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All the United States Alabama Foley Holmes Medical Museum
AO Edited

Holmes Medical Museum

Tucked away atop a quaint Alabama pharmacy is this tiny display of antique medical tools.

Foley, Alabama

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Walter Argus
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Holmes Medical Museum   argusfoto / Atlas Obscura User
Holmes Medical Museum   argusfoto / Atlas Obscura User
Holmes Medical Museum   argusfoto / Atlas Obscura User
Holmes Medical Museum   argusfoto / Atlas Obscura User
Original 1920s Clinic and 1936 Hospital on the entire upstairs.   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Entrance to Museum on HWY 98 W. Originally Cooks Market.   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Patient’s bed, 1936 $2 a day, 1958 Private Room $9 a day.   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
1920s X-Ray Equipment which gave off 30-40% more radiation, now in the Mens Ward   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Quackery Room, Left: SpectraChrome Right: Radiated Water Urn   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
1936 Surgical Table, room as it was when the doors were locked in 1958   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Pharmacy Equipment now in the former Women’s Ward.   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Maternity/Nursery Incubator took a 150 watt light bulb.   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Dr. Williams Coghlan Holmes MD. 1901-1961 Son of Dr Sibley Holmes   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Turn of the Century Portable Chemistry in Pharmacy   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Death Shroud used to cover face of corpse when pronounced in home.   zaazaa53 / Atlas Obscura User
Sign on Corner of Hospital   zaazaa53 / Atlas Obscura User
Hours Sign   zaazaa53 / Atlas Obscura User
Mrs. Philomene Boogaerts Holmes (wife of Dr. W.C. HOLMES)   zprice / Atlas Obscura User
Dr. Sibley Holmes (1873 - 1933) graduate Alabama School of Medicine 1895, Mobile AL. Came to Foley, AL in 1916 to open his practice.   zprice / Atlas Obscura User
Hours: Mon - Sat 10 A.M. - 3 P.M.   zprice / Atlas Obscura User
Autoclave/Sterilization Room Next to the Surgery Room   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Hall outside surgery room, access to double doors to roof access and patients to come in on stretcher.   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Nurse Philomene Holmes wife of DR WC Holmes Linen Nursing Uniform   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
Death Shroud used at home death, glass syringes.   zprintbroker / Atlas Obscura User
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About

While it might not be the largest or most diverse medical museum in the world, the Holmes Medical Museum in Foley, Alabama uses its humble space to celebrate the sterile, slightly frightening history of the obsolete tools of the trade. 

Located above what is now an amazing used book store which occupies a former 1920s drugstore for over 90 years, the Holmes Medical Museum is housed in the tiny city's first hospital which worked at healing the ill from 1936 to 1958. When the hospital closed, instead of repurposing the scant few rooms, they were preserved just as they looked in the early 20th century. Visitors can stroll through the old operating room across the hall from the 1920s X-Ray equipment which gave off 30% more radiation than today, as well as some of the patient rooms, none of which have been changed from the simpler time of their creation, save for the glass cases that now display the collection of brutal looking old tools. Utilitarian steel tools used to pinch, poke, and prod are laid out in cases and and on stark metal trays, still ready to perform procedures that would probably seem to many like cruel and unusual torture. Also, a room of Medical Quackery/Hoax items which were donated after the hospital’s restoration in the 1990s.  

In addition to the period design of the preserved rooms and the slight horror of the tools of the trade, there are stories from patients who were born in the hospital as well as info and clippings from its past. What the little museum lacks in gruesome bodily detail, it more than makes up for by recreating the strangely contradictory atmosphere of mid-20th century hospitals where a doctor smoking a cigarette might display his metallic tools almost like a threat.  

Update as of January 2022: The museum is open Monday - Saturday 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM after 10 months of repairs from the damage from Hurricane Sally in September 2020. CLOSED Major Holidays. 

Related Tags

Medical Museums Museums And Collections Museums Medicine

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Free admission but donations are welcomed. Hours: Monday -Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Hospital is only accessible by stairs. Downstairs there are some exhibits. (251) 970.1818

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argusfoto

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zaazaa53, zprice, zprintbroker

  • zaazaa53
  • zprice
  • zprintbroker

Published

January 28, 2015

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  • http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g30531-d2390234-Reviews-Holmes_Medical_Museum-Foley_Alabama.html
  • http://visitfoley.com/listing/holmes-medical-museum/
  • http://www.gulfshores.com/details/the-holmes-medical-museum-/17694/
  • http://www.gulfcoastnewstoday.com/gulf_visitor_guide/play/art_museum/article_9503c5be-61a2-11e2-8320-0019bb2963f4.html
  • www.visitfoley.org
Holmes Medical Museum
111 West Laurel Avenue
Foley, Alabama, 36535
United States
30.40644, -87.684591
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Photo of Alabama

Alabama

United States

Places 86
Stories 4

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Alabama

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