History of the Medikeion (Medical Museum) at the Faculty of Health Sciences, UFS.

In 2005 the department Haematology made a donation for a Medical Museum to the faculty. This was built between blocks C and D, with its entrance in the foyer of the Francois Retief building.

Prof P Badenhorst was the driver of this project with the enthusiastic support of the Museum Committee, with chairperson Prof H Grundlingh. Other committee members who made significant contributions include Prof T Krause, Prof A Stulting, Prof F Retief and Dr S Potgieter. R Maree was the architect and E Rossouw designed the exhibition with guidance from S Havenga of the National Museum. 

The museum was opened in 2007 and displays apparatus and equipment used in times gone by. The Free State branch of the South African Medical Association (SAMA) has an office space in the museum, and also provides access to the exhibition. For many years June du Toit has fulfilled this task. The name MEDIKEION is a combination of the Latin word MEDICUS and the Greek suffix -eion, which occurs in the word MOUSEION, an institution for learned researchers in Alexandria (Egypt) in the 3rd century BC.

A project was launched to digitise the collection’s inventory and is available to the wider public on a digital platform. This is a work in progress and the Virtual Medikeion pilot project and the Medikeion Virtual Tour can be already viewed.

At the opening of the Medikeion (Medical Museum) in 2007 next to an iron lung: Prof Philip Badenhorst of the Department Haematology and Cell Biology, Prof Leticia Moja, Dean, Dr Bettie Wolmarans, SAMA FS, Prof Hennie Grundling chair of the Museum Committee, Dr Steph Potgieter, Museum Committee member and historian