Pauls Stradiņš Medicine History Museum

The Pauls Stradiņš Medicine History Museum is located in Antonijas iela 1 in Riga. The building that houses the museum was built in Eclecticism style in 1879 as a luxurious family home. Prior to hosting the museum, the structure housed the embassies of Lithuania and Belgium and the Central Committee of the Latvian League of Communist Youth.

In front of the museum entrance, there is a garden with sculptures of important characters.

The entrance to the museum.

The museum was born thanks to Pauls Stradiņš, a Latvian surgeon and oncologist. He was inspired by the Scottish surgeon John Hunter’s collection at the British Museum. The Pauls Stradiņš Medicine History Museum was the first one in the entire Union Soviet dedicated to health and medicine and it originated in 1957 when Pauls Stradiņš gave his entire collection of medical artefacts to the state.

More information on the Museum’s official website.

Interior of the museum.

Some of the museum rooms.

• Photos by Luca Borghi @ (August 2021) and page layout by Jessica Casaccia @ (November 2021), courtesy of the Pauls Stradiņš Medicine History Museum.

• Locate the item on this Google Map

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• Ivan Pavlov’s bust
• Ivan Sechenov’s portrait (2)
• Jan Mikulicz-Radecki’s portrait
• Johann Peter Frank’s portrait
• Karl Ernsts von Baer’s bust
• Nikolay Pirogov’ bust
• Xavier Bichat’s portrait