The folk medicine collection: a legacy of Štampar’s era

Abstract

A more systematic study of folk medicine in medical circles originated among those physicians who developed an interest in the history of medicine. The first efforts in this regard are attributed to Lujo Thaller, a pioneer of the history of medicine as an academic and research discipline. He was the president of the Croatian Medical Association’s Section for the History of Medicine, founded at his instigation in 1936, which brought together his followers and like-minded people. The activities within the Historical Medicine Section also encouraged other physicians to research Croatian medical heritage, including folk medicine, as evidenced by articles published in the Liječnički vjesnik. In 1937, During Vladimir Ćepulić’s term as president of the Association, the Croatian Medical Centre was built at 9 Šubićeva Street, and the Association also moved in there. Two of the Centre’s rooms were destined to house the first Museum of the History of Medicine, opened to the public in 1944. The museum concept was shaped by Štampar’s contemporaries and like-minded doctors Vladimir Ćepulić and Stanko Sielski. The permanent exhibition of the Museum also contained a notable collection of folk medicine. This paper will examine the logistics of its acquisition within the context of Štampar’s ideology, whose most important determinant was health education and the fight against backwardness and ignorance.

The historical and ideological context, as well as the further fate and potential of this collection, will be illustrated through examples of the activities of the Division of the History of Medical Sciences of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts under the leadership of Mirko Dražen Grmek, and recent projects implemented after the establishment of the Croatian Museum of Medicine and Pharmacy, including the exhibition Museum Time Machine: The Collection of Folk Medicine as the Core of the Exhibition Display of the First Croatian Museum of Medicine and the catalogue of the collection of folk medicine published in the book Folk Medicine: Sources and Research.