Medical and historical collection Institute of medical history University of Medicine

The medical and historical collection was called into life in 1994 by the former director of the institute of medical history, Prof. Heinz - Peter Schmiedebach. The main interest of the collection activity is represented form the very beginning by objective material witnesses from the medical daily life in the early DDR, and besides those a few rarities from the first half of the 20th century are exhibited as well. Most of the exhibited objects are medical instruments that were secured after clinic renovations or taken over form private possessors. All in all, the collection provides a global view of the medical instruments and utensils destined to medical care coming from the different university clinics and institutes in Greifswald. After the relocation of the Institute for medical history into the present building, a long-lasting exhibition about the “medical daily life in the DDR” could be opened in 2004. Besides the oldest and most valuable exhibition items, like a Schimmelbusch mask (around 1900), wax mouldings (around 1910) or one out of eight iron lungs still to be found intact in Germany (1950s) one can also admire historical furniture – from a desk to a stretcher – which provide a vivid impression of the examination rooms in the past. Individual exhibition items from the medical and historical collection were already presented in the context of countless exhibitions, i.e. women in medicine, health on board, baths of Sassnitz, training centre Teterow for the German Red Cross, Fliedner cultural foundation Kaiserswerth in Düsseldorf as well as several art exhibitions (i.e. Brustzentrum Dr. Ohlinger) and during anniversaries of the children clinic in Greifswald. If nothing else, the collection wanted to encourage the scientific study of the history of medicine in the DDR. In relation to the collection, a research project about the “Medical techniques in the GDR – between improvisation and high-tech” is planned. For the scientific reworking of the collection, subsidies are thought to be gathered by the use of a new, innovative collection concept, “History of instruments and medical daily life”, which links information from interviews with experts and the statements of archived sources. Presently, a collection catalogue is being designed with chosen, representative exhibits, which will be accessible also on the internet.