How can a dusty bust of Louis Pasteur be useful? Material medical culture as a new asset for the History of Medicine

Material culture studies are a relatively new subject based on the interpretation of physical things in order to understand the cultures that developed and used them. Material culture studies are multidisciplinary in the sense that they incorporate methodologies and contributions from a variety of subjects, including archaeology, anthropology, history, human geography, museology, ethnography, and design studies. This work presents the application of this interdisciplinarity of the subject to the History of Medicine and Healthcare. Typically, canonical locations where medicine was practiced and taught, such as hospitals and anatomical theatres, dominate the focus of medical historians, together with medical instruments and anatomical specimens. However, the history of medicine includes several tangible items that may be significant, such as birthplaces, memorial plaques, tombs, monuments, etc. In this research, we focused precisely on these ‘forgotten’ elements of material medical memory, in order to go beyond its usual limitations. Moreover, the goal of this research is to interpret the future while also rebuilding the past precisely through the medical material culture. The idea for this work came about thanks to Himetop – The History of Medicine Topographical Database (himetop.net), a project based at Campus Bio-Medico University in Rome. Himetop is an open access database which includes different categories of material memories related to the History of Medicine, supported by pictures, descriptions, bibliography, and geolocation. From it, other studies were developed that included analysis of the open air-museums and cultural landscapes, the photographic pictures through the study of the use of photography in the Italian psychiatric environment, the tombstones through the discovery of the first women graduated in Medicine and Surgery in Rome, the monuments challenged by the so-called cancel culture, the memorial plaques through the San Gallicano and Santa Maria Hospital and, finally, the medical instruments. The methodology used to carry out this multi-sector investigation is typical of historical research, namely bibliographic and archival study, with also a good amount of fieldwork. This research provided insight into the importance of material culture in medical history. In fact, material memories can be a tool for motivating and inspiring young people and medical staff. However, it can also be very beneficial to the community that is surrounded by these material things, providing a sense of identity and accomplishment. Moreover, medical material memories are an excellent tool for teaching the History of Medicine. My research intended to provide a starting point to approach medical material culture, with the prospect that a methodology can be developed in the future in Italy, such as the one in Anglo-Saxon nations. Furthermore, it aims to raise awareness among institutions and public bodies about the importance of these cultural assets, which must be protected and valorized.