Musée d'Anatomie Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière

The Musée d'Anatomie Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière was once the largest anatomy museum in France, located on the eighth floor of the Faculty of Medicine on Rue des Saints-Pères. Its existence was driven by academic rivalry, as the dean of the faculty, Mathieu Orfila, visited the Hunterian Museum in London and became determined to create a French collection that would surpass it. The museum officially opened in 1847 and grew to hold thousands of anatomical specimens, including human and animal remains, wax models, and complex embryological reconstructions. The collection faced a period of severe neglect in the early twentieth century, a time when its contents were tragically depleted. Some of the delicate wax anatomical models, crafted by the surgeon Jean-Baptiste Laumonier, were burned as fuel to provide lighting for the facility. After World War II, Professor André Delmas undertook a major effort to restore and expand the museum, integrating the lymphatic collection of Professor Henri Rouvière to create the institution that bore all three of their names. In 2011, the remaining collections were moved from Paris to the University of Montpellier, where they are now preserved as historical monuments.