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Sorry, the museum is undergoing reconstruction!

01.09.2023. - 01.11.2023.

The Pauls Stradins Museum of the History of Medicine, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, State State Enterprise "Valsts Nekustamie īpašumi" and the architectural office "Brigita Bula arhitekti", has started extensive reconstruction works on the main building of the museum, which are planned to be completed by November this year. Delta Construction Ltd is remodelling the museum's basement to make the toilets and cloakrooms accessible to people with reduced mobility. JSC "Būvuzņēmums Restaurators" has started the restoration of the museum's historic staircase.

About the picture: 

Not every fracture can have a plaster cast. In the 1970s, a method was developed in Latvia for such cases using a special apparatus. It is made of metal and X-ray-permeable plastic. The base consists of four threaded rods with plastic semicircles attached to them in a circular pattern. The semicircles are crossed by cross-linked Kirschner wires. The Kirschner wires have white plastic sleeves in the central part which fix the wires to the skin.  

The apparatus was characterised not only by its fixation stability and the variety of possible designs, but also by its ease of use and low production costs. In the mid-1970s, surgeon Viktor Kalnbērzs (1928) demonstrated his invention in Moscow. In the office of General E. Smirnov of the Medical Service, he applied the plastic apparatus to the bone in 4 minutes and 40 seconds. Soon, the so-called "black colonels", or military surgeons, arrived in Riga to see how the apparatus was being used on the spot in the hospital. The machine's potential to improve the delivery of aid to soldiers in war conditions became particularly important from 1979, when Soviet troops entered Afghanistan. The apparatus in the Museum's vault tells a story not only about traumatology, but also about trauma. In the documentation of the invention's introduction into practice, the camera also recorded patients.