Medical Equipment Room at the History of Pharmacy Collection in Cluj

The History of Pharmacy Collection in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, holds and exhibits, in a separate hall that was not part of the old pharmacy, a special lot of items that reflect the history of medical equipment in Cluj. You can visit it in Unirii Square no. 28 - find the visiting hours HERE.

The Medical Equipment collection in Cluj

This separate collection includes around 500 objects used in the city’s hospitals and medical practices between the end of the 19th century and the 1970s and 1980s. The most recent items are a couple of ecographs produced during the 1980s in Germany. The display is grouped according to medical specialties (stomatology, ophthalmology, gynecology and neonatology, physiotherapy, radiology etc.) 

Gynecology instruments on display

 Among the most valuable items one can mention what is probably the oldest electrocardiograph from Romania (of the Einthoven type, with a single channel, produced in 1915 in Paris), Röntgen machines from 1915-1920, old microscopes, various medical instruments and old medical prints. The most consistent lot was donated to the National History Museum of Transylvania (that owns the collection) in 1997 by Prof. Dr. Pompiliu Manea (through his company, TEMCO), but there are also objects donated over time by doctors and various other private persons.

Read more about the electrocardiograph in a previous blog post HERE. 

Detail of the Einthoven electrocardiograph

The vault is decorated with gilded stucco from around 1900 and during the Communist Period this room hosted a hat shop, accessible from the side, currently Ferdinand Street. The hall only became part of the museum shortly before the year 2000.

Listen to this presentation free online on the museum's izi.TRAVEL profile. 

Gilded stucco decoration and Netherlandish medical plates