![\"Logo](\"https:\/\/muzeum.nlk.cz\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/09\/muzeum-orig-212x300.jpg\")
Logo of the Medical Museum, reprinted from Vestnik ceskoslovenskych lekaru<\/em> (October 29, 1937, page 1459)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n The Physicians\u2019 House (L\u00e9ka\u0159sk\u00fd d\u016fm) was inaugurated in Prague in 1931 as the seat of Czech medical organizations and a medical library. At a meeting of the Council of the Physicians\u2019 House, the directing body of the institution, on February 13, 1934, its Chairman, Professor Frantisek Samberger<\/a>, proposed that a medical museum be established to collect and preserve the past of the Czech medical profession, in the national or linguistic sense. The proposal was approved and a board of curators led by Viktor Palivec<\/a>, head of the Physicians\u2019 House Library, was elected.\u00a0 Repeated requests for donations targeted the Czech medical public and objects, books and archival collections soon begun to accumulate. The founders soon realized that the museum cannot remain a mere memorial house and needs to become a true medical museum, even if still focused on Czech medicine. In 1938, the Association of the Medical Museum was founded with the objective of collecting funds and maintaining support for the museum and its programme.<\/p>\n The collections continued to grow even during the war years 1939-1945. After liberation, the museum was administered by the Ministry of Health and the Central Medical Library, as its primary patron, The Central Union of Czechoslovak Physicians (Ustredni jednota ceskych lekaru), ceased to exist in 1948 and its successor organizations \u2013 trade unions and the Czech Medical Association of Jan Evangelista Purkyne – were not able to run the museum or not interested in it. The Medical Museum merely languished and the collections suffered from frequent relocations.<\/p>\n The one hundredth anniversary of the Czech Medical Association (Spolek lekaru ceskych) in 1962 presented an opportunity for the Medical Museum as well, as the medical establishment suddenly recognized its value.\u00a0 Renamed Czechoslovak Museum of Health Care, the Museum became part of the celebrations and acquired space in a former pharmacy in Parizska street, on Male namesti and in a former church Pod Petrinem. However, as soon as in 1965 the new locations \u00a0were taken away and the collections packed in the basement of the Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital,\u00a0 in a storehouse on Skretova street, in the Physicians\u2019 House and elsewhere. Only one curator was left.<\/p>\n