MP-0000.1842 | First floor display, Peter Redpath Museum, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 1925
First floor display, Peter Redpath Museum, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 1925
Sydney Jack Hayward
1925, 20th century
Silver salts on paper - Gelatin silver process
19 x 24 cm
MP-0000.1842
© McCord Museum
Description
Keywords: Architecture (8646) , architecture (335) , case (1) , Dawson Geological Collection (1) , display (1) , first floor (1) , interior (39) , McGill University (13) , Montreal (392) , museum (8) , Peter Redpath Museum (1) , Photograph (77678) , Zoological material (1)
Keys to History
Hospitals were becoming essential to teaching medicine. Anatomy rooms like the one seen here allowed the professor to teach his art in front of a large class.
By the 1870s, most large hospitals had a dissection room to which unclaimed bodies were sent.
Dissection serves to observe abnormalities in the organs and to determine the causes of illness and death. If the liver is reddish-brown and fibrous, for example, the patient probably died of cirrhosis (from the Greek kirros, meaning red). Students spent time in dissection rooms to perfect their knowledge of anatomy.
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What
In the late 19th century, all medical schools had anatomy rooms of this sort. The many windows, a skylight and the semi-circular form of the tiered wooden seating allowed the students to follow the professor's dissection of the cadaver down front.
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Where
McGill University's anatomy room was modest by comparison with those of the old European medical schools. Some, like the ones in Bologna and Padua, are still famous for their lavishness.
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When
Anatomy rooms have existed for centuries, but some have known moments of glory. In the 16th century, Andrea Valsaius, the father of modern anatomy, taught in the one at the University of Padua, where Galileo was teaching as well.
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Who
Until the 19th century, most of the courses given in this room were taught by anatomists. But gradually pathologists came to lecture there, showing students the organ lesions caused by disease.
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