is currently lodged in the Hospital of São João and comprises five rooms, the first devoted to the history of anatomy (objects that used to belong to the professors who held the anatomy chair) and the remaining rooms to anatomical sections (soft tissues, teratology, comparative anatomy and skeletal system). It is still used in medical education and is visited almost exclusively by high school and undergraduate students of medicine and nursing. The Museum of Pathology of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra was created in 1865, based on eighteenth-century specimens belonging to the cabinet and anatomical theatre collected in 1822 by José Carlos Pinheiro. Over the following decades (until 1990), anatomy lecturers and professors contributed to the expansion of the collection. 26 There is no evidence for the existence of anatomical museums aimed at the general public in Portugal, probably due to the hold of the Catholic Church over the country. The first museum dedicated to the history of medicine was founded in Lisbon in 1835 by the Society of Medical Sciences, with items donated by practitioners, although the museum never had the proper facilities for showing the collection. The museum project was revived in 1923, at the time of the centennial anniversary of the Society (which included a document exhibition). It was claimed that the museum would be a material and educational cornerstone and that [it] would act as a permanent reminder of what the medical community in Portugal had done for the Portuguese society over one hundred years. 27 The hospital of São José had its own museum as well, created in 1912 by the initiative of one of its physicians, Francisco dos Reis Stromp, who proposed a committee to collect all objects of historical, artistic or scientific interest. The museum was formally established in 1918 as the Museum of Civilian Hospitals of Lisbon, but it was only in 1945 that an installation committee was appointed. The collection was then displayed in a small room at the hospital of Santo António dos Capuchos. 28 At the Hospital of Santa Marta, the Alberto MacBride Museum opened to the public during a brief period in 1957, based on objects collected by this surgeon, who had already advocated the creation of a Museum of Medicine in 1912, in an article in the journal Modern Medicine. 29 At the Hospital of Desterro, the Museum of Dermatology was created by Dr Sá Penella in 1955 to house a collection of wax models made in the 1930s, exemplifying skin diseases, in particular syphilis. The National Institute of Health, established in 1899 by Ricardo Jorge, also had a museum dedicated to public hygiene, set up in In the 1950s, the museum collection (to which little was added after the objects gathered by Ricardo Jorge) was scattered over several rooms, but still open to the public. The collection included sanitation equipment (stoneware pipes, toilets, model bathrooms), ventilators, model water purification stations, disinfection equipment, rodent control equipment (including stuffed rats), food samples, examples of building materials, material pertaining to anti-malarial campaigns, and charts and figures showing population statistics. 31

5 22 ANA DELICADO In 1948 the School Board of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon entrusted Professor Costa Sacadura with the task of conducting the inventory and cataloguing of the collections supplied by the Society of Medical Sciences, as well as pieces from the Royal School of Medicine, Hospital of São José, and the Museum of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the Maternity Magalhães Coutinho. This museum was to be housed in the new hospital under construction at the time (Hospital of Santa Maria), 32 but this project was not carried out. In Oporto, the Museum of the History of Medicine Professor Maximiano Lemos was founded in 1933 within the Faculty of Medicine, by Luís de Pina, Professor of History of Medicine, aware of the need for preserving medical heritage and of the responsibilities universities have in the professional and historical training of medical students. 33 The Museum honours the name of Luís de Pina s predecessor, Maximiano Lemos, the first Full Professor of the History of Medicine in Porto (where it is still a mandatory course in the structure of the medical degree). Luís de Pina was inspired by visits to museums of history of medicine during his field trips in Europe. 34 The museum started with a small collection of artefacts assembled for the exhibition of medical history in 1925, at the Crystal Palace, to commemorate the first centenary of the founding of the Royal School of Surgery of Oporto. 35 This exhibition alerted the Oporto community to the importance of creating a museum of medical content. 36 The exhibitors bequeathed the collection to the Faculty of Medicine and other pieces were offered by various Faculty Services: medical instruments, equipment, anatomical models, didactic materials, iconography, certificates and documents, bibliography, professors personal belongings, paintings, and artefacts relating to academic life (clothes, course books, party programmes). In 1959 the museum was transferred from the initial premises of the Hospital of Santo António to the current location at the Hospital of São João, and was reorganized by Luís de Pina and Maria Olivia Ruber de Menezes: one of the wishes of the professor was thus fulfilled: to combine museology with medicine in favour of a new pedagogy. Moreover, the museum would be an important repository of national medical heritage, ordered and complemented with iconography. The artistic activity of the professor, by focusing on medical subjects, would give support to the ideas and objects on display. 37 Museum artefacts were arranged in chronological order (from prehistory to the twentieth century), in rooms that were named after professors of the Medical- Surgical School of Porto and of the Faculty of Medicine who were active in the field of History of Medicine. 38 The room dedicated to Luís de Pina was created by Maria Otilia Meneses to honour him, containing his artwork and personal effects. In this historical period house-museums of such notable doctors as Egas Moniz and Abel Salazar are worthy of mention. 40 They are part of a more general trend of creation of house-museums after the 1910 revolution, by prominent republican figures (artists, writers, scientists, politicians) aiming to promote popular education. 40 The House Museum Abel Salazar opened in 1950 by the Foundation created four years earlier (on the initiative of Alberto Ruy Luis Gomes and Saavedra and with the support of other professors of medicine, such as

6 THE PAST AND PRESENT OF MEDICAL MUSEUMS IN PORTUGAL 23 Egas Moniz, Celestino da Costa, Fernando da Fonseca, Rodrigues Lapa, and also of writers and intellectuals), with the aim to promote the preservation and dissemination of the artistic work of Abel Salazar, histology professor and researcher at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (dismissed for political reasons in 1935 and reinstated in 1941). In 1963 the Foundation became a cooperative and two years later the Gulbenkian Foundation bought the building and the estate, keeping the cooperative as their administrator. After the completion of renovation works in 1971, the Gulbenkian Foundation donated the House Museum to the University of Porto (1975). The House Museum in São Mamede de Infesta displays paintings and sculptures, furniture, documents, instruments, and scientific publications of Abel Salazar, and organizes exhibitions, conferences, thematic workshops, and artistic events. The House Museum of Egas Moniz, professor and researcher of neurology at the School of Medicine, University of Lisbon (Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1949), 41 was created by the foundation with the same name, established in 1965 by testamentary will of his widow, with the purpose of organizing and maintaining a House Museum, to bring together objects and documents relating to the late professor Dr. António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz, his life, his work and his national and international projection, and if their resources permit, to promote in its buildings literary, artistic, scientific and professional improvement activities. 42 This would follow the wishes of Egas Moniz himself, who expressed the desire to transform his house into a regional museum: Museums, no matter how modest, are centres of education and spiritual delight, there should be one in every town, in every village, in every hamlet, so that the people would rise up in spiritual communion of the beautiful. 43 The House Museum opened in 1968 and in 1976 was integrated in the National Museum of Science and Technology, to be detached again in 1979, as such integration goes against the statutes and nature of the Foundation Egas Moniz. 44 A few years later the museum was placed under the tutelage of the city council of Estarreja. The House Museum exhibits art, furniture, documents and scientific instruments, manuscripts, and letters. In a nutshell, up until the last quarter of the twentieth century the creation of museums devoted to medicine in Portugal was primarily guided by two objectives: to support medical education, providing students with study collections (anatomical models and preparations), and safeguarding the historical heritage of the medical profession (instruments, equipment, personal items of notable physicians). Medical museums were created through the initiative of individual practitioners, but also with the involvement of the institutions to which they are affiliated: hospitals, medical schools, and associations such as the Society of Medical Sciences. However, almost all of these museums had a short life span, having been open to the public only during brief periods (the vital condition for being considered as museums). However, the collections in which they are based do not disappear, but rather are kept in reserve for the next stage in the history of such institutions.

7 24 ANA DELICADO The re-discovery of medical museums Like other types of scientific museums, such as science museums, science centres, and natural history museums, recent decades have witnessed a strong growth and renovation of medical museums. A renewed attention to scientific heritage, together with concerns with public understanding of science, has led both to the regeneration of existing museums and to the formation of new museums in Europe and also in Portugal. Museums of anatomy and pathology have remained as museum for the experts, although some also seek to develop exhibitions that appeal to wider audiences, usually concerning health promotion. Their role in supporting the teaching of medicine has not disappeared completely, but it has been reduced, due to changes in curricula and teaching techniques: a greater emphasis on clinical practice and less on pathology, the decline of anatomy teaching, the rise of other educational technologies, such as video and multimedia presentations or the internet. However, these museums still hold relevance for research, not just for historical studies but also for medical ones. For instance, the examination of old samples of preserved tissue allows the analysis of already eradicated diseases and can give clues about infection outbreaks in the past and prevent their reappearance in the present. 45 Although many of the historical collections are still integrated in the universities from which they originated and cannot always be visited by the general public, some institutions have been investing in the promotion of their collections, holding exhibitions and fostering historical research. Such is the case of the renovation of the museums of the Colleges of Surgeons in London and Edinburgh 46 and the foundation of the Medical History Museum in Berlin, in the 1990s, aimed at highlighting the long history of research and medical education in the city (hosted by the Charité Hospital and formed on the basis of the medical collections acquired by the Humboldt University in the early nineteenth century). 47 Other examples are the Museum of Pathological Anatomy of Virchow or the Robert Koch Museum in Berlin. Outside the academic sphere, in the 1980s the Science Museum in London began to open a series of galleries devoted to medical issues, first on the history of medicine ( The Science and Art of Medicine in 1981, Glimpses of Medical History in 1980), subsequently on health and medical research ( Health Matters in 1994), 48 later on human genetics and biomedicine (the Wellcome Wing). 49 With a long history of temporary exhibitions, 50 the Wellcome Trust opened in 2007 a permanent exhibition space, the Wellcome Collection, which currently holds two exhibitions, one dedicated to the figure of founder, the other to contemporary medicine. 51 One other example that can be mentioned is the Thackray Medical Museum, which opened in 1997 in Leeds, at the initiative of the heirs of the founder of a medical supplies company. In addition to a vast collection of medical and pharmaceutical artefacts, it presents varied and innovative exhibitions (with interactive and multimedia devices, reconstructions) on medical discoveries, the history of local public health, different options for the treatment of diseases (the role of doctors, pharmacists, herbalists, quacks, family, and friends), the history of

8 THE PAST AND PRESENT OF MEDICAL MUSEUMS IN PORTUGAL 25 germ theory, the human body, the evolution of hospital equipment, and medical education. 52 In Portugal, there has been a surge in museums dedicated to scientific themes in the past two decades: over two dozen science museums and science centres were created, 53 several centenary natural history museums were refurbished and a few new ones opened to the public. 54 This trend, partially spurred by the intention of stimulating interest in science as a vocation, 55 included museums of medicine, even though there is no shortage of interest in medicine as a career and university courses in the health sciences are in great demand. Existing medical museums have gained a new drive, former museums have reopened with new projects, new museums and exhibitions were created and other institutions added medical issues to their activities. The Museum of the History of Medicine Maximiano Lemos at the University of Oporto is the only surviving museum from the first half of the twentieth century and, since 1990, under the direction of the current curator, Amélia Rincon Ferraz, it shows a dynamic of both continuity and change. In line with her postgraduate training in the history of medicine, she has strengthened the historical research component of the museum, with the restoration, inventory and cataloguing of the collection and by building connections with international scientific associations (Association Européenne des Musées d Histoire des Sciences Médicales, American Medical Museum Association, Royal British Society of Medicine, Belgian Association for the History of Medicine, and the International Society of History of Medicine). The museum continues to receive material bequeathed by services of the Faculty and Hospital, by physicians, and by similar institutions and, in line with current debates in the area, 56 there is a particular concern with completing historical series of objects with current equipment and instruments, in order to show how modern medicine operates. The museum remains focused on an educational aim: it is still used in the lessons of history of medicine and is visited not only by students of the Faculty but also by secondary education school groups and by foreign experts. The exhibition has been slightly reorganized, in order to enhance its educational nature (creation of a room dedicated to dentistry and another to ophthalmology). However, other new functions have been added, namely research and community outreach: it is important to do research [ ] to continue investigating this history, which is always incomplete, there will always be additions to the history of science that is medicine, to the history of physicians, of people, health professionals that take part in this history, it is a tribute that we pay them, safeguarding that memory. [ ] On the other hand, providing to the community is also critical [ ] We have also started to think that this belongs to humanity and it is not just the prerogative of the researcher and we have to gear this towards the public [ ] who isn t interested in knowing how this or that was treated? Everyone has suffered, everyone has experienced pain, we have all had suffering and death in life, unfortunately. So everyone wants to know a little how things were in the past. 57 In the 2000s, several institutions that had had museums in the past reinstated them, albeit in different formats. Such is the case of the 1950s Dermatology

9 26 ANA DELICADO figure 1 Dermatological Collection of Desterro. Photo by António Perestrelo de Matos, 2011 Museum of Desterro, above mentioned, whose collection was transferred to the Hospital of Capuchos (where it joined the Alberto MacBride collection, mentioned above) when the hospital that hosted it closed down. Recently it has been the subject of a research project that supported the restoration of the pieces, their inventory, and display in an exhibition regularly open to the public (see Figure 1). 58 This is a symptom of a noticeable increase in the concern with the preservation of medical heritage, at a time that the network of public hospitals is being reorganized. Another example is the Museum of Health of the National Institute of Health Dr Ricardo Jorge (see above), reinstated in 2007, with the aim of promoting the dissemination of scientific culture and preservation of historical heritage. 59 However, unlike in the early decades on the twentieth century, the museum still does not have a permanent exhibition. Its activities are limited to a small exhibition dedicated to the history of malaria eradication in Portugal, sporadic temporary exhibitions, and a virtual museum online. Other museums are also trapped on a preliminary stage, formally created but unable to move beyond occasional exhibitions in order to become fully-fledged institutions. For instance, in Lisbon the above mentioned plan for forming a Museum of Medicine within the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon was resumed in 2003, through the initiative of Martins e Silva (Faculty Dean) and Manuel Valente Alves (physician, lecturer, and artist), its current curator. The purpose of the Museum of Medicine was to bring together the historical collections from various institutes, clinics, and laboratories of the Faculty, and to build bridges between art and science (and between different scientific fields, natural and social), creating a laboratory, a centre for circulating information and generating knowledge and ideas, open to the multiplicity of cross-disciplinary

10 THE PAST AND PRESENT OF MEDICAL MUSEUMS IN PORTUGAL 27 research, departing from the specificities of art and science. 60 The purpose-built structure in the hospital grounds has been delayed by lack of funds and temporary exhibitions have been few and far between, but always focusing on the intersection between medicine and art: in 2005 the museum held its first exhibition, Passages, 100 pieces for the Museum of Medicine, in partnership with the National Museum of Fine Art, combining technical and scientific pieces with artworks; and in 2011 the museum organized the temporary exhibition Anatomy Cabinet: Arpad, Vieira and anatomical drawings of the Museum of Medicine, in cooperation with the Foundation Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva. In 2013 an agreement was signed between the Faculty of Medicine and the University s Museum of Natural History and Science for carrying out the inventory and dissemination of the medical collections, which are to be exhibited both at the Faculty and at the museum. This may be a sign that the Museum of Medicine has been further delayed or even terminated. Another museum project still in the planning stages is the Hospital Museum of Santo António in Oporto. The organization of the exhibition Looking at the Body, Saving a Life in 2007 generated the idea of creating a museum, aimed at celebrating the institution s memory and Medicine, disseminating, on the one hand, the successes, challenges, history and dreams of thousands of people who are part of this narrative and of the history of medicine/health sciences in Portugal and, on the other hand, highlighting the leadership and commitment of this institution to education and research, as well as its vocation for public service in terms of education and quality of life, informing, explaining, exploring and discussing medical principles and practice, participating fully in the construction of an active citizenship and healthier lifestyles. 61 Formally established in 2008, the museum still does not have an exhibition space, although it has been active in the inventory and management of collections and displays a decentralized exhibition of medical objects in the lobby and in the amphitheatre of the hospital. Pharmacy Museums Although the universities of Oporto, Coimbra, and Lisbon have only small collections of objects from the Faculties of Pharmacy, mostly closed to the public, the National Association of Pharmacies (ANF) holds a museum dedicated entirely to the subject of Pharmacy, founded in Unlike the museums of medicine, this project did not originate from the university realm but rather from the professional sphere of pharmacists, much like what happened with the early history of pharmacy in Portugal: the History of Pharmacy came without theoretical or institutional links to pharmaceutical science or to its teaching, as a result of the process of socio-professional affirmation of pharmaceutics in the nineteenth century. 62 The initial idea of creating a Museum of Pharmacy emerged in the 1960s, together with the intention of holding national and international conferences, publishing books, and organizing exhibitions on the history of pharmacy. This was due to the interest shown by several pharmacists (Raul de Carvalho, Correia da Silva, Alves da Silva, Alcino Teixeira, and Carlos Silveira) and to the awareness of

11 28 ANA DELICADO the existence of museums in other countries, alongside the prevailing ideology of exaltation of the historical values of the Portuguese nation. 63 Several donations were made by pharmacists, the National Pharmacy Guild, the union, and the Board of Pharmacists. However, due to lack of political will of the official institutions of the profession [ the] absence of an appropriate space [ and] weak financial resources, 64 this proposal did not come to fruition. The project of forming a museum was resumed in the early 1980s by pharmacists Guerreiro Gomes and Salgueiro Basso. They were motivated by the profound change pharmacies were undergoing at that time (modernization, computerization) and by the fact that Portugal was one of the few European countries where there is no museum dedicated to the pharmacy. 65 In 1981 ANF called on all its associates to donate pieces of historical interest, expressing the willingness to create a museum and a historical library, in order to save all the important testimonies of the pharmaceutical business that exist in Portuguese pharmacies; to organize explicit and consistent sets to allow a full reconstruction of the history of the pharmaceutical profession, particularly in regard to dispensing medications; to appropriately display the collections in a museum. 66 In response to this appeal, many pharmacists made donations. In 1985 the museum received the collection of the Clinical Laboratory of Abrantes and in 1992 the entire content (furniture, bottles and mortars, instruments for preparing drugs) of Pharmacy Barbosa (dating from the eighteenth century). The decision not to award the coordination of the museum to a university professor in the area of Pharmacy was made by the President of the Association, João Cordeiro: Professors of History of Pharmacy are extremely interesting but they have a vision, which is not one for a museum, they don t understand the message that a museum [must convey], an historical memory that must go through to the public. [ ]. The information you then end up giving to the visitor is what a great yawn. 67 The museum was inaugurated in June 1996 but soon after it was decided to extend its scope (which was then restricted to Portuguese pharmacy) in order to cover the history of pharmacy in different civilizations and geographical areas, aiming to emphasize the universality of the struggle for health and the search for efficient drugs. Museum staff travelled to several continents to obtain artefacts concerning traditional or historical health practices (from an Egyptian sarcophagus to a penicillin culture by A. Fleming, from a Tibetan medical chart to a North American shaman s headdress). In 1999 a new section was added, dedicated to health and pharmacy in space, with objects donated by NASA and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Later on other small sections were established, devoted to military pharmacy and travel pharmacy. The museum reopened to the public in 2001 and it has since been awarded a number of national and international prizes. The functions of the Pharmacy Museum are multiple and vary according to the different actors involved. ANF is primarily concerned with preserving the heritage of a profession by its own association, defining it as a contribution of ANF and pharmacists for reflecting on the historical and cultural nature of their profession, allowing that its scientific, technological and artistic legacy is transmitted to future

12 THE PAST AND PRESENT OF MEDICAL MUSEUMS IN PORTUGAL 29 figure 2 Pharmacy Museum at Oporto. Photo by Raquel Delicado, 2013 generations. 68 For ANF the museum is thus mostly an exercise in public relations and a tool for promoting the public image of the profession and the association itself. For the museum director, it is an instrument for scientific and historical dissemination and a response to the public s interest in the subject of health: every museum should have a mission, have a theme [ ] Ours, for instance, is decoding the scientific and historical language of pharmacy [ ] pharmacy always looks very beautiful, very attractive, in terms of art and design, and it always has a side that is of hope. Drugs mean hope, we take medication in the hope of becoming well again. [ ] [The goal] is to reach the public, make them understand this story, and especially to create hope, to show people that disease has been tackled over time and there are moments when everything looks very bad but sometimes by chance, someone discovers something, which will give a longer life expectancy for people. It has been like this the history of Pharmacy and Drugs. 69 In 2010, the Museum of Pharmacy opened a new section at Oporto, with similar content to the one in Lisbon: health-related artefacts from different ages and from

13 30 ANA DELICADO figure 3 Pharmacy Museum at Oporto. Photo by Raquel Delicado, 2013 all over the world and the reconstitution of a nineteenth century pharmacy (see Figures 2 and 3). Finally, exhibitions on health and medicine are not held exclusively in medicine museums. In the past few years several other museums also covered these issues in their exhibitions. In 1995 the Museum of Science of the University of Lisbon opened a highly popular exhibition on AIDS. According to its curator, it was the first museum exhibition in the world to tackle this issue: several people asked me: why did the Science Museum decide to do an exhibition about AIDS? This is not a Museum of Health, this is not even a Museum of Natural History, why did you decided to do an exhibition about AIDS? I must say it was the first museum in the world that was concerned with this issue. [ ] But that s why, no one had ever done it and we had to really take advantage of museum resources, to raise awareness and eliminate taboos on a number of things, and that could be done through an exhibition. The exhibition was indeed a success. 70 In 2008 the museum presented the exhibition Health and Medicine in Portugal and Brazil, organized by the High Commissioner of Health to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese royal family in Brazil. The museum also established partnerships with the Câmara Pestana Bacteriological Institute (also part the University of Lisbon) and the Central Lisbon Hospital Centre for providing support to the inventory and exhibition of their collections. There have also been several exhibitions devoted to the topic of medicine and health at the science centres of the Science Alive network. 71 Exhibitions in science centres tend to display predominantly interactive devices instead of traditional museum pieces. The Knowledge Pavilion, the core of this network, presented several exhibitions on health issues in the last decade: The Brain (2000, designed by

14 THE PAST AND PRESENT OF MEDICAL MUSEUMS IN PORTUGAL 31 Experimentarium Copenhagen), Beneath the Skin (2000, designed by the Deutsche Museum), A question of sex(es) (2006, designed by Technopolis), Disgusting! The indiscrete science of the human body (2007, designed by an American company), Sex and then what? (2010, designed by the Cité des Sciences et de l Industrie) and BodyIMAGE Representations of the Body in Science and Art (2011, promoted by the Science Alice Agency in cooperation with the Centre for Philosophy of Science of the University of Lisbon). The Knowledge Pavilion has also collaborated with several hospitals in the initiative Science is good for your health, promoting scientific activities aimed at hospitalized children. The Exploratorium of Coimbra, also part of the network of science centres, opened a permanent exhibition entitled In good shape with science dedicated to the link between science and health. Also symptomatic of the value currently placed on medical heritage was the organization of the exhibition Body - State, Medicine and Society at the time of the First Republic in Sponsored by the National Commission for the Centennial Celebration of the Republic and benefiting from loans from several museums, the exhibition focuses on the relationship between doctors and their knowledge with society, without neglecting the diseases and health policies in the First Republic. 72 Conclusions Health and disease are among the key science topics that stimulate curiosity in museum visitors. Doctor s appointments and medical examinations are part of everyday life experiences. Society places a very high value on medicine and medical research as means for relieving suffering and prolonging life expectancy. Opinion polls on science and technology reveal that the public is far more interested in medical discoveries than in any other field of knowledge and that they trust medical practitioners above all other experts and authorities. 73 Sickness, pain and death have strong symbolic meanings in all cultures of the world. All these factors combine to make medical museums powerfully attractive and at times, paradoxically, frightening and repulsive. 74 Thus, museums of medicine have always had a strong public appeal. Early museums, devoted primarily to the training of future doctors, often provided access to the common citizen. Driven by thirst for knowledge and morbid curiosity in seeing usually hidden guts and body parts, audiences flocked to exhibitions and museums. Creators of museums - universities, hospitals, medical societies, individual practitioners welcomed this public interest, since it enhanced the prestige of their institutions and of the medical profession, as well as promoting healthier habits. The profusion of medical museums and exhibitions, created in different periods and revitalized in the current context of development of science museums, is thus unsurprising. It is occurring both in Europe and, with perhaps a slight delay, in Portugal. Between safeguarding historical heritage and promoting the public understanding of science and health, medical museums have an important social role to play. Portuguese museum share many similarities with medical museums in Europe, including the type of artefacts they show and the kind of institutions that house

15 32 ANA DELICADO them (universities, hospitals, research centres), as well as the missions ascribed to them. What is perhaps specific to Portugal is the difficulty in turning ambitious plans into actual museums. Throughout the nineteen and twentieth century, many medical museums never left the planning stage or were short-lived. Today, despite notable exceptions, such as the Pharmacy Museum, many museums are still little more than worthy intentions committed to paper and valuable historical collections tucked away in storage, whose more notable items are occasionally shown in temporary exhibitions. Even the Museum of the History of Medicine in Oporto, the oldest in existence, still caters mainly to the student population. Therefore, even though medical museums have benefited from the development surge that occurred in scientific museums in Portugal in recent decades, they have so far somewhat failed to ensure the institutional stability and visibility that comes with a permanent exhibition (or a regular string of temporary ones) open to the general public. Notes 1 This article draws on material collected for a PhD thesis, carried out between 2002 and 2005 at the University of Lisbon, complemented with research for the project The science, clinic, and art of syphilis at Desterro ( ), carried out at the Institute of Social Sciences, under the coordination of Cristiana Bastos, and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (HC/0071/2009). 2 Felip Cid, Museologia Médica, Aspectos Teóricos y Cuestiones Práticas (Bilbao: Museo Vasco de Historia de la Medicina e de la Ciência, 2007); Ken Arnold, Museums and the Making of Medical History, in Manifesting Medicine, ed. by R. Bud (London: Science Museum, 2004), pp See Marina Warner, Waxworks and Wonderlands, in Visual Display: Culture Beyond Appearances, ed. by L. Cook and P. Wollen (NewYork: The New Press, 1998), pp ; Lydia Taub, On the Role of Museums in History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Endeavour, 22(2) (1998), 41 43; Lydia Taub, Introduction: Universities in Europe the Circulation of Ideas, in Alligators and Astrolabes: Treasures of University Collections in Europe, ed. by T. Bremer and P. Wegener (Druckwerk: Halle, 2001), pp. 9 14; Saskia Weiss, Using Different Display Technologies: Implications for the Communication of Science in Exhibitions, in Sciences au musée. Sciences nomades, ed. by B. Pellegrin (Geneve: Georg Éditeur, 2003), pp ; Samuel Alberti Wax Bodies: Art and Anatomy in Victorian Museums, Museum History Journal, 2 (2009), 7 36; Samuel Alberti, Medical Museums Past, Present and Future, Bulletin of The Royal College of Surgeons of England, 93(2) (2011), 56 58; Simon Chaplin, John Hunter and the Anatomy of a Museum, History Today, 55(2) (2005), 19 30; Gaby Porter, Partial Truths, in Museum Languages: Objects and Texts, ed. by G. Kavanagh (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1991), pp ; A. W. Bates, Indecent and Demoralising Representations : Public Anatomy Museums in mid-victorian England, Medical History, 52(1) (2008), Warner, Waxworks and Wonderlands ; Arnold, Museums and the Making of Medical History. 5 Ludmila Jordanova, Medicine and Genres of Display, in Visual Display: Culture Beyond Appearances, ed. by L. Cook and P. Wollen (New York: The New Press, 1998), pp ; Ana Katharina Maerker, Model Experts: Wax Anatomies and Enlightenment in Florence and Vienna, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011). 6 Alberti, Wax Bodies and Medical Museums ; Bates, Indecent and Demoralising Representations. 7 Weiss, Using Different Display Technologies, p Filipa Lowndes Vicente, Viagens e Exposições D. Pedro na Europa do Sec. XIX. (Lisbon: Gótica, 2003), p Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Objects of Ethnography, in Exhibiting Cultures: The

16 THE PAST AND PRESENT OF MEDICAL MUSEUMS IN PORTUGAL 33 Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, ed. by I. Karp and S. Lavine (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute, 1991), pp Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Objects of Ethnography, p. 37; Piers D. Mitchell, Ceridwen Boston, Andrew T. Chamberlain, Simon Chaplin, Vin Chauhan, Jonathan Evans, et al., The Study of Anatomy in England from 1700 to the Early 20th Century, Journal of Anatomy, 219(2) (2011), Bates, Indecent and Demoralising. A. W. Bates, Dr Kahn s Museum: Obscene Anatomy in Victorian London, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 99(12) (2006), Public museums of anatomy were outlawed in England in 1857, partly under pressure from medical professionals, but many remained in business after that date, even though they eventually disappeared (Bates, Indecent and Demoralising ). 13 B. P. Bergman and S. A. J. Miller, Historical Perspectives on Health: The Parkes Museum of Hygiene and the Sanitary Institute, The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 123 (2003), 55 61; Klaus Vogel, The Transparent Man Some Comments on the History of a Symbol, in Manifesting Medicine, ed. by R. Bud (London: Science Museum, 2004), pp Vogel, The Transparent Man. 15 G. B. Griffenhagen, E. W. Stieb, and B. D. Fisher, A Guide to Pharmacy Museums and Historical Collections in the United States and Canada (Madison, WI: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1999). 16 Griffenhangen et al., A Guide to Pharmacy Museums. 17 Arnold, Museums and the Making of Medical History ; Arnold, Ken. Medicine Man: Revisiting Henry Wellcome s Collections, Quark 35 (2005): Jordanova, Medicine and Genres of Display, p Arnold, Museums and the Making of Medical History. 20 Ana Carneiro and Ana Simões, Enlightenment Science in Portugal: The Estrangeirados and their Communication Networks, Social Studies of Science, 30 (2000), Rómulo de Carvalho, História do ensino em Portugal: desde a fundação da nacionalidade até o fim do regime de Salazar e Caetano (Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2001), pp. 466, Carvalho, História do ensino, p Carvalho, História do ensino, pp. 689, 692; Madalena Esperança Pina, As faculdades de medicina na I República, in Corpo: Estado, medicina e sociedade no tempo da I República, ed. by M. R. L. Garnel (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda, 2010), pp Teresa P. Viana, A universidade, os museus e o Porto, Boletim da Universidade do Porto, 2(14 15) (1992), Viana, A universidade, os museus e o Porto, p The Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences (created in 1975) also has a museum of anatomy, used exclusively for teaching. 27 Maria Fátima Nunes, As sociabilidades médicocientíficas, in Corpo: Estado, medicina e sociedade no tempo da I República, ed. by M. R. L. Garnel (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda, 2010), p Museus, in Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira (Lisbon: Editorial Enciclopédia,1950), p L. D. Mora, O Dr. Alberto Mac Bride, soldado, cirurgião e cidadão, Revista Portuguesa de Cirurgia, 16 (2011), Madalena Esperança Pina and Sofia Couto Rocha, Ricardo Jorge I m a doctor nothing is indifferent to me. 41u Congresso Internacional de História da Medicina (Societé Internationale d Histoire de la Médecine), Analecta Historico Medica (2008). 31 Museus, 1950, p Museus, 1950, p Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto, Museu de História da Medicina Maximiano Lemos (Catálogo) (Porto: Shering Lusitana, 2003), p Amélia Rincon Ferraz, Os estudos médicohistóricos na obra do Professor Luís de Pina, in Homenagem ao Professor Doutor Luís de Pina: 60u aniversário do Museu de História da Medicina (Porto: Fundação Eng. António de Almeida, 1998), pp Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto, Museu de História da Medicina, p Amélia Rincon Ferraz, The Maximiano Lemos History of Medicine Museum, Sixty Years of Existence, in Homenagem ao Professor Doutor Luís de Pina: 60u aniversário do Museu de História da Medicina (Porto: Fundação Eng. António de Almeida, 1998), pp Ferraz, The Maximiano Lemos History, p Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto, Museu de História da Medicina, p. 8.

17 34 ANA DELICADO 39 The House Museum Bissaya Barreto was created later (1986) and contains only works of art and furniture. It was created by a foundation with the same name that inherited the estate of the physician and University of Coimbra professor. 40 A. M. Borges, Educar pela arte: as Casas-Museu e o colecionismo ao serviço da República, paper presented at the Congresso Histórico Internacional I República e Republicanismo, 2010,, parlamento.pt/congressocvspapers/augustomou tinhoborges_paper.pdf. [accessed 2 June 2013]. 41 There is also a Museum of Egas Moniz at the Hospital of Santa Maria, integrated at a research centre and dedicated to the history of the development of cerebral angiography; it has a reconstitution of his office. 42 Article 2 of the Statute of the Foundation Egas Moniz. 43 Egas Moniz, quoted in, 44 Decree Law No. 89/79 of 18 April. 45 J. Horder, Medical Milestones, Frontiers and Challenges in the Centenary of Federation: How Have Medical Museums Contributed to the Enlightenment and Understanding of Medical Advances in the 20th Century?, in Museums Australia Conference Papers, 2002; J. Horder, Promoting Health through Public Programmes in University Medical Museums, Museologia, 3(1 2) (2003), ; Alberti, Medical Museums Past. 46 Alberti, Medical Museums Past. 47 K. Obermann, Materialised Medical History: Berlin Medical Historical Museum, The Lancet, 359 (2002), Timothy M. Boon, Histories, Exhibitions, Collections: Reflexions on the Language of Medical Curatorship at the Science Museum after Health Matters, in Manifesting Medicine, ed. by R. Bud (London: Science Museum, 2004), pp Xerxes Mazda, Dangerous Ground? Public Engagement with Scientific Controversy, in Creating Connections: Museums and the Public Understanding of Research, ed. by D. Chittenden, G. Farmelo, and B. V. Lewenstein (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 2004), pp Ken Arnold, Birth and Breeding: Politics on Display at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, in The Politics of Display. Museums, Science, Culture, ed. by S. Macdonald (London: Routledge, 2001), pp Alberti, Medical Museums Past. Arnold, Medicine Man. 52 Gabrielle Murphy, Myth, Magic and the History of Modern Medicine, The Lancet, 354 (October 1999), ; Arnold, Museums and the Making of Medical History. 53 Ana Delicado Exhibiting Science in Portugal: Practices and Representations in Museums, Portuguese Journal of Social Science, 9(1) (2010), Ana Delicado, For Scientists, for Students or for the Public? The Shifting Roles of Natural History Museums, HOST Journal of History of Science and Technology, 4 (2010),, johost.eu/.. 55 Delicado, For Scientists. 56 See, for instance, Thomas Soderqvist Who s Afraid of the Recent Biomedical Heritage?, Opuscula Musealia, Band 15 (2006), S ; or Thomas Söderqvist, Adam Bencard, and Camilla Mordhorst, Between Meaning Culture and Presence Effects: Contemporary Biomedical Objects as a Challenge to Museums, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 40(4) (2009), Interview with the curator of the Museum of the History of Medicine Maximiano Lemos, Oporto, carried out by the author in Cristiana Bastos, Wax, Skin and Name: Traces of the Individual behind the Moulage, Conference paper, AAA Annual Meeting, Montreal, 2011; Cristiana Bastos, ed., Clínica, Arte e Sociedade: a sífilis no Hospital do Desterro e na Saúde Pública (Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2011). 59 Decree-Law No. 271/ Manuel Valente Alves, Museu de Medicina da Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa, in Circulação, ed. by M. V. Alves and A. Barbosa (Lisbon: Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa, 2004), p Sonia C. Faria, O Objecto e os Museus de Medicina, MA Thesis in Museology, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, 2009, p João Pedro Sousa Dias, A farmácia em Portugal: uma introdução à sua história (Lisbon: Associação Nacional de Farmácias, 1994), p João Neto, História do Museu da Farmácia: o início, in Museu da Farmácia Farmácia Portuguesa, 5000 anos de história (Lisboa, Associação Nacional de Farmácias, 2000), pp Neto, História do Museu da Farmácia, p. 9.