The restoration of Georgia’s Medical Museum is complete and opened on November 25. Visitors to Georgia’s capital will now be able to enjoy the newly restored Mikheil Shengelia Museum of Georgian Medicine History.

The museum was established in 1963 and is home to 19,000 exhibits that describe medicine in Georgia throughout the ages.  It was the first museum of its type in the Soviet Union and is located in a classicist style 1872 building on Uznadze Street in the capital of Tbilisi.

Items in the museum’s archives include medical manuscripts, artefacts discovered in archaeological expeditions, anthropological materials, rare medical literature and items from private archives of famous figures within Georgia’s medical industry. Some of the unique archival materials describe medical practices of the ancient Colchian-Iberian cultures on the historical territory of Georgia.

The timeline of the items ranges from materials used in the prehistoric age to 12th Century AD artefacts and manuscripts from the 17th-19th Centuries.  Folk medicine items and a photographic collection from the early 20th Century are also present in the Museum’s vaults.

Having fallen into disrepair in recent decades, the museum has been under major rehabilitation work since 2014. The overall budget for the renovation effort of the museum was carried out with about 625,607 GEL. The opening ceremony was led by deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, Levan Kharatishvili, deputy Minister of Health and Labour, Zaza Bokhua, Head of Education, Science and Culture Committee Mariam Jashi and Director of the museum Ramaz Shengelia.