For an Interdisciplinary Museology. The particular case of Anatomical Waxes

Abstract

Nowadays, the anatomical models in three dimensions are often showed in Museums devoted to the history of Medicine. Due to their historical importance and the major role they played as scientific education tool, they are essentials to understand the heritage of the anatomical knowledge. Historically, within all materials used to cast the body, wax has been the most frequently used, so that the ceroplastical collection has become a part of the medical education before leading to a general public pedagogy. This paper has a double purpose. In one hand, it aims to survey the formal evolution and the uses of this production, from his creation on, in the other, to study this cultural heritage within the museology issue.