The obstetric models
Among the most important survivals in the history of medical teaching.
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**The University of Bologna's science museums in a 16th-century palace โ including unforgettable 18th-century obstetric wax models** โ in the university quarter. The palace housed the **Institute of Sciences** founded in 1711, **and has become a group of museums** showing what the university's scholars gathered over centuries. โ **Its best-known and hardest section is the obstetrics room**: **life-size wax and clay models** made in the 18th century **to train midwives and physicians** in foetal positions and difficult births. **They are realistic to a disturbing degree**, โ **and can distress some visitors** โ but they are among the most important collections in the history of medicine anywhere. โ **It also holds**: **nautical charts and globes**, **models of military fortification**, **a natural history collection**, and an **observatory** in its tower. โ It includes **Luigi Galvani's rooms**.
Among the most important survivals in the history of medical teaching.
Nautical charts and globes from the age of exploration.
La Specola, the university's historic observatory up a spiral stair.
Via Zamboni 33, 40126 Bologna, Italy
**Because cadavers were scarce and childbirth killed โ and models were a practical answer that saved lives.** โ **The first problem โ scarcity of bodies**: dissection was **legally and religiously restricted** and cadavers very few, **and they decayed fast** before enough students could see them. **So systematic teaching was impossible.** โ **The second โ childbirth**: **maternal and infant mortality was very high** in the 18th century, **much of it from foetal positions that could be managed if the attendant recognised them**. โ **The solution**: **Pope Benedict XIV** โ himself Bolognese and interested in science โ commissioned a teaching collection. **Sculptors** (chiefly **Ercole Lelli**, **Giovanni Manzolini** and his wife **Anna Morandi**, who dissected and modelled herself) **made life-size models** in wax, clay and wood, **anatomically exact**, **showing normal and obstructed foetal presentations** step by step. โ **The effect**: a midwife could **train by touch** on a presentation she had never seen โ **and that genuinely reduced mortality**. โ **So the collection is not macabre curiosity but a life-saving instrument**, and that is how it should be seen.
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