Medical collections of Ukrainian universities: genesis of creation before 1914

Abstract

The article traces the history of the packing of university medical collections during the so-called “golden age” of high school museum affairs – from the end of the XVIIIth century – until the First World War and the importance of such components of the university's cultural heritage. The methodology of the article is a set of scientific principles, general scientific and special historical methods. Scientific novelty. In Ukrainian historiography this issue is considered in a comprehensive way for the first time. Conclusions. Researchers often analyze universities through the prism of their defining educational and research function. Such groupings of medical type have their genesis of creation. It had been developing parallel with the transformation of universities. Teachers of Lviv University accumulated the first medical collections in Ukrainian higher education institutions in the late XVIIIth century. In the XIX century, as part of creating a classical education system in the territories that were part of the Russian and Austrian empires, teachers of the mentioned Lviv, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Novorossiysk universities also actively have been forming medical collections. It was an essential basis for organizing the research process or its result. Nowadays, these accumulated collections must be considered in the context of their cultural significance. It dramatically increases their chances of survival in the future.