Antall József szerk.: Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 5. (Budapest, 1972)
The Organization and Collections of the Semmelweis Medical Historical Museum, Library and Archives
THE ORGANIZATION AND COLLECTIONS OF THE SEMMELWEIS MEDICAL HISTORICAL MUSEUM, LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES HISTORICAL PRELIMINARIES T he development of museum affairs concerning medical history can be divided into two phases. The first, when simply the ancillary objects of demonstration serving university training are kept in the museums of the departments of the university (collections of anatomical and pathological preparations). Step by step these collections may grow into proper medical historical museums like those in Vienna or Copenhagen. The second phase of the development is when a medical historical museum is established with the definite purpose and character of a museum, e.g. the Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine in London, or the Semmelweis Medical Historical Museum in Budapest. The first initiatives for the establishment of a medical historical museum in Hungary were taken in 1905 when the Royal Association of Physicians invited all the physicians to help with their donations the foundation of a museum. After a promising start (organization work done by Tibor Győry, accomodation of the growing collection in the centre of the Association, important correspondence and manuscript material of the Balassa, Lumniczer and Markusovszky families aquired) the institute could not strike roots as an independent establishment. This is shown by the fact that professor Lajos Nékám in 1918 elaborated a scheme for the establishment of a Hungarian Medical Historical Museum but the unfavourable pecuniary conditions after World War I. frustrated the realization of the scheme. The plan for establishing an independent pharmaceutical historical museum arose in 1919, too. Similar plans were created at the medical faculty of the Pázmány Péter University of Sciences in 1935 which was to be based on the valuable collection of the university institutes. The majority of these collections has survived but never became a real museum. The material collected by the Royal Association of Physicians remained stored in poor conditions. The museum affairs concerning pharmaceutical history seemed to be better off. The first initiatives were taken in Transylvania, in Kolozsvár, in 1887 and
