At the Museum of the History of Medicine, the exhibits stretched back to ancient medical practices until present day. Fortunately enough for our group we were given a guided tour of the basement exhibits. This includes full size rooms we could enter setup as historical places; an alchemist's laboratory, an apothecary, a physician's examination room etc. these rooms had mostly original artifacts, with a few reproductions scattered among them.
In the alchemists laboratory there were several original and real crocodiles, no more than about six feet in length. This is very fitting as the crocodile was the symbol of alchemy, similar to the snake being a symbol for medicine. Other artifacts included many specially shaped glass bottles, tools for handling the heated materials, and many of the materials used in alchemy reactions. These materials included a narwal's horn, and various animal tusks, as well as other odd materials. All in all this was a very interesting exhibit, and I learned that alchemy eventually fell away from the magical aspects associated with it and would be very important with the development of apothecaries and mixing elixirs and so forth, eventually leading to modern medicines.
The basement was the most interesting part of the museum I feel. It was a little strange that it was common to have jars of all the saints' sweat. It's integrating to see the origins of medicine to see where everything originated from
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was interesting that in the basement they had some original tools that were used during the roman times for surgeries that were done.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was interesting that in the basement they had some original tools that were used during the roman times for surgeries that were done.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was interesting that in the basement they had some original tools that were used during the roman times for surgeries that were done.
ReplyDelete