RCSI Heritage Collections

With the theme for this year's Heritage Week being 'It's in your Nature', this is the perfect time to delve into the history of the RCSI Museum, which held an impressive collection of zoological specimens. Much of the information in this post comes from Sir Charles A Cameron’s great work 'History of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, The Irish Medical Schools etc' which in 2016 RCSI Heritage Collections made available to read and search on-line . It is an immensely readable tome and contains fascinating insights into the history of the college. We’ll also utilise other sources including J.D.H. Widdess' history of RCSI as well as the annual reports of the College. The museum began life late in the 18th century on Mercer Street; early contributions were made to it by Mr. John Halahan and Mr. William Dease . The first museum catalogue was prepared in 1795 by the professors of Anatomy. By 1819 the museum was somewhat neglected, Cameron tells us that ‘abou...

We are busily preparing for next week's Heritage Week so we thought you'd like to know what's in store! This years theme of 'It's in our Nature' fits in perfectly with one of our prized Heritage Collections, the RCSI Natural History Specimen Collection ! It comprises approximately 200 specimens across the disciplines of  zoology and biology and range in items such as frogs in glass jars preserved in formaldehyde, a duckbilled platypus 'prepared' by a past museum curator, a tiger skull donated by a prominent doctor and various incy wincy spiders picked up from all around the world. Why, do you ask, does a College of Surgeons hold such type of items?  It all started at the early stages of RCSI's history when in 1775, William Dease, one of the founding members of RCSI, presented a collection of anatomical preparations to RCSI. Using these preparations, the College decided to fit up a museum in RCSI's first building on Mercer Street. It had its ve...

On a recent sojourn in Paris the RCSI Heritage Collections decided to visit the Catacombs of Paris which lie deep below the busy city. The catacombs are 2 kms long and are filled with over 6 million skeletons dating from the early 1700s to the mid 1800s. Crypt of the Sepulchral Lamp in the Catacombs of Paris While in Paris a previous blog ( Skeletons, Specimens and a Shekleton! 8th May) came to mind. In May we learnt about specimens that were collected, created, preserved and used in the College as teaching aids back in the 1800s and early 1900s. Another teaching aid that has fallen out of practise but still holds a macabre beauty is that of the wax anatomical model. And where was the place to go if one wanted such models? Paris!! The problem facing medical school and students in the 1800s was the supply and preservation of cadavers long enough for detailed dissections to be carried out on them. A solution to this was the use of minutely detailed and quite graphic wax anatomic...

RCSI Museum circa 1900s Museum's full of curious specimens, eerie skeletons and natural wonders are fascinating. A fascination that has been awoken in younger generations through the captivating TV programmes by David Attenborough. The College housed quite a large museum and was even pronounced as 'one of the most valuable in Europe' by Friedrich Tiedemann and Jules Cloquet  in the 1800s. In 1820 the College decided to establish a museum on a level par with the scale of their other departments. A committee was formed and they were empowered to appoint a Curator at once. Candidates for the position of Curator had to exhibit specimens of their work.    Shekleton's mercurial specimen Baby orangutan skeleton E.a.90 A young anatomist named John Shekleton presented his specimen of a mercurial injection of the lymphatics of the lower extremity which, it has been said, excited the wonder of all who saw it. This specimen is still on view in the Anatomy ...