C. U. Ari¨ens Kappers brain collection (the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience)

 

Netherlands | Amsterdam

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The C. U. Ari¨ens Kappers brain collection, at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam, is one of the largest and oldest of the world’s catalogued repositories of specimens that reveal the course of brain evolution and the resulting panoply of neural biodiversity. Established a century ago, it has served since then as the basis of the encyclopedic texts authored by its founder, as well as research publications into the current time. It consists of 726 specimens: these include 309 mammals, 134 birds, 81 reptiles, 21 amphibians, and 179 “pisces”—a grouping of bony fish, sharks, and cyclostomes. Housed in the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, the collection is the result of a life time’s labor by Cornelius Ubbo Ariëns Kappers during his directorship (1909-1946) of the institute and contains representatives of over 300 species of vertebrates, including man.

Relevant People:

C. U. Ari¨ens Kapper

Universita’ di Balogna

 

Italy | Balogna

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The University’s Museum Network – Sistema Museale di Ateneo – includes many collections dating back to the 18th Century closely related to the Istituto delle Scienze: even if the “Camera della Notomia” (Anatomy Room) was there established in 1747 providing teaching material to physicians and anatomists, the institute’s anatomical room was projected by Ercole Lelli (1702-1766) in 1742. Ercole Lelli, “figure director” at the Accademia Clementina di Belle Arti started the anatomical ceroplastic school in Bologna. Starting in 1776, Anna Morandi (1714-1774) and her husband Giovanni Manzolini (1700-1755), wax modelers, made important contributions to the Anatomy Room of the Institute. Their production illustrates the enormous scientific progress that had been achieved in wax modelling and anatomical portrayal that led the study and reproduction of sensory organs and other physiological systems. Anna Morandi depicted herself in a self-portrait, while intently examining a cerebral structure. The work of Luigi Galvani (1737-1798)at the institute, and the experiments he conducted, led him to surmise that the power that caused the contraction of fibers, stimulated through electric fluid, lay in nerves rather than muscles. In 1791 he published the “De viribus” where he proved that animals – and thus humans – have a unique electrical property: the brain is the most important organ secreting “electric fluid”; the nerves are the organs that have the greatest affinity with this unique electricity. Thereafter, Luigi Calori (1807-1896) began his career as Professor of Human Anatomy becoming President of the Academy of Sciences. Thanks to the ceroplastic artist Cesare Bettini (1801-1805), he realized some of the most important models concerning the brain structure as the wax models collection of encephalon and the eye compounds. All the materials connected with this period of intense anatomical studies are still preserved in the Museums and Collections of the Sistema Museale di Ateneo.

Relevant People:

Ercole Lelli | Luigi Galvani

Museo Camillo Golgi

 

Italy | Corteno

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In 1894 the Institute of General Pathology, directed by Golgi and one of the most famous biomedical research centres in Europe at the time, was set in the historic building Palazzo Botta. The very same rooms today house the the Camillo Golgi Museum in order to bring back, thanks to the heritage of scientific tools and documents left behind, the living memory of that laboratory. The Museum was founded in October 2012 and comprises six rooms. The first room shows the original office of the Institute’s Directors. In the second one a review of Camillo Golgi’s greatest discoveries is on display: the black reaction, the research studies on malaria and the identification of the Golgi apparatus, which took place right in this building. Beside a rich collection of microtomes and microscopes, a collection of camera lucidas and of the first devices developed for microphotography is also accommodated in the room. The third room focuses on some of Golgi’s students and the equipment they used to make their cutting-edge discoveries. The old library and the archive are housed in the fourth room and in the fifth one, where the antique furniture allows the visitors to catch also visually the atmosphere of that period. The last room is the Aula Golgi, the splendid hemicycle where Camillo Golgi taught and where seminars and conferences are held still today.

Relevant People:

Camillo Golgi

Museo per la Storia dell’Università

 

Italy | Pavia

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The museum houses a room dedicated to Camillo Golgi, who was awarded the NobelPrize for medicine in 1906 for his invention of a histology method, known as the black or silver chromate method, which laid the foundation of modern neuroscience. A case shows instruments and documentes concerning Golgi’s life and discoveries. They include key discoveries for the field of cytology such as the Golgi apparatus, and his studies on malaria, which were important for infectivology. A case is dedicated to Adelchi Negri, whose name is linked to a major discovery about rabies (Negri bodies). The museum has an important archival collection (about 3000 documents) relating to teaching and research activities, Golgi&’s political commitment or his private life.

Relevant People:

Alessandro Volta

Musee Dupuytren

 

France | Paris

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This museum has displays of anatomical malformations, consisting of a large collection of specimens and wax models from the 17th century. The museum also has brains studied by the great Paul Pierre Broca. It was named after anatomist and surgical professor Guillaume Dupuytren. In 2016, the Dupuytren museum collections were transferred to the Jussieu campus, joining eight of UPMC’s scientific collections. The collections are installed in reserves and are not accessible to the public. They are open to research projects and notwithstanding students by appointment.

Relevant People:

Paul Pierre Broca

Musee d’Anatomie Delmas-Orfila-Rouviere

 

France | Paris

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France’s largest collection of anatomical models and specimens began as small collection cultivated by Honore Fragonard (a professor of anatomy at the University of Paris). The collection was enhanced by Mathieu Orfila ( the dean of Medicine at U. of Paris), after he visited London’s Huntarian. In true french patriotism he sought to out shine the British. The museum contains specimens of humans and animals, including embryological reconstructions and pieces of neuro-anatomy.

Relevant People:

Honore Fragonard

Musée d’Anatomie de Montpellier

 

France | Montpellier

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The oldest and the largest anatomy museum in France, the museum is situated inside the world famous and historic University of Montpellier. Structured with wide Doric columns, the museum‘s collections were listed as historic monuments in 2004. The museum’s educational dimension cannot be missed amidst the eeriness which envelops it. The main features of the museum are: -Deformed foetuses preserved in jars -Human and animal skeletons -An “ethnological” collection of skulls.

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