Berlin Medical History Museum

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Berlin Medical History Museum of the Charité (previously: Pathological Museum)
Berlin Museum of Medical History.JPG
View of the building from Alexanderufer (2007)
Data
place Berlin center
opening 1899 (first opening)
1998 (reopening)
operator
management
Website
ISIL DE-MUS-817610

The Berlin Medical History Museum ( BMM ) of the Charité is known for its pathological-anatomical collection. It is a culturally and medically-historically significant inventory of wet and dry preparations. The director of the museum has been Thomas Schnalke , who has also been the professor for the history of medicine and medical museology at the Charité Medical Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin . It is located on the Charité Mitte campus, Charitéplatz 1 (formerly: Schumannstraße 20/21).

history

The origin of the museum goes back to the specimen collection of the pathologist Rudolf Virchow , who opened the Pathological Museum on June 27, 1899 . In large glass showcases on five floors with 2,000 m² of exhibition space, his 23,066 preparations, which showed almost all the forms of illness known at the time, were on display.

The museum was open to interested laypeople until 1914. The First World War and the economically difficult post-war period ended public accessibility and from then on the museum only functioned as a teaching and study collection for medical instruction. However, Virchow's successors continuously expanded the collection. At the beginning of World War II, the museum had a total of around 35,000 specimens.

The Second World War hit the building and the collection hard. Only around 1,800 specimens survived the war and it was no longer possible to use the building as a museum for a long time.

It was only after reunification that considerations arose to set up a museum again in the same place. However, it was decided against the establishment of a purely pathological museum, instead aiming for a wide-ranging medical history museum . In 1998 the Berlin Medical History Museum of the Charité was finally opened.

The museum was renovated from the outside (roof, facades) and considerably expanded in 2006 and 2007 with the help of cultural tourism subsidies from the State of Berlin from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

In 2011, according to media reports on the part of the Charité board, the option of closing and liquidating the museum was considered due to financial constraints. In the meantime, the museum's continued existence as a Charité facility has been secured for the time being.

exhibition

The tour through the 800 m² new permanent exhibition began in October 2007 with the re-established 18th century Berlin Anatomical Theater . Other departments are the Anatomical Museum, the dissecting room and the medical research laboratories. A highlight is the collection of specimens , which partly goes back to Rudolf Virchow and contains 40 of the original 3,300 specimens by the anatomist Johann Gottlieb Walter (1734–1818). In a stylized hospital ward, the development of medicine can be traced on the basis of various clinical pictures, starting in 1726 (a difficult birth) through the treatment of war injuries, the " iron lung " as the last resort in the case of polio up to today's intensive care medicine for organ transplants . Other important facets of the new exhibition are the history of the Charité and medicine under National Socialism .

Temporary exhibitions are offered on a separate level. Photography is not permitted in any of the museum's rooms.

Special exhibitions

year theme Notes, explanations
2008 Sex burns. Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexology and Book Burning Curated by Rainer Herren, designed by Eran Schaerf and Christian Gänshirt, from May 7th to September 14th, 2008
2009 From the crime scene to the laboratory - forensic doctors uncover
2009/2010 Gold-filled and pearl-like - 300 years of dentistry in Berlin
2010/2011 Charité. 300 years of medicine in Berlin September 7, 2009 to January 9, 2011
2010/2011 beyond man. Interventions by Reiner Maria Matysik in cooperation with the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences
2011/2012 Who cares? History and Daily Life of Nursing
2012 Ilana Halperin. Stones.
An exhibition with works by Ilana Halperin at the intersection between art, medicine and geology
in cooperation with the Schering Foundation
2012/2013 Visit to the depot
2017 Charité - the series Exhibition on the occasion of the television series Charité
2016/2018 Cut and stab. On the trail of crime Catalog
2017/2018 "The beginning was a subtle shift in the basic attitude of doctors". The Charité under National Socialism and the dangers of modern medicine as part of the GeDenkOrt.Charité project - science in responsibility
2019/2020 On a knife edge. The surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch between medicine and myth March 22, 2019 to February 2, 2020

See also

literature

  • Isabel Atzl (Ed.): Who cares? History and Daily Life of Nursing. (= Accompanying volume for the traveling exhibition of the same name, realized by the Berlin Medical History Museum of the Charité in cooperation with the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation). Mabuse-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-86321-011-3 .
  • Beate Kunst, Thomas Schnalke , Gottfried Bogusch (eds.): The second look - special objects from the historical collections of the Charité. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-022698-0 .
  • Peter Krietsch, Manfred Dietel: Pathological-Anatomical Cabinet, From the Virchow Museum to the Berlin Medical History Museum in the Charité. Blackwell-Wiss.-Verl. Berlin / Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-89412-254-4 .
  • Petra Lennig, Manfred Dietel : Pathology Museum, Charité. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 1113-1115.
  • Angela Matyssek: Rudolf Virchow, The Pathological Museum, History of a Scientific Collection around 1900. Steinkopff, Darmstadt 2002, ISBN 3-7985-1370-8 .
  • Eckart Roloff , Karin Henke-Wendt: Visit your doctor or pharmacist. A tour through Germany's museums for medicine and pharmacy. Volume 1. S. Hirzel Verlag, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7776-2510-2 , pp. 19-21.
  • Geraldine Saherwala, Thomas Schnalke , Konrad Vanja , Hans-Loachim Veigel (eds.): Between Charité and Reichstag, Rudolf Virchow - physician, collector, politician. (= Companion volume to the exhibition Virchow's cells. Evidence of a committed scholarly life in Berlin ). Museum Education Service, Berlin 2002, ISBN 978-3-930929-16-0 .
  • Thomas Schnalke , Isabel Atzl (Ed.): On the trail of life in the Berlin Medical History Museum of the Charité. (= Accompanying volume to the permanent exhibition). Prestel Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-7913-5036-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Rudolf Virchow: The opening of the pathological museum of the Königl. Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin on June 27, 1899. Berlin 1899.
  2. ^ History of the museum: 1. Pathological museum. Berlin Museum of Medical History, accessed on March 21, 2017 .
  3. History of the Museum: 3. The Pathological Museum in the 20th Century. Berlin Museum of Medical History, accessed on March 21, 2017 .
  4. Charité wants to give up the Medical History Museum. Morgenpost.de, August 17, 2011, accessed on March 21, 2017 .
  5. Proof of all departments . In: CF Wegener: House and General Address Book of the Royal. Capital and residence city of Berlin , 1822, part 2, p. 9. "Anatomical theater, on the corner of Charlottenstrasse and Last Str.".
  6. Christine Lemke on the exhibition. textezurkunst.de accessed on May 29, 2013
  7. ^ "Beyond humans. Interventions by Reiner Maria Matysik". Retrieved July 5, 2020 .
  8. Special exhibitions: CHARITÉ - The series. In: BMM-Charite.de. Retrieved March 21, 2017 .
  9. Under the spell of the blood splatter field . In: FAZ , October 15, 2016, p. 14


Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '25 "  N , 13 ° 22' 44"  E