History of anatomic museums in Russia: professor Aleksandr I. Tarenetsky’s (1845-1905) museum activity

Anatomic museums of the past and their founders have not received due illumination in natural-historical museology, as well as theier creators. In Russia the anatomic collections are the base of development of medical knowledge and the unique base for scientific researches throughout centuries. They were always accessible to interested public, served formation of doctors and people education. Many the well-known anatomists of the past are involved in the occurrence of such museums. The contribution of the academician of Imperial Army medical college A. I. Tarenetsky in updating and re-structuring of an anatomic museum in this establishment is considerable, as well as in its creation of anthropological and ethnographic sections, which became for the first time the object of research. In a context of the increased interest of contemporaries to anatomy, its history and a current state judgment of the experience which has been saved up in the field in Russia and personal participation of the outstanding anatomist of XIX century A. I. Tarenetsky in museum building is actual.