Medicine

As well as chemistry, medicine was taught in the basement laboratory of the former Ashmolean Museum, which is now the History of Science Museum. Corpses were dissected for the purpose of teaching anatomy, and some human remains from this era were discovered during renovation works at the end of the 20th century. The laboratory made money from selling its own pharmaceutical products. Our medical collections chart the progress of medical science since the 17th century: a highlight is some artefacts used in the development of penicillin during the Second World War.