Historical Medical Equipment Society
The Historical Medical Equipment Society was founded in 1996. It aims to promote education & research into the history of surgical instruments, equipment and objects relating to medicine, dentistry and pharmacy.
The Society holds meetings twice a year, at which papers relating to historical research, collections and manufacture of medical equipment and artefacts are discussed. The HMES holds a wide brief: recent lectures have covered surgical instruments, collections of pharmacy bottles & jars, veterinary equipment, anaesthetic equipment and radiological items.
The biannual meetings generally include a session on instrument identification and a visit to a local museum related to medical, dental or pharmaceutical displays. The lectures and the Society's activities are reported in a Bulletin, which is also published biannually.
The Society is multidisciplinary: members are drawn from medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, veterinaries, museum curators, historians of medicine & technology and collectors. Many members have specialist knowledge & expertise or are linked to medical museums or specialist collections.
