“A Wealth of Historical Interest”: The Medical Artifact Collection at the University of Western Ontario

Authors

Michelle A. Hamilton, University of Guelph
Rebecca Woods, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Winter 2007

Volume

29

Issue

1

Journal

The Public Historian

First Page

77

Last Page

91

URL with Digital Object Identifier

http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/tph.2007.29.1.77

Abstract

Along with a teaching collection, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, began accepting medical artifacts for a historical museum in the early 1920s, although it never developed into more than an unofficial collection until the 1970s, when it was transformed into the Medical Museum and Archives at the University Hospital. In the 1990s, the artifacts were dispersed among several local institutions. The remaining objects at the university have been now reorganized as the Medical Artifact Collection. While these objects were once used to educate students about the practice and philosophy of medicine, they are now used to teach students about local, medical, Canadian and public history.

Notes

Dr. Michelle Hamilton is currently a faculty member at The University of Western Ontario.