Exhibition in the Archaeological Museum – A Medical History in the Classical World

The Archaeological Museum in Zagreb has a Collection of Medical and Pharmaceutical Instruments from Sisak, one of the largest collections of medical instruments in Europe. On the 35th anniversary of its first expert publication the Collection presents the exhibition A Medical History in the Classical World.

The exhibition opens with a display of selected gods and goddesses of healing such as Appollo, Asclepius, Hygeia and others. Hippocrates’ way of thinking fundamentally changed classical medicine, and many Greek and Roman doctors followed in his footsteps for centuries. An overview of that process is displayed with a special focus on the way in which the most famed doctors of the Classical period viewed the human body, how they thought it was influenced and what their approach was to sickness and to the patient. A display on collecting, preparing and storing ingredients shows the medicinal preparations which patients had at their disposal. As a last step in curing sickness, only used when absolutely unavoidable, several invasive procedures are shown. They have been selected according to how frequently they were used in Classical times or are used today, as well as how interesting the procedure itself is.

This anniversary of the Sisak Collection is also connected to the centenary of the founding of the Medical Faculty at Zagreb University. For this reason, in the Zagreb Archaeological Museum in April, May and June a range of workshops and popular science lectures have been prepared for various age groups on the subject of health.

The exhibition runs from 30 March to 14 June 2017.