Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité

The Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité traces three hundred years of medical history on Berlin’s historic Charité campus. Its displays include pathological specimens, anatomical models, preserved organs, and historical arm prostheses. An anatomical theatre and dissecting room show how medical teaching once used these spaces.

Rudolf Virchow began the collection, and his Pathological Museum opened in 1899 with more than 23,000 specimens. War and economic hardship later closed it to the public. Damage during the Second World War left about 1,800 specimens, which later formed part of the museum re-established in 1998. Renovations in 2006 and 2007 expanded its facilities.

The permanent exhibition Tracing Life connects Virchow’s collection with changing medical knowledge through objects, models, and preserved human material. Its centrepiece remains Virchow’s specimen collection. The anatomical theatre preserves a setting associated with eighteenth-century medical education.