Hall of the former Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière museums

They waited patiently for ten years in the closets of the former Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière museum. Acquired in 2015, the Amador collections are now on display on the second floor of the anatomy conservatory at the University of Montpellier. These precious artifacts of anatomical history were used to teach medical students in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Historical and scientific in nature, they are also of artistic interest, as exemplified by the "Sleeping Venus," Dr. Auzoux's educational wax models, and a monkey dissection by Fragonard.

The arrival of this collection in Montpellier is a major event in the history of anatomy: it comprises more than 13,000 real and artificial specimens, classified as historical monuments, from the former Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière anatomical museums, formerly located on the premises of the Paris Faculty of Medicine.

These museums are named after Mathieu-Joseph-Bonaventure Orfila (1787-1853), the founder of the initial collection in the 1840s, as well as Henri Rouvière (1876-1952) and André Delmas (1910-1999), both professors of anatomy at the Paris Faculty of Medicine, who worked to study and enrich it.

A new room has been set up in the historic building of the Faculty of Medicine to house these new collections. The current exhibition highlights the former Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière university museums and also showcases a unique anatomical collection from Dr. Spitzner's former traveling museum.