Lviv region

Lviv

Pekarska St, 52

Museum of Human Diseases

The Museum of Human Diseases of Lviv National Medical University named after Danylo Halytsky is an effective museum, the largest in Ukraine and one of the three largest museums of this profile in Europe.

The Museum of Human Diseases was created in 1896 at the Danylo Halytsky Lviv Medical University (formerly the Jan Kazimierz University of Lviv). Especially for this purpose, a building was erected, and the first director of the museum department was Polish professor Ondrzhy Objut.

Today, the museum has 5 departments, in particular, an exposition of macropreparations, which has more than 2.5 thousand exhibits and more than 86 thousand archival protocols of autopsies for the period from 1896 to 2018. In addition, the museum has a large collection of pathogistological drugs that show the microscopic appearance of most known diseases. Also in the institution there is a library containing scientific journals, monographs and 2.5 thousand drawings created at the beginning of the 20th century by the departmental artist for the purpose of exposition in lectures and practical classes.

The entire museum is conditionally divided by stands, on which diseases of individual human systems are grouped. In particular, a separate rack is allocated to demonstrate pathologies of fetal development. The greatest attention of visitors is attracted by the exhibits of two-headed children, of which the museum has as many as 8.

The exhibits in the museum have a long history, so the origin of many of them is unknown. It is speculated that the exhibits of two-headed children were collected by the Dutch anatomist and collector Frederick Ruysch for the private collection of Peter I. After his death, Frederico sold the collection in small batches throughout Europe. Professor Objut brought some of these drugs with him to the museum, but archival data to confirm this is lost.

Now the museum exhibits are replenished after the next dissections of the bodies of deceased people, which are carried out for diagnostic purposes: the sectional halls for this are located next to the exhibition hall.