Dozens of scientific societies ask the Community of Madrid to forestall the destruction of the Olavide Museum | Science | EUROtoday

Two dozen scientific societies have requested the Community of Madrid to urgently forestall the “risk of destruction” of the Olavide Museum, a jewel within the historical past of medication that features about 700 wax figures of actual sufferers, from the lacking hospital of San Juan de Dios, which on the finish of the nineteenth century was within the Madrid road of Atocha. The Complutense University of Madrid, which exhibited the gathering since 2016, has unexpectedly ordered the eviction “for economic and organizational reasons” earlier than two months.

The mistreatment of wax statues matches with the vexations that these folks suffered in life. The hospital attended poor sufferers with horrendous pores and skin illnesses, particularly sexually transmitted, similar to syphilis. The Olavide Museum is stuffed with life like figures of very younger ladies pressured to prostitute and disfigured by the illness, at a time when antibiotics weren’t recognized. The two dozen scientific societies emphasize that “given its origin, the fragility of the materials of the pieces and the scientific and artistic reach, the collection has an incalculable economic value, which places it at the height of which the great European anatomical museums”, similar to that of the Hospital of San Luis, in Paris, and the Josephinum, in Vienna.

The open letter, promoted by the Spanish Society of History of Medicine, emphasizes that “the collection belongs to the Community of Madrid”, heiress of the Provincial Council, which was the proprietor of the Hospital de la Calle de Atocha within the nineteenth century. The journey of the figures has since been unlikely. The Olavide Museum-thus known as by its founder, the Madrid dermatologist José Eugenio Olavide (1836-1901)-ended up locked in bins in 1966 and resurrected in 2002, when a excessive place of the Madrid Health Service requested the Museum of Forensic Anthropology of the Complutense to deal with the wax items, in very dangerous situation. In 2005, the Spanish Academy of Dermatology and Venereology assumed the custody of the gathering, which since then handed by a nursery in Torrejón de Ardoz, a future Chamberí health club and an previous cardio room in Leganés. In December 2016, the Complutense offered as an occasion the reopening of the Olavide Museum, in an area assigned by the University within the basements of its Faculty of Medicine.

“We request the intervention of the competent authorities in order to avoid the risk of destruction or disappearance that would be the closure and eviction of this patrimonial set of international reputation,” alert the signatory entities, amongst that are the European Society of History of Dermatology and Venereology and the European Association of History of Medicine and Health. “The professional societies and academies that subscribe request immediate protection and the search for a solution for the current maintenance and full functioning of the Olavide Museum,” they insist. The assertion is signed on June 2, 4 days after the nation revealed the choice of the Madrid University to expel the gathering of its amenities.

Conservatives David Aranda and Amaya Maruri started as volunteers to revive wax figures in 2003 within the Complutense and at this time are the one two staff of the Olavide Museum. Together they saved the items and collectively they now need to put them in picket bins, with out figuring out their vacation spot. “I feel a feeling of enormous injustice,” says Aranda. “None of us could imagine that this would be locked again. It is a feeling of frustration, injustice, anger and sadness,” he provides. The promoter of the museum’s resurrection, the dermatologist Luis Conde Salazar, died two months in the past at 81.

One of the singularities of the gathering is that wax figures usually have the medical historical past of the affected person written from behind, with the initials of his identify and surname. Amaya Maruri exhibits a face filled with supurating ulcers typical of syphilis and reads his medical profile: “MH, 26 years of age, single, native of La Coruña, prostitute two years ago, of weak constitution, lymphatic temperament, disagreed in his menstruation, entered on August 17, 1879 […] Acquired in the exercise of prostitution several conditions of venereal origin. ”The museum is stuffed with youth wax figures similar to MH, intercourse slaves in Madrid of the late nineteenth century.

The two dozens of scientific societies applaud the work of Aranda and Maruri, who’ve devoted half a life, since they have been college students, to save lots of the gathering. “Thanks to the work of recovery and restoration of the dermatological waxes carried out by the professionals of the Olavide Museum, the pieces are acclaimed by international experts,” says the observe.

Other establishments have additionally mobilized to rescue the gathering. The Royal National Academy of Medicine of Spain has supplied its amenities to retailer and expose wax figures, in response to Antonio Campos, vice chairman of the establishment, based mostly in Madrid, along with the Royal Palace. “It is a shame for scarce interest in this type of museums,” laments the educational, promoter of a Spanish Medicine Museum venture that doesn’t get beginning. This newspaper requested a spokesman for the Madrid Health Ministry on Tuesday if the Isabel Díaz Ayuso authorities is conscious that the Olavide Museum belongs to the Community of Madrid and if it has a plan to forestall the gathering from ending up in a storage room, with out receiving a solution in the intervening time.

The director of the Basque Museum of History of Medicine, Anton Erkoreka, has written to the rector of the Complutense, Joaquín Goyache, to ask him to take care of the Olavide museum in his present location, as a result of “a serious risk of disappearance is running.” Erkoreka has additionally addressed the Minister of Science, Diana Morant, to request the rise in public help for the museums of History of Science and Medicine, suffocated by the dearth of funds. The Basque director has denounced earlier than the minister “extreme and unfortunate cases such as the Cajal Museum”, which ought to have opened earlier than May 31, 2025 to exhibit the legacy of Nobel Santiago Ramón y Cajal, as promised three years earlier than the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. It would not even have hosted.

A seemingly excellent candidate to host the Cajal Museum is the monumental constructing of the previous Faculty of Medicine of Madrid, additionally on Atocha Street, on the museum axis of the capital. The Caserón is owned by the State: an element belongs to the Ministry of Science and is assigned to the College of Physicians since 1970; The relaxation, occupied by the National Institute of Public Administration, is from the Ministry of Finance. There survives the classroom intact during which Cajal, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine to display that the mind is organized in particular person cells: neurons.

The journal Medical occupation He interviewed in January 1974 the final director of the Hospital of San Juan de Dios, Luis Álvarez Lovell. The physician defined that the Olavide museum had gotten into bins and was misplaced in a warehouse, however requested to be rescued. “We think it could be an ideal solution that was installed in the old Faculty of Medicine of San Carlos, today renovated as the headquarters of the College of Physicians of Madrid, and where I think the Cajal Museum will be placed,” he mentioned. Half a century later, all the things is surprisingly related.