La ceroplastica scientifica a Milano: nuove acquisizioni di ricerca = Scientific Ceroplasty in Milan: New Research Acquisitions

The Ospedale Maggiore in Milan, besides being the most important hospital in the Lombard capital, was for centuries the seat of hospital schools. The need to have scientific models available for the education of the students meant that over time wax models were made that referred to different medical and surgical disciplines. Many of them have been lost, some are preserved only documentary traces, others have come to us in whole or in part. Milanese ceroplasty activity is attested for the artistic field, but the scientific one has been less studied. The Authors are facing a reconnaissance both archival and museum and on this occasion present the results of a first phase of research. Five examples of "moulages" whose characteristics and stories are different have been identified: the first series, partially preserved, refers to waxmodels prepared in the Napoleonic era for the spread of smallpox vaccination; information on a second waxmodel of the Napoleonic period concerns a model of anatomy of the inner ear; the third series of waxmodels flowed into the Obstetrics School Museum in the midnineteenth century and only one waxmodel is preserved; the fourth series of waxmodels of pathological anatomy prepared in the mid-nineteenth century was completely lost sixty years ago; the last series of waxmodels is that of dermatological pathologies, prepared at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is the most important ceroplastic collection in Milan. The panorama of scientific ceroplastics in Milan appears to be more complex and varied than previously assumed by medical historiography and deserves further study.