Medical Museum

In 1982, the foundation for the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics Medical Museum was the donation of a case of surgical instruments by Phoebe Wilcox of Newton, Iowa. These instruments belonged to her grandfather, Dr. Vinton S. Wilcox, who was a member of the fourth graduating class of the University of Iowa Medical Department in 1874, and who became a general practitioner in Malcom, Iowa. The museum opened in 1989, and these instruments were one of many exhibits designed to appeal to an audience of patients, visitors, the hospital community, and the general public.

_{First University Hospital, circa 1920. Photo courtesy of UI Libraries, Archives}

A Century of Caring: Health Sciences at The University of Iowa, 1850-1950 and its permanent exhibition serve as an educational resource focusing on the progress of medicine and patient care, emphasizing the major role of the University Hospitals in these advances. In this way, the study of health in Iowa illustrates the history of medicine and the health sciences.

The Medical Museum collection supports our mission to stimulate, inform, and educate patients and visitors about institutional health care and health-related issues. The exhibition draws from collections of artifacts, photographs, historical records, and medical equipment and instruments.

The collections reflect the history of health care and research at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, the state of Iowa, and the Midwest.

The 5,000-plus objects in our permanent collection fall into these major categories:

• Ophthalmology, including optical lenses, color-blindness test kits, stereoscopes, spectacles, ophthalmoscopes, and surgical instruments.
• University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics history, including a time capsule from the first hospital building (1898), yearbooks, portraits, programs, diplomas, and journals.
• Diagnostic Equipment, including approximately 150 items such as stethoscopes, early sphygmomanometers, microscopes, X-ray equipment, blood-glucose testing devices, and reflex hammers.
• Obstetrics/Gynecology, including fetal stethoscopes, forceps, cranial devices, specula, ether inhalers.
• Cardiology, including an early portable EKG, heart valves, mold for prosthetic blood vessels, and documentation of the purchase of the first EKG at UI Hospitals & Clinics in 1919.
• Otolaryngology, including a monochord, otoscopes, bronchoscopes, and hearing aids.
• Miscellaneous, including a 1930s examining chair used in the film "Field of Dreams," caned-seat wheelchair, syringe and hypodermic sets, examination tables, World War II first-aid kit, appointment cards, and an iron lung.
• In addition, we have items from Anesthesiology, Homeopathic Medicine, Internal Medicine, Nursing, Orthopedics, Pathology, Pediatrics, Pharmaceuticals, Psychiatry, Radiology, Therapeutic Devices, and Urology.

The several hundred historical photographs in the collection include approximately 20 framed, original College of Medicine class portraits. Modern images include studies of medical procedures and modern equipment in use.

The manuscripts and documents collection includes approximately 330 medical and nursing texts, medical record books, physician's journals, photo albums, and more than 100 booklets and documents.

A Century of Caring: Health Sciences at The University of Iowa, 1850-1950

This exhibition highlights the early history of University Hospitals and the four health science colleges–Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy–and shows how scientific innovations and institutional growth contributed to patient care.

Location: John W. Colloton Pavilion (JCP), Level 8, Elevator F

Past Gallery Exhibits:

• Diagnostik
• Nature's Pharmacy: Ancient Knowledge, Modern Medicine (October 1998 - August 1999)
• Common Threads: The Lives and Stories of Women Living With Breast Cancer (March-May 1999)
• Art That Heals: The Image as Medicine in Ethiopia (January 2 - February 1999)
• Facts of Life: Examining Reproductive Health (February - December 1995)
• The Illuminated Body: Representation in Medicine and Culture (February 1994 - December 1994)
• The Trail of the Invisible Light: A Century of Medical Imaging (December 1992 - December 1993)
• Bucking the System: Women in the Health Sciences at the University of Iowa 1874-1950  (April - October 1992)
• In the Eye of the Beholder: Sight, Illusion, and Disorder  (April 1991 - February 1992)
• Collecting and Recollecting: Gifts from the Recent Past  (January 16 - March 5, 1991)
• The Beat Goes On: A History of Cardiology (February 1990 - December 1990)

Past Satellite Exhibits:

• The Cultural Body Find out about footbinding, corsets, scarification ,and more.
• The Development of Emergency Medical Services How the EMS began.
• J. Sarah Braunwarth The making of a doctor.
• Military Medicine Military Treatment and medical procedure.
• Perioperative Nursing A time line of the developments in perioperative nursing.