Biomedicine on Display

Medicine and health are too important subjects to be left to scientists only. That is one of the main ideas behind the Wellcome Collection of London. All their exhibitions are medical, but they are never just medical. There is always something more. Like the ’War and Medicine’ exhibition which was accompanied by art video installations of wounded soldiers in Afghanistan.

Last week we hosted an informal seminar with senior curator James Peto and event manager Lisa Jamieson of the Wellcome Collection. One of the topics was the relationship between scientific research and public engagement in a museum context. As head of Wellcome Collections Public Programmes Team Ken Arnold said: “Research should be publicly relevant and public relations should be research rich.”

Another discussion was about how we use our senses in the exhibition. Sounds, smells and visuals have an important part to play in the modern museum. Events were the museum objects are brought back to life, or art works that challenge our formalized understandings of what goes on in the human body, are some of the ways to engage the visitors. Another is to use the web media; live streaming surgery or engaging in online discussions. Or blog about what goes on behind the scenes …

Watch video from the seminar here: http://www.youtube.com/user/medicalmuseion?feature=mhum

Today, Ken Arnold is starting his temporary appointment as Visiting Professor in Medical Science Communication and Museology at Medical Museion.

When he is not visiting Medical Museion, Ken Arnold heads the Public Programmes team at the Wellcome Trust, where his role is to creatively direct Wellcome Collection — a very successful public venue in London that seeks to explore the connections between medicine, art and life. It has received very positive press attention throughout the world, attracted over 300,000 visits per year since 2007, and has been nominated for the Museum of the Year and European Museum of the Year awards.

The Wellcome Collection has emerged as the culmination of 15 years of innovative public work at the Trust, where Ken Arnold has run a variety of arts and exhibitions activities, including a gallery at the Science Museum devoted to exploring medicine in context. He also co-ordinated the establishment of the Wellcome Trust’s arts funding initiatives, which support collaborative work between scientists and artists. He was also Chief Curator of the highly successful exhibition Medicine Man: the Forgotten Museum of Henry Wellcome shown at the British Museum in 2003.

Ken Arnold gained a B.A. in Natural Sciences at Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in the history of science from Princeton University, and worked in a variety of museums (national and local) on both sides of the Atlantic, before joining the Wellcome Trust in 1992. He regularly writes and lectures on the culture of museums past and present and on the contemporary relations between the arts and sciences.

Some of his articles in collected volumes are highly original contributions to the problem of how to use art in the presentation of medical science. Other articles have raised the problems of the relation between history of medicine and medical museums in new and fruitful ways. In the monograph Cabinets for the Curious: Looking Back at Early English Museums (2006), Arnold draws on the historical experiences of the classical 16^th and 17^th century curiosity cabinet as a resource for opening up a new field of discourse for contemporary museum innovation. The Collector’s Voice: Critical Readings in the Practice of Collecting (2000) raised new issues about the role of collecting in the history of museums. His academic activities also include supervision and examination of PhD-projects in science communication and museums studies at the University of Leicester, Leeds Metropolitan University, Oxford University and Open University.

We are very happy to get this opportunity for close encounters with Ken Arnold and thereby draw on his long experience in research-based exhibition making. If anyone wants to meet him during his Copenhagen sojourn, please contact him at k.arnold@wellcome.ac.uk.

(image credit: LabforCulture, www.labforculture.org)

Being invited to join a drawing workshop usually elicits one of two reactions. Either enthusiasm because the person likes to draw or they think the idea sounds interesting or different. The other response is to dismiss the idea completely.

This reaction seems to be prompted by two main preconceptions about drawing. The first is that it is arty or simplistic, a bit of fun so would have no relevance to other more serious research activities.

The other preconception seems to stem surprisingly from fear. ‘But I can’t draw’ or ‘I haven’t drawn for years’ come the plaintiff explanations for foregoing the chance to partake in any workshops. The fear of being seen to be unaccomplished at the seemingly simple yet daunting task of drawing has caused a surprising lack of takers to participate in the project. Yet the response to outcomes, to evidence of the activity of drawing offering a valid method of investigation, and to the activity itself once a person engages in the process is encouragingly positive.

So what is going wrong?

I think the answer is the ‘D’ word, as in the word ‘drawing.’ Drawing is both an outcome and an activity. It is probably most common upon hearing the word drawing to think of it as describing an accomplished object consisting of an artistic convergence of lines, marks and shapes that form something visual on a surface which can be recognized in some way as being what one thinks of in general terms as a drawing.

This ‘drawing’ is a noun. Perhaps less considered is the use of the word ‘drawing’ as a verb, the doing word, drawing as an action, an activity something to participate in. If the first definition, the noun, is the more prominent and the one that sticks in the mind of someone invited to participate, then the expectations that are associated with this noun come into play. These expectations of the outcome of drawing can be unrealistically huge. They tend to start with Leonardo da Vinci and work their way down.

So it seems that when I think I am asking someone to join in a drawing workshop, they think I am saying ‘come and try and draw like Leonardo da Vinci in front of your peers.’ I see the problem.

The workshops focus on drawing as a phenomenological activity. By this, I mean that the activity, the act of looking and drawing as you look at an object, forces you to engage more fully with the object. This takes time and means a relationship has to develop between the viewer and the object. The time allows more attention to be spent looking and drawing. More detail is observed, more things specific to the object become noticed and the experience becomes richer and more personal. Understanding of the object, as an object grows and by ‘drawing your way into understanding’ the encounter, new insights can be achieved. The object is experienced and understood more fully through the activity of drawing it.

But this whole process is a practical and tacit methodology. The skill of looking and ‘touching’ the object or ‘seeing’ it through the tip of the pencil is not always easy. It is one that is best explained by doing. It is a kinaesthetic activity where the information and knowledge gained comes through doing rather than from instruction. In this way, the act of drawing allows someone to participate in actively gaining their own information for themselves rather than passively receive information via information panels or verbal instruction etc.

Spending time drawing a closely observed object is not a hugely complicated idea. It is actually a very simple notion. To begin at the beginning, with the actual object before you and just look and record and interpret your experience of this as it occurs by drawing, is a very humble action. Yet it is one that is often overlooked. Maybe because it is so basic an idea it can be seen as less important than other methods. Technology moves forward and the type of images we are now able to produce through scientific imaging are incredible. But these are not images we as individuals can make. They require training, understanding of equipment, experience knowing how to decipher the shapes and colours created to formulate clear data. We can all however, look at something and make marks on a page with a pencil at the same time. The traditional technology of hand/eye coordination and observational skill combined with the action of moving a pencil across a surface is one that is sometimes seen as being too old fashioned, too boring and simple to warrant consideration. Yet when it is suggested, there is something about the process that causes some people to become anxious and back away.

The outcomes of the activity may vary depending on skill and practice but the phenomenological activity of drawing can offer a valid way for a viewer to engage with, investigate and gain insight into an object in a different way. If the ‘D’ word must be avoided, what can replace it? How can the activity of drawing be explained in terms of a practical valid alternative method for investigating and engaging with objects?

Museum websites use to write about the birth of exhibitions, but rarely about their death. So let’s try the death-approach for once.

Last Sunday, Split & Splice: Fragments from the Age of Biomedicine closed to the public, and we are now busy taking it down. Below are some images from the deconstruction work.

Our conservator, Nanna Gerdes is packing artefacts borrowed from the Danish Society for Computer History.

Student assistant Anders Nøhr is cleaning after the rabbits.

The two exhibition rabbits (Split and Splice) on their way to a new home on a farm on the island of Lolland in southern Denmark:

In other words, no animals were harmed, neither in the construction nor in the destruction of the exhibition.

A couple of days ago, I argued against Christian Sichau’s restrictive acquisition policy for museums of science, technology and medicine. I suggested, not only to actively promote the acquisition of visual, material, and textual objects from contemporary laboratories and storage rooms, but indeed to open up the sluice gates for collecting as much contemporary stuff as possible.

An optimistic ‘‘Yes, please’’ policy is nicer and wiser than a pessimistic ‘‘Nein’’ policy.

My argument is based on my experiences from Medical Museion’s integrated research and curatorial program ‘‘Biomedicine on Display’’. The program was launched in 2005 with the explicit intention to lay the research foundation for the acquisition and public outreach of the visual and material culture of late twentieth century and contemporary biomedicine — a time period which so far has been very sparsely represented in museums of science, technology, and medicine.

During the past four years we have run a number of research projects on a variety of aspects of late twentieth century and contemporary biomedicine. Parallel to these research projects, we have set up a series of exhibitions with more or less explicit connection to contemporary science (‘Oldetopia’, ‘Design4Science’, ‘Eye Catchers and Swagger Images’, ‘Split + Splice: Fragments from the Age of Biomedicine’, ‘Primary Substances: Treasures from the History of Protein Research’, and ‘Healthy Aging’).

These research projects and exhibitions have been more or less closely associated with the collection of a large number of recent artefacts from laboratories and hospitals in the Copenhagen region. Some artefacts were chosen to satisfy the needs of the exhibitions, others were unsolicited donations from university laboratories, hospital clinics, and pharmaceutical and medical device companies.

We have an acute lack of space and certainly do not have enough professional curatorial staff to take care of everything properly. Registration is constantly lagging behind. Nevertheless we rarely say ‘‘No’’. In some concrete cases we have, with some trepidation, done so, but not as a general policy. Why?

Basically, I suggest, because a ‘‘Yes, please’’ policy opens up a whole array of fruitful interactions between museums and practitioners of science, technology, and medicine. Indeed, it promises to change the way science, technology, and medical museums place themselves in relation to the rest of the university.

Instead of seeing the university museum as a closed repository for exquisite objects guarded by professional curators, a ‘‘Yes, please’’ policy is an open invitation to every single researcher, technician, and student at the university to become adjunct curators of their own heritage.

Sichau is right in the sense that museums will never be able to employ enough professional curators to describe, register, and evaluate every single artefact and image in the university’s laboratories and storage rooms. But with the help of our colleagues in science, technology, and medicine, we can create a distributed curatorial expertise.

In the next post, I will discuss the notion of ‘distributed curatorial expertise’ further.

(this is the third part in a series of posts about the participatory museum and distributed curating was  brought yesterday — see the first part here and the second part here. To be continued)

On Monday 22nd March we held the second group drawing workshop at Medical Museion. I was joined by five others to draw one of the artefacts from the ‘6 ting og sager’ exhibition. The specimen is the skeleton of a young child who had suffered with Rickets or ’English disease’ as it is known here.

What was most noticable about the morning was the intense silence. We are used to sitting for a couple of hours at the cinema or in front of the tv. but it is rare to be amongst a group of people who spent two hours staring at a single, static object.

The drawing session allowed those who had already seen the specimen to re-see it in a new way and offered a new experience for those who had never seen it before. All found they saw more and more detail the longer they spent looking and drawing. The glass case housing the specimen became an issue. It is as much part of the object as the specimen within but the significance of the affect it has on the display is not always apparent. The activity raised questions about distortion and distraction and the effects of the shifting reflections and refractions caused by the glass.

The old chestnut of the ubiquitous skull also came up. We all think we know what a skull looks like but can we be sure this is what this particular skull we were observing looked like? The whole group recognized the need to look at the object and try not to draw what we imagined we saw.

Each group of drawings by each individual shows not only their developing understanding of the object they were observing, but shows to us as viewers how differently we all saw the object. Everyones’ responses, focus on detail and areas of interest differ from eachother yet the object is equally recognizable as the same object we all saw and drew.

By spending these hours with the artefact each of us found new details to see and drew our way into trying to understand the materiality of what we were looking at, making it clearer to ourselves and offering fresh insights to others.

All the drawings can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucylyons/sets/72157623684073972

We have had our first drawing workshop here at Medical Museion.

Three staff members — Anni, Camilla and Nanna — participated in a group drawing workshop. The specimen we drew is an example of bones of the middle ear mounted in a magnifying glass and placed on a small wooden plinth. It comes from the Ibsen-Mackesprangske collection made between 1824 and 1836 and was taken from a collection made of inner ear bones of 55 deaf people at the Danish Deaf Institute. This object forms part of the collection chosen for the ‘6 ting og sager’ exhibition, which opened last Friday (see presentation in Danish here).

The object was placed in the centre of the table. Anni and Camilla sat on one side and Nanna and I sat opposite. All three drew more than two or three drawings on one piece of paper. All found that the object was complicated but the more they looked the more they were able to visually unravel it. It became apparent that the intricate network of bones were not the only focal point. Although all three participants presumed that the ear bones would be the main thing they observed, all began to also draw the magnifying glass in which thery are mounted. The mount and stand that contain the bones became of equal importance and a key part of the object and their experience of it. Initially it was overlooked through the activity of drawing it they soon realised it was a relevant part of the artefact.

Nanna became the most frustrated as she realized after some time she had not observed the object in front of her. Having already spent so much time with the object in the context of conserving it, she thought she already knew everything about it. But she admitted she was ’drawing from a photograph of it in her head’. This is a common occurrance where people draw what they think an object looks like rather than how it actually appears to them when they are looking at it. Assumptions are made and the specificity of each object and each person’s experience of that object become replaced by memories of what they think it looks like.

Having spent a great deal of time with her head bowed in concentration drawing a detailed remembered representation of the object, Nanna moved positions and spent time looking at the object and drawing again from a different angle. Then she saw the object she knew so well with ’fresh eyes’ and was amazed by the new detail and insight she saw. Her drawing demonstrates how she saw the whole object and experienced it as a new artefact rather than in the fragments she pieced together from her remembered past experiences.

Time spent drawing and looking also benefitted Anni and Camilla. Anni’s alterations to her lines reveal her journey of seeing and understanding what she sees and Camilla’s three drawings demonstrate her understanding as she became more aware of the shape of the handle and the reflections on the glass.

Once they forgot to concern themselves so much with how the drawing looked and spent time looking at the object and tried to visually understand it, they made drawings that showed detail and clearer understanding and apprectiation of the object.

Feelings about the resulting drawings were varied but the view that all who participated appreciated the object, learned new things about it and gained respect for something that could have been overlooked.

See more here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucylyons/sets/72157623623490658

We have just started a search for 1-2 positions at the level of Associate Professor (alternatively Assistant Professor).

As readers of this blog probably knows, Medical Museion is an integrated research and museum unit for promoting medical science communication based on the material and visual medical heritage. The research profile is centered around the contemporary history of the biomedical sciences, medical science communication studies, and studies of the production of the material and visual medical scientific heritage. We have a world-class collection of historical medical artefacts and images, an active program for the acquisitioning and preservation of the contemporary biomedical and biotechnological heritage, a permanent medical-historical public gallery, and an innovative temporary exhibition program.

We are looking for two new members of faculty to contribute to our integrated research, teaching, heritage and outreach programme focussing on late 20th century and contemporary medical and health sciences in a cultural, aesthetic and historical perspective. The aim of the programme is to develop new modes of research-based collecting, exhibition making and web-based outreach by combining scientific content, cultural interpretation and aesthetic expression in innovative ways.

On the outreach side, we are developing research-based science communication practices for a variety of audiences – spanning from health professionals to the general public – in the form of exhibitions and web products, and with special attention to the aesthetics of science communication.

On the acquisition side, we are in the process of developing research-based curatorial practices (heritage production) in close cooperation with research institutions, hospitals, pharma, biotech and medical device companies, and patient organisations in the region (‘museum 2.0’) .

The appointees are required to do research at an international level and research-based teaching, however most of teaching obligations are substituted with museum work.

Read the official full job description below.
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We have tried many different ways of marketing our exhbitions to the prospective audience (posters, direct-mails, postcards, you name it) — with varying success. One of the problems with posters and postcards is the one-way communication; if people want more information, they have to make an extra effort.

In connection with the new extra-mural exhibition ‘Healthy Aging: A Lifespan Approach’ that opened two weeks ago in the main building of the Faculty of Health Sciences (see here). we tried out a more personal way to get in contact with our prospective audience.

The idea was to give students and staff at the University’s Southern Campus (Faculty of Humanities) and the Faculty of Health Sciences an opportunity to put a human face on Medical Museion. So some of our student docents were sent out to hand out flyers in the main buildings of the two faculties and to answer whatever questions people they met might have.

All in all, this ’in-your-face marketing’ operation was a success. It gave us a nice opportunity to have conversations about our collections and hear how students and staff responded do the exhibition. If any other museums has had similar experiences. wse would very much like to hear about it.

Here’s student docent Andreas handing out flyers in the main building of the Faculty of Health Sciences. In the background you can see a part of  ‘Healthy Aging – A Lifespan Approach’:

More pictures here.

A few months ago, I advertised the meeting ‘KörperGegenwart, neue Technologien, neue Sammlungen’ to be held at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden, 22-24 April.

Now the program has been finalised — and it looks very good! After a plenary discussion on ‘Schauplätze der Schönheit: Klinik, Kunst, Medien und Museen’ on Thursday evening, there follows two days of presentations, most of which seem to be very relevant for the future of medical and science museums:

• ‘Körperspuren im Deutschen Hygiene-Museum. Strategien und Objekte’ (Susanne Roeßiger, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden)
• ‘Auf Biegen und Brechen. Zur (In)Formierung des Körpers’ (Stefan Rieger, Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
• ‘Der Körper und seine Teile. Vom Präparat zum transplantierten Organ’ (Katrin Solhdju, Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin)
• ‘Vom Körper zum Maß. Zur Geschichte der Konfektionsgrößen’ (Daniela Döring, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
• Vermessene Menschen. Vom Fingerabdruck bis zum Ganzkörperscan’ (Erika Feyerabend, BioSkop-Forum zur Beobachtung der Biowissenschaften e.V.)
• ‘Prothesen exponieren. Sichtbarkeiten neuer Technologien’ (Karin Harrasse, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln)
• ‘Design in der Orthetik. Innovative Prinzipien der Körperanformung’ (Andreas Mühlenberend, resolutdesign; Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal)
• ‘Wie sieht der bionische Mensch aus?’ (Friedrich Ditsch, Technische Universität Dresden)
• ‘”It’s a Material World”´: Situiertheit, Verkörperung und Materialität in der neueren Robotik’ (Jutta Weber, Universität Bielefeld)
• ‘Von der Nasen- zur Gesichtstransplantation: Zur Geschichte und Zukunft der kosmetischen Chirurgie’ (Sander L. Gilman, Emory University, Atlanta)
• ‘Science Fashion´: TechnoNaturen und deren alltagskulturellen Umdeutungen im System der Mode’ (Elke Gaugel, Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Wien)
• ‘Wie kommt die Seele ins Museum? Medizinische Museen und das Transzendentale’ (Robert Bud, Science Museum, London)
• ‘Den biomedizinischen Apparat ausstellen: Materialität und Digitalität in “Split + Splice” (Kopenhagen)’ (Susanne Bauer, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
• ‘Die Schärfung des Blicks. Kunstinterventionen in anatomischen Sammlungen’ (Ingeborg Reichle, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
• ‘Körperwissen in der Kunst’ (Ute Meta Bauer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston)

As you can see, all presentations are in German — so the germanophilically challenged may have problems.

More here and here.

For the record, here’s my introductory words at the opening of our new exhibition, ‘Healthy Aging: A Lifespan Approach’, last Monday:

Last year, the Faculty of Health Sciences established a brand new exhibition area in the main building, paid for by a generous donation from the Kirsten and Freddy Johansen Foundation.

The Dean, Ulla Wewer, asked Medical Museion if we would like to be responsible for setting up a series of exhibitions to represent some of the research done here at the faculty. And we said yes, of course, also because I thought this was a great opportunity for a university museum like ours — not only to get extra exhibition space in the main artery of the faculty, but also to get an opportunity to think about museums and science communication in a more differentiated way.

What I mean is that museums generally think of science communication in terms of broad outreach to the general public. That’s the kind of public outreach we’re practicing in our beautiful old late-18th century museum building in the city area a few kilometers from here. The old building is a site for experimenting with new forms for science communication to the general public. The basic idea is to show how the biomedical sciences permeat our lives and culture at large.

But this new exhibition area in the Faculty’s main building is not primarily intended for the general public. We’re thinking of it as a different kind of museological laboratory — as a site where we can experiment with displays for more professional audiences, and as a testing ground for exhibitions that highlight the aesthetic, cultural and historical dimensions of science. The idea here is to let scientists and students experience how culture permeats science.

The new exhibition area was opened last September with a show called ‘Primary Substances: Treasures from the History of Protein Research’, occasioned by the new big Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research. And today we are opening the next temporary show, called ‘Healthy Aging: A Lifespan Approach’, occasioned by the cross-disciplinary Center for Healthy Aging, funded by the Nordea Foundation.

In contrast to the protein exhibition, which needed quite a lot of explanation to make sense, this new show is much more self-explanatory. Generally speaking, museum exhibitions try to strike a balance between three modes of expression — by means of text, by means of visualisation and by means of displaying material artefacts. Sometimes you try to mix these three modes, sometimes you try to separate them. In this show we have gone halfway between mixing and separating.

On the wall panels, we present, mainly through text, how the scientists in the Center for Healthy Aging here at the Faculty understand their work on healthy aging; each of the research programmes in the Center has got its own wall panel.

The showcases along the wall, in contrast, speak about healthy aging in the language of visual art. Three years ago, Medical Museion comissioned photographer Liv Carlé Mortensen to create 15 photo collages of 100 year-old Danish man and women. The result was a unique work of art, which I believe captures — in a beautiful but also somewhat disturbing way — the existential dimension of growing old.

Finally, in the freestanding showcases on the floor, we display (in the third, material, mode) a series of historical artefacts from the museum’s collections that represent four kinds of aids associated with old age – material things that makes old people overcome the deterioration of their bodily functions, things that help them see, hear, chew and walk better.

As usual, an exhibition is not only hard work, it’s also a teamwork. So I want to thank the members of our museum staff — Bente Vinge Pedersen, Ion Meyer, Nanna Gerdes, Jonas Paludan, Camilla Undén and Jacob Kjærgård — for selecting, preparing and handling the artefacts. We are also very grateful to Mikael Thorsted for his design work and to Lars Møller Nielsen for the graphic design. And finally thanks to the team-leaders in the Center for Healthy Aging for providing information about their research programmes, to the Director of the Center, Lene Juel Rasmussen, for economic support, and not least to the Center’s administrator, Tina Gottlieb – it was Tina, who originally came up with the idea that we could take today’s event as an occasion to show Liv Carlé Mortensens photo collages of centenarians to students and staff here at the faculty.

Last Monday, we opened our latest exhibition, ‘Healthy Aging: A Life Span Approach’ in the main building of the Faculty of Health Sciences — produced by myself together with Bente Vinge Pedersen and Ion Meyer, and with the help of Jonas Bejer Paludan, Camilla Undén, Nanna Gerdes and Jacob Kjærgaard (all from Medical Museion); the showcase design and graphic design has skilfully been taken care of by Mikael Thorsted and Lars Møller Nielsen, Studio 8.  See an earlier presentaton of the idea behind the show here, and images from the construction work here).

The show was set up in the new exhibitions area in the lobby of the Panum building on Blegdamsvej. To keep the content as secret as possible — and spur bypassers’ curiosity — the showcases were covered right until the opening.

Last minute adjustments of the spotlights.

It’s me down there introducing the idea behind the show to the audience.

The faculty generously paid for the reception, including sparkling fluids …

Here’s me presenting Liv Carlé Mortensen’s sublime photo collages to Allan Krasnik, Department of Public Health.

From left to right: Lars Møller Nielsen (graphic design), Mikael Thorsted (showcase design) and Medical Museion’s administrator, Carsten Holt.

Quite crowded reception — and lots of positive responses:

Thanks to Camilla Undén for sharing the pics above — for more images from the exhibition, see here.

Since the snow descended upon Copenhagen a month ago everybody has been walking around wrapped up in scarfs and woollen clothing, trying to avoid the snowdrifts. Personally, my thoughts wander off to a warmer place — more specifically Southern France, where I took some needed holiday last summer and visited, among other things, the two medical museums in Toulouse.

Being a foreigner in France is not easy. The lingua franca in France is French which can be quite a challenge if one is far from a native French speaker. Not many people in the region speak English, and all signs (even in museums) are written in the native tongue. That’s a shame — there is a fascinating culture and history to be told, but unfortunately much of this history is missed if one does not speak or read the language.

Using my terrible French with a lot of pardon and merci I finally made it to Le musée des instruments de médecine des Hôpitaux de Toulouse and Le musée d’histoire de la médecine de Toulouse. Both museums are situated right on the edge of the beautiful Pont Neuf bridge and the exhibition rooms are situated in the old hospital building, l’Hôtel-Dieu. When searching for travel directions I had stumbled on the Hôtel-Dieu but I did not understand exactly what it meant. Two quotes:

The common phrase necator pauperum or ‘assassin of the poor’ was used for those who neglected their duty to succour those in need and guilty prelates could lose their status as a result. The bishops therefore built xenodochia near their cathedrals, of hospitaliae at the entrance to the cities. The former gave shelter to the poor and the sick of the town, who were known as the matricularii and were registered and maintained by the church. The hospitaliae, also called ‘maison—Dieu’ or ‘hôtel-Dieu’ flourished during the Carolingian Renaissance and took in mainly pilgrims and travellers.

and:

Most of the present-day Hôtel-Dieu hospitals originate in the episcopal domus Dei or the domus pauperum.

(both from Frexinos 2001, p. 19; see reference below)

Why place a hospital in Toulouse? Well, the city is one the road to the famous pilgrimage site Santiago de Compostela. The pilgrims came from all over Europe to pray at the tomb of St. James, and for the keen observer the St. James’ shell (seen in the centre of the picture below) is a dead give away.

Here’s the old hospital of Toulouse. The museums are located in the left part of the building. In the centre of the picture one sees the St. James’ shell:

The two museums have slightly different focus. One is about medical history in general. When you enter the building you step into a general reception area, where posters give a general introduction to the history of the museum (at least I believe they do; no signs in English!). One thing that really speaks in favour of the museum is the friendly staff. Even though the receptionist didn’t speak a word of English she was very friendly and we did manage to communicate. At least our conversation went so well that I was handed a brief description of the collections in English. It reminded of how important a museum reception staff is; they make the first impression so it has to be a good one.

The museum basically consists of three showrooms. The first, and smallest one, is on pharmaceutical history. From a museological point of view it is not impressive. The objects are placed in their display cases with a short description of their use, but there is very little context to be found.

In the next showroom the objects are roughly divided into different specialities, such as surgery and obstetrics. This part of the museum is definitely the best. It’s quite small though. Some of these instruments are quite impressive and even though I had seen most of them before there was one that stood out — the tobacco cloister seen in the picture below. Sure I had seen cloisters before (we have some here at Medical Museion) but this type was new to me. I have told so many visitors in Copenhagen about how the cloister was used to rid the body of black gall, but this one was different. Normally you would have needed another person to use it, but this one was designed so that it could be self-administered. The patient simply straddled over the cloister, activated the pump and let the tobacco smoke act as a laxative:

I also fell very much in love with the beautiful object below (for more on Theriac see here):

The third part of the museum is situated in the basement, and I had a hard time figuring out exactly what the organising principle was. There was a microscope and some x-ray equipment but exactly what the connection was escaped me — maybe becuase I didn’t know the language well enough.

The other museum — Le musée des instruments de médecine des Hôpitaux de Toulouse — is placed in the same building and right next to the one on the medical history of Toulouse. It is disappointingly small: only one single room and a couple of podiums outside. The custodian was extremely nice, however, and between her English and my horrible French we did manage to get a conversation going.

The best part of the experience was the moulages:

Below is a selection of some of the other objects displayed:

Drills used to perform trepanation:

Pacemakers:

And an instrument used to perform an abortion (Thomas actually wrote about these kind of instruments a year ago):

Both museums were indeed interesting and there was a great feeling in the old historical buildings. One of the best things about my visit though was that I bought a book by Jacques Frexinos entitled The Hospitals of Toulouse. A Thousand Years of History (2001), an excellent introduction to the topic of hospital history. I strongly recommend you to get a copy before visiting the Toulouse museums (the French version can be bought here.)

Toulouse is a beautiful city and if one is interested in medical history I would recommend a visit. Not so much for the museological experience, but the objects in themselves are interesting.

At the picture above you can see the Pont Neuf and in the background the old hospital buildings that house the museums.

Medical museums are usually full with old and new medical science instruments. But they tend to be kept in storage because it is difficult to display them in a meaningful way. It’s much easier to put moulages, pickled organs and surgical instruments on show. Medical science instruments usually need truckloads of description and contextualisaton to make sense in museum displays. (Probably because they don’t ‘talk’, some people would say :-)

Neither do many museum curators give much thought to the historicity of their display techniques. How have display practices changed over time and how do these practices reflect museum culture, politics and technologies?

Such question wil hopefully be discussed at the 29th symposium of the Scientific Instrument Commission, which will be held in Firenze, 4-9 October 2010 on the theme ‘Instruments on display’, i.e., how instruments have been presented in scientific collections, museums and permanent and temporary exhibitions throughout modern history up to the present:

Did didactic, scientific, celebrative, propagandistic and rhetorical considerations significantly influence the manner of displaying instruments? How were instruments presented in a Wunderkammer of the Renaissance, in a 18th-century cabinet or in a 19th-century exhibition? How and why are they shown in contemporary science museums?

This year’s symposium is sponsored and organized by Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza (Museo Galileo) and Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica. The meeting is open to “anyone interested in the history, preservation, documentation of use of scientific instruments”, whether academic scholars, curators, collectors or students.

Send abstract before 1 June, 2010 by filling in this template.
More info on the symposium website.

As I’ve announced in an earlier post, we’re opening the next show in the external exhibition area in the Panum Building — titled ‘Healthy Aging: A Life Span Approach’ — on next Monday (8 February) at 2pm.

Yesterday, exhibition architect Mikael Thorsted and our own museum assistant Jonas Paludan were hanging some of Liv Carlé Mortensen’s colleages of centenarians:

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Special curator Camilla Undén removed old texts from the former exhibition (’Primary Substances’):

And Mikael was also busy doing some welding angle grinding to adjust the wrought iron locks of the freestanding showcases:

More about the background for the exhibition here.

(thanks to Bente for shooting the pics yesterday)