Museum Boerhaave

Rijksmuseum Boerhaave is the Dutch national museum for the history of science and medicine, located in Leiden, Netherlands. Named after Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738), the renowned Dutch physician, botanist, and professor at Leiden University, the museum holds a collection of approximately 126,000 objects, books, prints, and images spanning five centuries of scientific discovery. Its holdings of historical scientific instruments, particularly from medicine, physics, and astronomy, rank among the most important in the world. The museum was elected European Museum of the Year in 2019, the oldest and most prestigious museum award in Europe, in recognition of its artful approach to communicating science through important objects, latest technologies, and personal stories of those driven by knowledge.

The museum's origins trace to 1907, when a Historical Exhibition of Natural Science and Medicine was held in the Academy Building of Leiden University. The exhibition's success generated immediate calls for a permanent science history exhibit. In 1928, physicist Claude August Crommelin, working at Leiden University, initiated a foundation for a museum for the history of natural sciences, with statutes aiming to collect instruments, tools, slides, specimens, documents, and other objects important for the history of the natural sciences. The museum opened on 5 June 1931 as the Nederlandsch Historisch Natuurwetenschappelijk Museum, with Crommelin envisioning a national institution. The founding was ironically spurred by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes's rapid modernization of university laboratories, which rendered old physical equipment obsolete; Crommelin preserved these instruments as historical objects. Co-founder Jan-Gerard de Lint broadened the collection with medical instruments, while zoologist Cornelis Jakob van der Klaauw also contributed to the establishment.

In 1947, the private foundation became formally a national museum, renamed the Rijksmuseum voor de Geschiedenis van Natuurwetenschappen, with an advisory board including members of Dutch universities. The name changed to Museum Boerhaave in 1967, though the actual move to a new location took more than two decades. Around 2011, the museum faced closure due to funding shortages but survived by attracting new sponsors. The museum was renovated and reconfigured in 2016-2017, officially reopening on 16 December 2017 with the name Rijksmuseum Boerhaave. In 2019, it received the European Museum of the Year Award. That same year, it joined with NEMO Science Museum and Teylers Museum to establish the Irispenning prize for excellent science communication.

The collection encompasses historical scientific instruments from all disciplines, with particular strength in medicine, physics, and astronomy. The holdings have expanded to approximately 120,000-126,000 objects, books, prints, and visual materials. The 25 galleries are organized largely chronologically, with thematic subgroupings per gallery, beginning with the 16th century. The collection covers Dutch scientific achievements across eras: the 16th-17th centuries include the giant quadrant of Willem Blaeu, microscopes of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and clocks and planetarium of Christiaan Huygens; the 18th century features demonstration cabinets and laboratories of professors W. 's Gravesande and Pieter van Musschenbroek; the 19th century includes physiotherapeutic devices and anatomical papier-mache models; and the 20th century highlights Dutch Nobel Prize winners' work.

Since 2008, the museum has displayed 72 models of the human body made by French anatomist and model builder Louis Auzoux in the 19th century. The museum is undertaking a project to document approximately 3,000 objects online with pictures and descriptions. The current collection policy focuses on developments since 1900, including information technology, imaging, and medical devices, while maintaining traditional collecting areas such as microscopes, telescopes, and anatomical models. Recent acquisitions reflect this modern focus: an artificial pancreas, the ampoule and syringe of the first COVID-19 vaccine, a 3D-printed child's heart, a prototype ventilator, and a maquette of the Ramspolbrug. The museum also holds a specialized library of approximately 25,000 volumes, 12,000 journals, and 100 periodicals, with archives, manuscripts, letters, and photographs available in the reading room.

Among the museum's most significant objects are the apparatus with which Heike Kamerlingh Onnes first liquefied helium in Leiden, and the electromagnet equipment used by Leiden physicist Wander Johannes de Haas for his low-temperature research. The collection includes an example of the Leiden jar, an early electrical capacitor. Christiaan Huygens' first pendulum clock and the world's oldest heliocentric planetarium are featured, alongside the microscopes of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and the meridian telescope of Leiden Observatory.

Medical and biological highlights include the first kidney dialysis machine by Willem Kolff, surgical instruments by Cornelis Solingen designed exclusively for function without decoration, and Maria Sybilla Merian's Surinam Insect Book. The museum holds Albert Einstein's fountain pen and paintings showing the Four Guises of the Physician. Dutch Nobel Prize winners are prominently represented: Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, the first Nobel laureate in Chemistry; physicists Hendrik Lorentz (1902), Pieter Zeeman (1902), Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1910), and Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1913). Contemporary scientific items include the qubit, the building block of quantum computers currently under development. The museum also displays the world's oldest herbarium.

The museum is housed in the former Sint Caeciliaklooster (Saint Cecilia's Convent) in central Leiden, located on Lange St. Agnietenstraat. The building dates from the early 15th century and has served multiple functions throughout its history. After the Protestant Reformation, it became municipal property and was converted into a pest house and lunatic asylum shortly before 1600. The Leiden Academic Hospital was founded on this site between 1636 and 1639. In the 18th century, this was a hospital where Herman Boerhaave taught medical students directly at the bedside.

The Government Buildings Agency (Rijksgebouwendienst) purchased the former nunnery to provide better housing for the museum. The complex was restored and expanded during the 1980s. After extensive restoration and expansion, the building has served as the museum's home since 1991. The museum building is a protected national monument (Rijksmonument). Before this move, the museum was located from 1931 to 1991 in the former Boerhaave Laboratory at Steenstraat 1, a building belonging to the Leiden Academic Hospital (now part of LUMC, Leiden University Medical Center), which now houses the National Museum of Ethnology.

Within the current building, a full-scale reconstruction of the Leids Anatomisch Theater from 1610 (or 1596, according to varying accounts) is displayed, with a reconstruction dating from around 1990; the skeletons are more recent. This anatomical theater continues to be used for demonstration purposes.

Rijksmuseum Boerhaave is located in the historic heart of Leiden at the Caecilia Hospital site. The museum is accessible to visitors of all ages, with interactive exhibitions and educational presentations designed to make science accessible. The permanent presentation on the first floor covers themes including the Dutch Golden Age, Disease & Health, Powerful Collections, Water Current & Data, and Big Questions. The ground floor features children's presentations including Schateiland Boerhaave, Playing with Mathematics, The Making Studio, and Waterland Boerhaave, plus the permanent exhibition Prize Cabinet focusing on Dutch Nobel Prize winners' scientific heritage.

The museum offers standard tickets with pricing for adults and children, with online discounts available. Children aged 0-3 enter free of charge; children 4-17 are charged reduced rates. The museum also sells Netherlands Museum Passes on-site, which provide access to over 400 Dutch museums for one year. The museum's website provides information in Dutch and English.