Teaching and Research Resource

The UWO Medical Artifact Collection is a university study collection under redevelopment as a teaching and research source. It is our assessment that these artifacts hold potential as a meaningful study collection for members of the university and medical communities interested in material culture, object study, regional practices as well as any number of themes in the history of health and medicine.

This website aims to provide access to the UWO Medical Artifact Collection for greater awareness and usability by students, faculty, researchers, and others. At the present time, there is no museum or physical space in which to mount public displays or provide easy access to this collection. This website offers virtual space to showcase the collection through an online searchable database of the collection, including images of most objects, as well as online teaching modules, online photos of artifacts on past and current display, and other related materials.

History of the Collection

In the early 1920s, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario began collecting medical artifacts from students, alumni and doctors for a Medical Historical Museum. Over the next several decades, a modest collection of 19th- and 20th-century medical objects, from bloodletting instruments and surgical sets to microscopes and pharmaceuticals, was assembled at the university. The collection however remained without a formal museum setting until 1972, at which time the Medical Museum opened at the newly built University Hospital. The collection was transferred from the university to the hospital for the purposes of this museum. Two exhibit areas – a recreated Victorian doctor’s office as well as cabinet displays – showcased the drug chests, stethoscopes, electrotherapeutic machines, doctor’s bags, wooden legs, trephines, scalpels, anesthetic masks, X-ray tubes, obstetrical instruments, and other artifacts. Museum curators Joan Stevenson (1972-86) and J.T.H. Connor (1986-92) managed and promoted the collection as a teaching and educational resource for the community and the university. In 1994, the Medical Museum was closed when University Hospital administrators declared that it could no longer dedicate required resources for its maintenance. Subsequently, the collection was divided and transferred to three different London locations – Fanshawe Pioneer Village, the Victoria Hospital Museum and Archives, and the Department of History of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario.