Fall and Rise of the Roca Museum

Historians of science have only lately begun to consider the exhibition spaces under scrutiny in this chapter. Until recently, university and popular anatomy museums were known only to a limited circle of curators, collectors and antiquarians. The recent increase in attention has been devoted particularly to university museums, whose scientific purpose was indisputable. ¹ In contrast, popular anatomical museums have received little attention from historians. ² Michael Sappol put it clearly when he stated that historians of medicine ‘considered them part of the history of quackery, or not at all’, that some historians of popular culture merely rescued them as examples of ‘the rock bottom of the cultural hierarchy of entertainments’, ³ and that historians of museums never included them in the great narratives of the science museums. ⁴