Special Collection Artifacts on Display

We have recently put a number of exciting medical artifacts and curiosities from our special collection on display on the 6th floor. These items, mostly from the 19th and early 20th centuries and received through donations to the university, are sure to catch your eye as you exit the main elevators.

Among these items are a pocket surgical kit in a velvet-lined leather case, an 1800s blood transfusion kit, and a surgeon’s field amputation kit circa the American Civil War.

We also have on display a mysterious device known as a Phantasmagoric Magneto Machine, a quack medical device which purported to cure nervous diseases with a mild electric current generated by a hand crank.

Along with these eye-catching instruments, you can find two mortars and pestles and number of medicine bottles with their contents still inside – though well past their expiration date.

Take a look through our display case and see for yourself how medicine was practiced over a hundred years ago!