Surgical Instruments and Health Museum ( tr, Cerrahi Aletler ve Sağlık Müzesi) is a medical museum in Samsun, Turkey exhibiting historical surgical instruments and medical objects. Housed in a former locomotive depot, it was founded by the city of Samsun in cooperation with many local institutions at the end of 2021.

History

The museum is located at Fuar Alanı Kümesi St. 47 in Kılıçdede neighborhood of İlkadım district in Samsun, Turkey. Samsun is well-known as a production place of surgical instruments, many medical devices from orthopedic implants to autoclaves, hearing aids and X-ray devices. During excavations in 1974,

obsidian Obsidian () is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock. Obsidian is produced from felsic lava, rich in the lighter elements s ...

scalpels for use in skull base surgery, being older than 2100 BC of the Bronze Age, were found at İkiztepe Mound in Samsun's

Bafra Bafra is a district of Samsun Province of Turkey. It is a settlement located from the Black Sea, in the fertile delta of the Kızılırmak River. The Bafra Plain is famous in Turkey for its rich soil and high quality tobacco growing conditions. ...

district. The museum is situated in a former locomotive depot of Turkish State Railways (TCDD), which was built in 1926 for the repair and maintenance of the locomotives serving on the Samsun-Sivas railway line. It was built on a ground occupying floor space. The project for the redevelopment of the former locomotive depot into a museum started in 2016. The restoration of the structure was carried out with contributions of the Samsun Governorship, Samsun Metropolitan Municipality, Middle Black Sea Development Agency, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun Provincial Health Directorate, Samsun Provincial Directorate of Culture and Samsun Medical Innovation Cluster Association (MEDİKÜM). In July 2019, the museum's operation was transferred to MEDİKÜM.

Museum

Opened on 3 December 2021, on the United Nations' International Day of Persons with Disabilities with a seminar held on "Patient Care and Movement Support", the museum was operated by the MEDİKÜM. The museum owns a collection of over 15,000 historical surgical instuments and medical objects. The objects exhibited in the museum generally belong to the 18th and 19th centuries. Surgical instruments used during the Gallipoli campaign (1915-1916) of World War I and the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1922) are also on display. At the entrance of the museum, there are 18th-century patient chairs and

prosthesis In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...

- orthotics. The objects in the middle axis are 19th-century wooden room chair, potty holder commode, discharge containers, thermophores of the 1900s, hygienic

vaginal syringe A vaginal syringe was an object used in the 19th century in the Western world for douching, treating diseases and for birth control. Vaginal syringes were fairly common at the time, but were not openly discussed because of taboos about discussing f ...

s used in the 1920s, walking sticks and crutches, scales, sick chairs, massage tools,

backscratcher A backscratcher (occasionally known as a scratch-back) is a tool used for relieving an itch in an area that cannot easily be reached just by one's own hands, typically the back. Composition and variation They are generally long, slender, ro ...

s. There are 19th-century built UV radiation device, prosthesis-orthotics, hernia bends and stretchers from the 1800s. Exhibition Hall 1 is decorated as a

General Surgery General surgery is a surgical specialty that focuses on alimentary canal and abdominal contents including the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, appendix and bile ducts, and often the thyroid ...

Hall, which contains autoclave sterilisation devices from the 1900s, surgical cutting tools, surgical instruments used in

obstetrics Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a surgi ...

and

gynecology Gynaecology or gynecology (see spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, forming the combined are ...

. There are

dental instrument Dental instruments are tools that dental professionals use to provide dental treatment. They include tools to examine, manipulate, treat, restore, and remove teeth and surrounding oral structures. Examination instruments These tools allow denta ...

s and an eye examination set in the Hall 2. There is a painting exhibition in Hall 3. In Hall 4, there are surgical hand tools produced by the member companies of Samsun MEDİKÜM. On the second floor, there is a hall, where private and public institutions can hold meetings. The museum hosts special events, workshops, exhibitions and activities related to health. The museum is open from 9:00 to 17:00, except Mondays.

References

{{Museums in Turkey Museums in Samsun Medical museums Museums established in 2021 2021 establishments in Turkey Redevelopment projects in Turkey İlkadım