Kinaesthetic Dilemma and History of Medicine Teaching

What percentage deterioration of the objects of our medicalhistorical teaching are we willing to tolerate? This question seems to conflict with our ideas, conceptions, and way of working as historians, museologists, conservators, and teachers. Some sources are more exposed to the risks of manipulation, but often they are the most used in our History of Medicine courses. How should the deterioration be judged by us? A damage or a testimony? None of us thinks that sources should be spoiled or destroyed, or that the necessary precautions should not be taken to minimise the possible effects of use and consumption. Moreover, the opportunity to make students interact with the sources also has the pedagogical utility of instructing them on the caution and prudence to adopt in the use of those same sources, precious testimonies of the past. We are amid the kinaesthetic dilemma that affects the History of Medicine teaching.