The collection of medical equipment gives visitors a chance to observe the individual material manifestations of technology in medicine and health care in the context of time and space and as a consequence stimulates the thinking of scientists and those interested in the relationship between art, science, health care and man in a unique way. The Department of Medical Technology was established based on the decision of the Director General of the National Technical Museum, Karel Ksandr, on 1 March 2018, in connection with the exhibition Man-Made Man - Technology and Medicine. The NTM has put together a collection that can serve as a source of inspiration and research in medical technology and maps the development of some medical devices from their first known form up to the present.
The collection now includes objects produced in the period from the 19th century up to the present day. For example, the urinometer and the albuminometer date from the second half of the 19th century. Late 19th century items include a dentist's electric melting furnace or a set of dental drills. Several devices for pulse current therapy date from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when electrotherapy was the subject of considerable publicity. The first half of the 20th century is represented in the collection, for example, by leg and hand prostheses or dentist's equipment in the form of a dentist’s X-ray chair and a drill, as well as the equipment of a Prague family doctor's office established in 1935. Instrument sets, an instrumentation table, an operating table come from the second half of the 20th century, a defibrillator, joint replacements, and a device for extracorporeal blood circulation. Objects from the beginning of the 21st century are represented by advanced technologies such as a dialysis unit, a haemodialysis device, a SPECT scanning device, a number of monitoring devices, and pumps for mechanical heart support. The collection also includes medical devices that were used by the military. An interesting set consists of the NIOBE navigation system with the complete equipment of a catheterization room.
We are constantly expanding the collection and we appreciate your help. We will be happy if you offer us to the collection:
- your discarded devices, instruments and other tools for medical and diagnostic purposes,
- historical pictures, portraits, posters and advertisements with medical themes,
- equipment from shuttered doctor’s offices and pharmacies,
- textbooks, books, manuscripts, work clothes and personal items of your ancestors who worked as healthcare workers.
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