48 The Medical-Historical Collection 2010 saw the purchase of a very special item: a coffee cup that must have been made around 1830 to 1840. The outside is decorated with a rectangular cartouche framed in strict classicist style. It shows a finely painted polychrome view of the Royal Surgical-Medical Academy in Dresden, based on a print by Johann Friedrich Schröter. The piece was produced as a souvenir and depicts the Surgical-Medical Academy as a tourist attraction, lending the item its unique value. This image was certainly not chosen solely for the architectural quality of the “Kurländer Palais” and “Oberzeugwärterhaus”. After all, Dresden had an abundance of buildings that were equally worth depicting. It was due to the Academy being unique in Saxony and offering an education of high renown that made it a place of interest in Dresden. Systematic collecting activities regarding the history of the Medical Academy “Carl Gustav Carus” and Dresden’s medical history Extensive renovation and reconstruction measures were undertaken after German reunification, culminating in the integration of the Medical Academy “Carl Gustav Carus” into TUD Dresden University of Technology as the Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus in 1993. Back then, cellars and attics of the clinics and institutes still harbored a plethora of technological devices from medicine and nursing, along with instruments and furniture from bygone decades, which were now to be discarded. The Institute for the History of Medicine was asked if it could store these objects in its building. The staff of the Institute − headed from 1992 by Albrecht Scholz, initially on a provisional basis and then as holder of the Chair of the History of Medicine from 1996 to 2005 − assumed responsibility for safeguarding and cataloguing these artefacts. Repeatedly, they appealed to the clinics and institutes to offer these witnesses to medical and technical development and to standards of the GDR era to their Institute before disposing of them. The collecting activities became more systematic and resulted in an inventory explicitly designed as a medical history collection that documents and illustrates the history of the Medical Academy “Carl Gustav Carus” and its preceding institutions. From 2000 to 2018, Peter Schneider supervised the Collection with great dedication and wide-ranging expertise. From 2019 to 2021, Jörg W. Schneider devoted himself to the comprehensive tasks involved in maintaining, scientifically recording and exhibiting the historical objects. Coffee cup with a view of the Royal Surgical-Medical Academy in Dresden, circa 1830 to 1840 The hand-painted porcelain cup was made as a precious souvenir and highlights the Surgical-Medical Academy as a tourist attraction in Dresden.
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