Exhibitions
Current Exhibition
- The Physick Gardener: Aspects of the Apothecary’s World from the Collections of the University of Melbourne
The first medical students at the University of Melbourne in the 1860s were taught botany, and were required to learn about plants and their medicinal applications. In the exhibition The Physick Gardener: Aspects of the Apothecary’s World from the Collections of the University of Melbourne we witness the botanical origins of medicine through the practice and tools of the apothecary. The exhibition re-launched the Medical History Museum following the recent renovations to the Brownless Biomedical Library.
At the core of the exhibition are the ceramic drug jars, the glass specie jars which were to become the symbol of the pharmacist in the 19th century, and the copper alloy mortars and pestles in the collection of the Medical History Museum. The conservation treatment of a number of the drug jars has recently been undertaken through the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund. A number of items from the Russell and Mab Grimwade Bequest are now in the collection of the Medical History Museum. Also included in the exhibition are items lent from five other cultural collections of the University, including herbals and pharmacopoeias dating from the 16th century from Special Collections in the Baillieu Library; works of art from the Ian Potter Museum of Art; and botanical models and specimens of medicinal plants from the University Herbarium. It is a remarkable tribute to the University’s cultural acumen that the exhibition has been curated entirely from six of its own collections on the historic Parkville campus.
The Physick Gardener celebrates the donation of the recently-acquired Graham Roseby collection of pharmaceutical antiques, including many of the drug jars and mortars, and re-contextualises the Museum’s Savory and Moore Pharmacy, a re-constructed 1840s pharmacy from Belgravia, London, which is a hallmark of the Medical History Museum’s collection.
The exhibition is current until 30 November 2010. For inquiries contact the Curator, Susie Shears, on 8344 9935 or sshears@unimelb.edu.au
Previous Exhibitions
- Ophthalmic Instrumentation: Microsurgical Innovation. The work of Professor Gerard Crock at MUDO 1963 – 1987
- The hand of the engraver in the medical text – Engravings from the Rare Medical Books Collection at The University of Melbourne
- Not Gone But Forgotten: Poliomyelitis in Victoria
- A Closed World: The Asylum System in Victoria 1848 to 1920
- Living Old (Then and Now)
- The Rise of Technology in the Practice of Medicine
- Through Lens and Speculum—Views of Medical Student Life
- 'Don't Spit!' The Control of TB in Victoria
- The Faculty Reflects—150 years of Medical History
- Treating the Past: How Medical Melbourne Came of Age
(This exhibition looked at the history of the medical profession in Victoria from the earliest presence in the colony of British-trained doctors, until the time when the Melbourne Medical School was producing native-born medical practitioners, and contributing to the training of dentists, pharmacists, and masseurs (physiotherapists) around the end of the nineteenth century. It also acknowledged the contribution of the pharmacist to the history of medicine in Melbourne, and the long association between the two professions. Download an essay about this exhibition ) - Being Patient: Care and Convalescence, 1850–1950'.