Update: New collection at Exeter University
I bet that'll hurt!
13 January 2006
A gruesome, ground-breaking and occasionally bizarre collection of some 6000 defunct medical instruments is to go on show for the first time.
Collected over the years by Devon doctors, the instruments are being brought together for research and teaching purposes by Exeter University's Centre for Medical History. Ranging in age from Roman times right up to the present day, the collection includes a Victorian 'veedee electro-massage machine', razor sharp scarificators for blood-letting, Exeter's first X-ray machine, trepanning drills for boring into patients' skulls and a sinister-looking amputation set.
The University has obtained a Wellcome Trust People Award to catalogue the collection, put it on the web and organise a programme of school visits.
The schools programme has been designed to fit in with GCSE teaching in secondary schools, looking at medicine's past and is intended to spark off debate about current healthcare issues. It has been organised around different themes, including public health and vaccination, surgery and anatomy, common ailments and treatments, childbirth and children.
