> In 1959, during one of my journey, into a small shop
of Portobello Market, in London, I saw a small wooden box on the
top of which it was written: "Electromedical instrument for
nervous diseases". It fascinated me and I bought it for one
pound. From this fact born my idea and passion of collecting medical
instruments, to add at those that my father had given me. As every
collector can understand, I started to look meticulously for any
instrument connecting to medicine. I was searching for them in
fairs, markets, antique shops and also into the cellars of old
hospitals. Paris is famous for its very rich antique fairs, prepared
at the Grand Palais or in the square in front of the Tour Eiffel
or under the elevated railway of the underground near Montparnasse
or even on a little island in the Seine. London and Brighton are
other places known for their antique shops, managed by learned
and wise people who reject to sell any object if it is not in
a perfectly preserved state and whose often they know history
and functional characteristics. In the collection there are also
some objects whose rarity is due above all to their fragility
or perishable materials.
For example, a bladder stones extraction device, in one of its
important part is constituted by "horse hair ", very
loved by moths. The existing exemplars of this instrument are
only two, as I know, one is at the Royal College of Surgeons Museum
and the other here at Villafranca Tirrena. Other examples of perishable
materials are the breathing balloons of Ombredanne masks, obtained
by desiccated bladders of pigs. About these Ombredanne devices,
it is important to underline a special feature: at the Museum
of Villafranca Tirrena, there are four of these devices which
are identical for the technical conception but different in the
shapes because they were built in different countries.
Dott. Paolo Badessa
