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When I was working at the Medical Museion as a docent, I often introduced visitors to our fabulous pharmacy. Here the visitors are introduced to such interesting objects as a jar containing moss from a human skull and a container for leeches. Leeches were used to draw blood from patients to restore their blood balance. The theoretical basis for this procedure […]

Part of the fun of being involved in a medical museum these days is that the notion of ‘biomedicine’ is so much broader than traditional medicine and health care taught in faculties of medicine and health science. As a university institution for biomedical science communication we are, by default as it were, confronted with some of the most fundamental issues in […]

Af en eller anden grund er jeg begyndt at blive særligt fascineret af muse- og rotteforsøg. Denne gang handler det dog ikke om fordrukne rotter, der bliver sammenlignet med mennesker (som jeg har skrevet om tidligere her og her), men om mus, rotter og laboratorielegetøj, som ovenstående er en illustration af: Billedet er fra en […]

The material dimension of science is back in focus for historians.  As far back as I remember, it was historians of technology who were the ‘materialists’, whereas historians of science were ‘idealists’. Didn’t really matter what kind of studies they did — historians of science have always tended to be intererested in mind (theories, ideas, […]

It’s difficult now to imagine how once, in a culture long ago, there were no cells or tissues, no molecules or receptors, no hormones, proteins or DNA. Just a body, with organs, sinuses, cavities, limbs, and fluids of different kinds. This pre-cellular, pre-molecular body will be the object of discussion at a symposium titled ‘The […]

I performed my fist knee operation today. Not in real life though but on my pc. Videogames inspired by medical practises or diseases has been discussed on this blog before but I don’t think that this particular game has been mentioned. In the game one takes on the role of a surgeon (or a surgeon’s […]

The other day, I lamented the fact that any new idea I developed about museums apparently was preempted by Nina Simon (or so it felt when I read she had already suggested the notion of the ‘slow museum’).  I felt like Professor Otto Lidenbrock who exclaimed “Arne Saknussem, always Arne Saknussem”, every time he succeeded to reach a new […]

I striden mellem tilhængere af evolutionsteorien og tilhængere af teorien om intelligent design, ved jeg godt hvor jeg står. Selvom jeg hverken er biolog eller teolog har jeg nu altid sat mine penge på førstnævnte teori. Der er noget i den grad dragende over empiriske iagttagelser der til en hver tid, vinder over mere eller […]

BioSystems — the blog of a new venture-capital supported biotech upstart Plectix that specializes in representing cellular signalling — reinforces my impression over the last couple of years that privately employed scientists too can use the blog medium to say increasingly interesting things about what used to be the turf of public university scholars in the social sciences and humanities (‘science studies‘ and ‘philosophy […]

Den 2 otober 2009 var undertegnede til udstillingsåbning på NaturMedicinsk Museum på Det Farmaceutiske Fakultet. Det Farmaceutiske Fakultet råder over en stor farmacognostisk samling med genstande der dateres helt tilbage fra 1892. Det er disse genstande som nu udgør kernen i udstillingen på det nye Naturmedicinsk Museum. Det er dejligt at den naturmedicinske historie har fået […]

I’m currently on paternal leave with 1-year old Johanna — which means that my blogging activities are structured after her sleeping schedule. And to save time we share lunch table and working desk:

Last Friday, Medical Museion participated, as usual, in the annual Copenhagen Night of Culture. We had 1326 visitors — a little fewer than last year — passing through the entrance door to view our permanent and temporary exhibitions. The decrease in the number of visitors is not a bad thing though — because it gave us better time to speak with them as […]