One stamp story: Is history of medicine in need of a museum ?

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One postage stamp in my collection has intrigued me for long. This is a fairly recent 2007 postage stamp issued by Latvia. This sepia coloured stamp pictures a thoughtful skeleton, an open book, and some ancient mortars and pestles. I have not been able to pair it with any other postage stamp . So, this essentially is “one stamp story”.

This postage stamp celebrates 50 years of a museum of medical history, located in Riga, Latvia. One history website lists it as one of the top ten medical history museums in the world. Paula Stradin museum boasts more than 200,000 pieces of history on a variety of aspects of medical history.

Why do we need a Museum ?

“Muse” is to contemplate, to think and to reflect. For ancient Greeks and Romans, museums were thinking-halls. Probably they still are. Past makes us think and ponder, our wrongs as well as our rights. Paula Stradin postage stamp also depicts a thinking skeleton. In this sense, we do need to muse over all the glory as well as the madness, medical history has been.

All the blogs in this series are small little pieces of our medical history. History is often not kind, and neither is medical history. Humanity looks up to its healers with a sense of awe, as if magic shall flow from their eyes, hands and voice. Probably this magic shall set-aside all our sufferings, and everyone will live happily ever after. While, this expectation is eternal, medical history is a grim reminder, that it was never so. Healers always had (and even now have) a mix of imperfect tools & incomplete knowledge with an uncertain impact. Hence, museums of medical history, shall always be a tale of imperfection, incompleteness and uncertainty.

But is past still glorious ?

Whenever senior doctors teach new entrants in the profession, their past is seemingly more glorious than the present times. This past glory may not be entirely true, but probably has some pedagogical value. None-the-less there indeed are some shimmers of glory. Despite no technology at hand, healers could maintain a reputation and have persisted with the magic of healing. Over the years they could mix keen observations and logical speculations, and create medical science. When challenged with inadequacies, healers have always been quick to point that this science is actually an art. It is the art that often mesmerises, helps navigate through myriad human emotions and can successfully invoke power of destiny or the supernatural.

So what medical museums are all about ?

I have gone through many lists of medical museums. While this was to find postage stamps on them, and there are only a few. What do these museums have. Some of these museums hold human organs in glass jars, and others educate about our journey from a fetus to a newborn. Some are painful reminders of how we used to handle aberrations, or abnormalities. Others showcase books, uniforms, instruments, famous personalities and even their anecdotes. Each of these pieces is a story about our beliefs and practices.

Museum of Hope and survival

I would rather go back to the “thinking skeleton” or an ancient Greek or Roman idea of a thought provoking museum. A museum of medical history should rather showcase resilience, determination, and strength of human survival. Survival, despite minimal obstetric care, no artificial immunisations, waves of pandemics, absence of sanitation, only a few effective medicines, and no organs to replace. Probably it should be an exhibit of hope.

What would you like to have in your museum of medical history. It will be good to have your thoughts in the comments section !!!