Medical Museion

Why it is renowned

Time Out counts Medical Museion among the best museums in Copenhagen and credits it with one of the richest collections of medical artefacts in Europe.¹ Its microscopes run from before 1750 to the present, and its 75 wax moulages of skin disease, made between 1905 and 1930, are the only such collection in Denmark.² In 2019 its exhibition Mind the Gut, on the links between brain and bowels, won the UMAC Award, presented in Kyoto at the annual meeting of ICOM.³ Time Out singles out the late 18th-century anatomical theatre, where generations of surgeons were taught how the human body looks and works.¹⁴

The story

A circle of Copenhagen doctors founded the collections in 1906, and the first exhibition of medical history opened on 22 August 1907 for the 50th anniversary of the Danish Medical Association.⁵ The museum has belonged to the University of Copenhagen since 1918.⁵ Its home on Bredgade was built in 1787 for the Royal Surgical Academy, the school for surgeons, to designs by Peter Meyn.⁴⁵ Meyn modelled the auditorium on Europe's anatomical theatres and gave it a domed ceiling after the Pantheon in Rome; reliefs of Hippocrates and Galen sit above its windows.⁵ When surgical training merged with the university in 1842, the Faculty of Medicine moved in, and for about a century the auditorium was the centre of medical teaching in Denmark.⁴ The faculty later moved to Nørrebro, the Medical-Historical Museum took over the building, and it opened to the public in 1969.⁴ It took the name Medical Museion in 2004, after the Greek word for a place of collections, research and teaching.⁴

What to know it by

• The auditorium⁵1787Peter MeynDomed dissection theatre of the Royal Surgical Academy
• Microscope collection²Instruments from before 1750 to the present
• Medical moulages²190575 wax casts of skin disease, made 1905 to 1930
• Mind the Gut³Exhibition on mind and gut, UMAC Award 2019