FAQ & Contact
The members of this group, London Museums of Health and Medicine, are happy to receive your feedback and questions about:
If your enquiry is directed at a specific museum, please contact them directly. Contact details for individual museums can be found on their pages, accessed via the 'Find a Museum' tab.
Answers to some of our most frequently asked questions can be found below. Alternatively you can email the webmaster directly at [email protected].
Please consider which of our member museums would be most suited to your area of knowledge, skills or interest, by looking at their individual pages and/or external site, and contact them directly.
Most members advertise their vacancies publicly, and they may not reply to speculative applications.
Several of our member museums rely on volunteers who assist with tour-guiding, room invigilation and documentation projects. Please consider which of our member museums would be most suited to your area of knowledge, skills or interest, by looking at their individual pages and/or external site, and contact them directly.
Please do not be put off if they cannot offer you a role straight away. Be aware that most of our members are unable to assist with expenses.
Our member museums are unable to offer valuations. We would suggest that you contact an auction house or antique dealer directly to both value and sell any items.
Many of our member museums rely on donations to expand or improve their collections.
Please send as full a description as you can of the item/s and how they came to be in your possession. We would also welcome jpeg images (maximum of 1MB size per image, and no more than 4MB per message). We will undertake to circulate these details to each of our member museums and, if any are interested, they will contact you directly.
Alternatively, please contact the most relevant museums directly. Please do not send or deliver items to our museums unless requested to do so.
Several member museums have library and archive collections. Others are attached to parent bodies that also run specialist libraries to which public access is permitted.
Levels of public access and terms of use will vary, so please check first with the relevant library.
College of Optometrists (British Optical Association Library): one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of modern and historical optical works in existence, containing some 6,500 optical books and pamphlets.
Royal College of Physicians: a host of dynamic and up-to-date resources that reflect the RCP's current work, policy interests and long history.
Wellcome Library: one of the world's major resources for the study of medical history with a growing collection of material relating to contemporary medicine and biomedical science in society.
Benjamin Franklin House, London
In the heart of London, is Benjamin Franklin House, the world's only remaining Franklin home. For nearly sixteen years between 1757 and 1775, Dr Benjamin Franklin - scientist, diplomat, philosopher, inventor, Founding Father of the United States and more - lived behind its doors. While lodging at 36 Craven Street, Franklin pursued his love of science (exploring bifocal spectacles, the energy-saving Franklin stove) and explored health (innoculation, air baths, cures for the common cold).
Edward Jenner Museum, Berkeley, Gloucestershire
The Chantry, the house that Edward Jenner owned from 1785 until his death in 1823 was opened as a museum in 1985 and houses a recently refurbished exhibition on the history of immunology.
George Marshall Medical Museum, Worcester
This museum illustrates the way that medicine and health care have developed over the past 250 years. Many of the objects have been donated by local people, the vast majority by Dr. George Marshall, a doctor in the Worcester area from 1931-1950. Since 2002 the museum has been located on the ground floor of an education centre on the Worcester Royal Hospital site and can be visited by the public. [Users should note this website does not function properly in Internet Explorer 8 but is fine in other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox].
Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Trust Museum and Archives
London Museums of Health and Medicine honorary member
The Great Ormond Street Hospital has a number of objects on display in prominent places around their public spaces. The Trust Archive is open and accessible to the general public, and is located on the ground floor of Barclay House.
Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow
Not exclusively a medical museum, but a Scottish university museum with a significant anatomy and pathology collections amassed by William Hunter in his career as anatomist, obstetrician and doctor in the 18th century.
Hunterian Society, London
London Museums of Health and Medicine, associate member
The Hunterian Society was founded in 1819 for the education of the medical profession in London. The Society's collection of Portraits and prints, miniatures and several artifacts, including surgical instruments, are on display at the London Clinic Annexe, 1 Park Square West, Regents Park, London NW1. Curator-led tours are offered a few times a year, though health professionals may visit by arrangement at other times.
Manchester Medical School Museum
For historic reasons, regretted by many, the collections of the Manchester Medical School do not form part of that university's museum. Instead a separate departmental museum has been maintained by an honorary curator since 1973 comprising a series of display cabinets in the entrance foyer to the Stopford Building and substantial reserve collections in secure storage. A past curator was the late and distinguished pharmaceutical historian W.A. (Bill) Jackson. The displays include medical instruments and a collection of medals. Visitors are very welcome and the reserve collections can be consulted by prior arrangement.
Surgeon's Hall Museums, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
Extensively redeveloped museum with permanent displays on surgery, pathology, dentistry and, unusually, sports medicine. It has been open to the general public since 1832, making it Scotland's oldest museum.
Tayside Medical Museum, Dundee
Part of the University of Dundee Museums service, Tayside Medical Museum is based at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School. The Medical History Collections are among the finest in Scotland, and include material from Dundee Royal Infirmary, Royal Dundee Liff Hospital and Sunnyside Hospital near Montrose.
Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds
The award-winning Thackray Museum is one of the UK's leading medical museums, telling the story of medicine and explaining how advances in medicine are changing our lives. Located next to the St James Hospital in the north east sector of the biggest city of West Yorkshire, this museum is considered by many to be the finest general collection of the history of medicine together in one place in the UK.
Medizinhistorisches Museum der Universitat Zurich, Switzerland
Compact but comprehensive museum in the former Physics and Physiology building covering the whole of medicine from ancient votive offerings to modern Swiss pharmaceuticals.
Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze, Italy
The natural history museum in Florence comprises various departments located across this fine renaissance city including a 'zoological' museum in the Via Romana known popularly as 'La Specola', which includes the largest collection of anatomical wax models in the world, begun by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo in 1771
Paula Stradina Medicinas Vestures Muzejs (Pauls Stradins Museum of the History of Medicine), Riga, Latvia
Founded in 1957 this is one of the largest and finest medical museums in the world. It is notable for its displays using costumed figures in tableaux and for a remarkable collection relating to Soviet space medicine. It also has three branch museums covering pharmacy, anatomy and children's surgery.
Semmelweiss Museum of Medical History, Budapest, Hungary
A small museum, but with extensive coverage of the subject, using replicas if necessary, opened in 1965 and located upstairs in the former home of Ignaz Semmelweiss (1818-65), the physician whose simple regime of hand washing made great advances in the prevention of childbed fever. The Museum also operates a tiny branch museum in the former Golden Eagle Pharmacy on Castle Hill.
Medical Museion, Copenhagen, Denmark
Medical Museion is a combined museum and research unit at the University of Copenhagen and has one of the biggest and richest historical collections of medical artefacts in Europe. It also produces an internationally recognised blog, Biomedicine on Display.
Steno Museet, Aarhus, Denmark
This small museum explores the development of science and medicine and features a consulting room, a dental clinic with a pedal driven drill, an operating theatre from around WW1 and an old pharmacy. There is also a collection of early anaesthesia and x-ray equipment.