Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)

The Semmelweis Museum, Library and Archives of Medical History

The Semmelweis Museum The Semmelweis Museum was opened after long preparation works, that have been maintoined during the 1950s, in 1962-63. This museum united the material collected by the Royal Association of Physicians (1905), the collection of the József Ernycy Pharmaceutical Museum (1948) and the material collected by the National Medical Historical Library. In 1964 it was united with the National Medical Historical Library, and in 1972 an archives of medical history was added to it. The Semmelweis Museum, Library and Archives is supported by the government. The Library The National Medical Historical Library was founded in 1951, when the six thousand volume collcction of the former Hospital of the Brothers of Mercy had been taken over. The stock of the Library was significantly cnrichcd in 1952 with the library of the former Royal Association of Budapest Physicians, which had been founded in 1842 by Lajos Stesse and contained more than forty thousand volumes by the time of the taking over. The Library also obtained numerous rarities from the collections of the disbanded orders and from different institutes of the Medical Faculty of the former Pázmány Péter University. In 1964 it was affiliated to the Semmelweis Museum. At present, the library contains more than 110,000 volumes, 20 thousand periodicals, 10 thousand dissertations and 10 thousand separates. The library collects medical literature, as a rule, up to 1900, but reference books or works on medical history arc ccrtainly not under any chronological limitation. Sincc the libary's interest is focuscd on old scicntific books, there arc also a big number of works from many related branches, like alchcmy, chemistry, physics, astrology, geography and philosophy. The most important special collcction of the Libarary is of medical manuscripts, incunabula, and books from the 16th ccntury. In this collcction, which contains about 1,500 items, the works of Hungarian authors printed before 1711 arc also included, and the first editions of the works of the most significant Hungarian physicians. The collcction of periodicals also contains rarities, such as full scries of some 18th ccntury medical periodicals, and among the dissertations there are long series of medical and pharmaceutical theses from the 16th ccntury. The Archives The Archiv¢s was established in 1972. It collccts the papers of former Hungarian medical and pharmaceutical societies and associations, and also the corre88