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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

We are delighted to host Colin Murphy's #theatricalplay "Miasma" this Friday for two performances in our historic lecture theatre! Book your tickets here: www.gr8events.ie/sales/index.... @tcddublin.bsky.social @researchireland.ie

Miasma is a medical detective story set in the
London of Charles Dickens’s time.
It’s the story of a lone doctor who thinks he can
stop the most frightening and fatal disease of his
day: Cholera.
But to do so he will have to defeat popular
superstition, the medical profession, the political
and media elites… and the disease itself.
This is a story about bad science and good
science...
about groupthink and dissent...
about insiders and outsiders...
and about one man taking on the system.
Told with five actors playing multiple parts in a
fast-paced, comic format, Miasma illuminates
key challenges still at the heart of science and
public health today.
In this age of conspiracy theories, misinformation
and algorithmic outrage, how do we know when
to “trust the science” - and when to trust the
scientists?
Cast
» Jack Gavin
» Niamh McGrath
» Robbie O’Connor
» Karl Quinn
» Peter Rothwell
Costume Design
» Sorcha Ní Fhloinn
Lighting Design
» Viko Nikci
Sound Design
» Carl Kennedy

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Our next public event is scheduled for the end of September, stay posted for more details!

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Our sincerest thanks to all those who chose to spend their #heritageweek time with us! We love having you in our halls and sharing the stories reflected in our medical heritage collection! And of course to @heritagecouncil.ie for organising such an amazing opportunity & platform for us to do so!

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

This Friday! Join us at 6pm for a fascinating view into the hidden codes within anatomical illustration guided by author + historian of medicine Michael Sappol, and a pop up exhibit of illustrations by Irish anatomist Joseph Maclise and his contemporaries in our museum. tinyurl.com/Queeranatomi...

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Reposted by Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin

Èvi Numen @evinumen.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

In love with yesterday’s #archivefind in the @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social #medicalheritage collection. Likely a turn of the century skiagraph (early form of x-ray) of a human skull, captured at an unusual angle. Such a striking image!

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

This Wednesday at 9pm IST airing on TG4 in Gaeilge @tg4.bsky.social! Tune in to learn about the life and work of Irish surgeon #DenisBurkitt and #TCDMedSchool alumn who discovered a rare form of cancer, #BurkittsLymphoma:

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

All have their own stories to reveal. Like this vividly coloured and ‘be-doodled’(🤔?) copy of Cunningham’s notebook addendum to his Practical Manual of Anatomy:

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Yesterday was devoted to organising part of our antique #bookcollection! Most of the volumes in it are part of a lending library the #anatomydepartment held for student use from the 1830s to the 1980s. Some belonged to former students and are heavily annotated. Others are professors’ own copies.

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

This Wednesday! 6- 7.30 pm IST Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/written-in...

April 23rd is the International Day for FOP Awareness.

What is FOP?

Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP) is a very rare genetic condition that affects about 900 people worldwide today. In simple terms, the condition causes bone to form in muscles and connective tissue (joints, ligaments, fascia), greatly restricting movement and affecting one's quality of life.

Even though research into the management of the condition and the discovery of a cure progresses, the lack of awareness of this extremely rare disease can delay diagnosis and treatment, as well as decrease research support and outcomes.

The skeletons of two individuals that lived with this rare condition in the 18th and 19th centuries reside within the Anatomy Museum of the School of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin and represent the lived experiences and historical research around FOP in the past.
Other such remains can be found in anatomy and pathology museums around the world, including the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. What can we learn from the lives and 'afterlives' of these individuals? How can their stories contribute to contemporary research?

Join us for an online illustrated talk exploring the history, present, and future of FOP research, with our curator Evi Numen, and Anna Dhody, the founder of the Dhody Research Institute and former curator of the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

This is a free talk, open to all. In lieu of fees, we encourage donations to the International FOP Association through www.ifopa.org

Registered attendees will receive a zoom link prior to the event.

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Artwork conservation day here at the museum! Cleaning a layer of dust off this late 19th cent. watercolour painting by Marsella Irwin is time-consuming and careful work, but quite satisfying! The artwork is one of a set of copies of drawings of ‘hysteric’ epilepsy by Paul Richer published in 1881:

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

The greater part of it is exhaled & is carried by the winds and clouds to distant regions, &finally they descend with rains to fertilise the earth. We thus repay our great debt to nature, and return the elements of our bodies to the common storehouse.Thus ends this strange, eventful history.” 4/4

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Macartney prefaces this poem extract with these words: “The last great event is the extinction of the systematic functions which is commonly called death. As soon as the vitality of the tissue is lost, the body becomes subject to the laws of inorganic matter. 3/4

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

‘“All forms that perish, other forms supply: (By turns we catch the vital breath and die,) Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne They rise, they break, and to that sea return.’ ” At this point the pen had evidently dropped from his hand.'' (writes his biographer A. Macallister) 2/4

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

#OnThisDay in 1843, Professor of Anatomy at @tcddublin.bsky.social and curator of our museum, James Macartney (b.1770) penned his last words, quoting the poem “An Essay on Man” by Alexander Pope (1688–1744): 🧵 1/4

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

We have one too but it's terrible condition 😭 The material it's made of (a proprietary mix of papier mâché, cork, pigment, and more) makes its conservation extremely tricky. We do want to try to save ours though! Auzoux pieces are such gems of medical model-making.

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

and last but not least, 6. Lantern slide showing cardiac anatomy, from a lecture given in the early 1900s.

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

5. Dissection of a calf heart showing the Bundle of His, prepared by Prof. Jamieson in 1932

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

4. Polychrome plaster model of the human heart, likely by the Bock Steger Studio, Leipzig, 1880s (Featured in our "A Cabinet of Wonders" exhibit, researched and written by intern Max Ullman in 2024. )

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

3. Wax model of a foetal heart, Adolf Ziegler Studio, 1860s-1880s

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

2. "Example of a peculiar disposition of of the large Veins of the Abdomen and Thorax", Plate 58. Fig. 10, The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body, Richard Quain, F.R.S. illustrated by Joseph Maclise, 1844

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

We are also rather fond of these hearts in our collection 🫀🧵 Repost your favourite! #ValentinesDay #MuseumValentine #Archivalentine #thisIsTrinityMed 1. Cardiac Anatomy, A system of Anatomical Plates of the Human Body, John Lizars, F.R.S.E, Edinburgh, 1822

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Sir William Turner (1832 - 1916) published this work early in his career, just as he completed his MB in Anatomy at 25 years old. ( Daguerreotype (1854) of William Turner as demonstrator of anatomy at the University of Edinburgh. )

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Happy #ValentinesDay! 🫀 We are absolutely in love with this colourful illustration of the circulatory system from the "Atlas of Human Anatomy and Physiology" by William Turner M.R.C.S., Edinburgh, 1857, in our book collection. #MuseumValentine #ArchivalValentine

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Unfortunately, our catalogues are written by doctors just like yours 😬

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

You can peruse a 1859 copy of Maclise's Surgical Atlas in its entirety at @archive.org from the @wellcomecollection.bsky.social archive.org/details/b327...

Screenshot of pages of Maclise's Surgical Anatomy digitally available at the Internet Archive.

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

All illustrations in the anatomical atlas are minimally coloured; with just blue denoting venal supply and red arterial, achieving a refined aesthetic throughout.

Detail of a line drawing-style illustration by Joseph Maclise showing the cauda equina, the tail end of the spinal cord'. A thin arterial vessel runs through it coloured in red.

Cropped photo of an anatomical print in an open drawer showing an illustration of the aortal arch as seen through the ribcage, by Joseph Maclise.

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Museum of Medical Heritage, Trinity College Dublin @oldanatomytcd.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

As a welcome gift, please enjoy this delicate illustration from our collection by Irish medical illustrator, surgeon, & anatomist Joseph Maclise (1815-1880). Published in "Maclise’s Surgical Anatomy" in 1851, it shows the arterial supply of the spinal cord, coloured in red.

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