East Sacramento gem of a medical history museum thriving, expanding

A medical history museum tucked away in East Sacramento has doubled in size and expanded the number of exhibits.

The remodeled Museum of Medical History is now better organized and more spacious. The collection leaves virtually no aspect of medicine over the past 150 years untouched.

“Due to a generous donation, we were able to not only revise the whole old part of the museum and open up more, so it looks more like a museum than a curio shop, but also double the size of the museum,” said the museum’s curator, Dr. Bob LaPerriere.

The gift came from Mildred Kahane, a nurse and widow of the late Dr. Al Kahane. LaPerriere declined to disclose the amount of the donation.

The remodeled area brings the total floor space to about 1,800 square feet. Fresh additions to the museum include six new exhibit cases, a room devoted to nursing history and another room showing a physicians office from around the 1920s.

The entire museum provides a 150-plus-year journey through medical history, with a strong emphasis on the Sacramento region. A working iron lung, one of only a few in the entire country, greets visitors entering the building.

Galleries showcase developments in medicine from the mid-1800s to modern times. LaPerriere has organized the museum by themes: patent medicines and pharmacology, basic science and laboratory medicine, antibiotics and infectious diseases, medical diagnosis and therapy, surgical diagnosis and therapy, nursing, Asian medicine, radiology, quackery and local medical history.

Also on display are examination tables; a 1920s-era X-ray machine; wheelchairs; a skeleton; Civil War amputation kits; 19th-century tools for bleeding; medicines with mercury, arsenic and strychnine; and a variety of medical art. The museum used to house live leeches.

The museum gives visitors a new appreciation of modern medicine, LaPerriere said in a previous interview with the Bee.

“It makes people aware of the importance of many 19th-century developments such as anesthesia and asepsis, especially as related to surgery, that allow the amazing procedures done today, and to be appreciative of modern medicine,” he said.

The Museum of Medical History, which is run by the Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society, is off the beaten path but has been seeing a healthy number of visitors, LaPerriere said. On Free Museum Day earlier this month, some 355 people stopped in.

The museum, 5380 Elvas Avenue, is open and free to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. There are also opportunities for docent-led tours by calling (916) 452-2671.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article contained an incorrect address for the museum. It’s located at 5380 Elvas Avenue, Sacramento.

This story was originally published February 26, 2019 at 8:45 AM.