In 1920, the scientists Gaston Backman and Jēkabs Prīmanis at the University of Latvia began assembling a collection of anatomical materials to be used for teaching and research at the university. This collection would grow over two decades and would eventually contain thousands of items.
Rīga Stradiņš University made the collection available for public viewing in 2020, and the collection is now displayed within a small building next to its Theatrum Anatomicum (or Institute of Anatomy and Anthropology). Spread over two floors, the collection includes wet specimens (body parts preserved in fluids), bones, casts of body parts including parts with anomalous features, corrosion casts (made by filling the blood vessels of organs with a metal, wax, and paint mixture that showed the locations of blood vessels when the organs were then dissolved away), and even skin samples with tattoos.
One of the most notable rooms in the museum contains a giant display case with hundreds of skulls and a vintage photographic camera, all of which were used in anthropology research in the 1920s and 1930s.
Although every room of the museum is filled with unusual specimens, one of the highlights is the complete skeleton of Teodors Lukstiņš, who donated it before passing away in 1925. Other specimens in the museum came from people who died with no relations. Lukstiņš’s skeleton is on display in the entrance lobby.
Even though a large portion of the anatomy collection is now on public display, the collection is still used for teaching and research purposes. Additionally, the items in the collection are now considered historically important, and provide insights into how anatomy and anthropology research was conducted over a century ago.
