Museum of Portuguese Dermatology

Dr. Sá Penella Museum of Portuguese Dermatology – Hospital de Santo António dos Capuchos

Housed in the Great Hall of the Hospital de Santo António dos Capuchos, the Dr. Sá Penella Museum of Portuguese Dermatology preserves a remarkable collection of wax models and a documentary archive spanning the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth. The idea of a museum of the speciality was put forward in 1947 by Caeiro Carrasco, head of the Dermatology Department at Capuchos, and in 1955 a room at the Hospital do Desterro became home to the Museum of Portuguese Dermatology, created to honour the dermatologist Luís Alberto de Sá Penella and to safeguard the wax collection. When the Desterro closed in 2007, the dermatologist João Carlos Rodrigues arranged for the collection to move to Capuchos, where it was brought together in 2009. It comprises 254 moulages, made between the mid-1930s and the 1940s from plaster casts taken directly from patients, then painted and finished with natural hair and artificial eyes; they record in three dimensions conditions that are now rare or have disappeared, such as syphilitic gummas or certain forms of cutaneous tuberculosis. The archive includes the registers of Thomaz de Mello Breyner's clinic for syphilitic and venereal diseases at the Desterro, from 1902 to 1909, and theses from the Lisbon Medical-Surgical School. The museum is open to the public on Wednesdays only.

Located at: ULS São José – Património Cultural
Address: Hospital de Santo António dos Capuchos, Alameda de Santo António dos Capuchos, 1169-050 Lisboa
Opening hours: Wednesdays only 10:00-12:30 and 14:00-17:00 (closed on other days)
Phone: +351 213 514 410
Coordinates: 38.7221528, -9.1423916
Buses: 723, 730, 19B, 767, 760, 17B, 709, 711, 722, 732
Tram: 12E, 28E
Metro: Avenida (Blue), Intendente (Green)
Train: Sintra Line, Rossio Station
Opened: 1955 (71 years)