- [J. Robert] A mental institution seems like an odd location for a museum, but then this is no ordinary museum.

True, there are exhibits and odd objects from the past, but the Indiana Medical History Museum on the grounds of Central State Hospital in Indianapolis is as much a museum of attitude as it is of technical achievement.

Built in 1895 and once known as the old pathology building, the museum is virtually untouched today, complete with wooden operating theater and turn-of-the-century equipment.

- Over the years, the facility was used for various purposes.

The autopsies that were performed here in the building stopped in the 1920s.

The classes that were taught in the building stopped in the 1950s, and the laboratories were used up until the 1960s, so the building saw use through many of its years.

As rooms were not used anymore, as the facility became out of date, the rooms were simply closed off or locked up, and so therefore, we have quite a bit of the equipment that was originally here in the building.

- [J. Robert] Medical students and trained physicians would crowd the large wooden amphitheater of the facility to view the autopsies performed there on the mental patients from the hospital.

- The autopsies were performed here to try to find a physical cause, a structural cause for mental illness.

What was happening in this time period was the idea that somehow the mentally ill were being blighted by God, or punished by God was being replaced with the idea that there had to be a structural cause for the mental illness.

A lot of facilities in the 1900s were asylums, and this is specifically a hospital, and the subtleties might be different, but an asylum, of course, was primarily for warehousing, what today we call warehousing.

Patients were housed in asylums, but the hospital, of course, patients live there, but beyond that, they were trying to do something to try to treat the patient.

That's the ideal behind a hospital, of course, is being able to treat the patient.

There are four laboratories in the building.

There is a clinical chemistry laboratory, which was used for performing the laboratory tests for the patients at the hospital.

There's a histology laboratory, which was used for studying the tissues and cells, and there is a photography laboratory which was used for photographing the patients.

And then there's a bacteriology or what today we call microbiology laboratory, which was used for studying the germs.

- [J. Robert] As physicians and scientists studied and explored the human body in laboratories like this one, they also slowly began to accept new and radical ideas for medical procedures, such as sterilization in the operating room, moving from street clothes to specialized gowns in an effort to fight contamination.

The museum also contains medicines, medical devices, and other paraphernalia that has been donated over the years and shows the evolution of the treatment of the sick.

- During the Civil War, this was the surgeon's kit, and it came in a wooden box that you're seeing here, and then, of course, you can see the various instruments that were used either for amputation or for actual surgery work themselves.

In the early 1800, stethoscopes looked very much like this, and then by the end of the century, by the time the Victorian time period was in effect, a stethoscope looked like this, which looks a lot closer to our stethoscopes today, but still is a little bit different.

In the early 1800s, physicians would've traveled around the countryside on horseback, of course, and would've had saddlebags, and your saddlebags would've contained all the medication then probably available to the physician for actually treating the patient.

You can see from inside here, a wide collection of bottles, many of which still contain powder from the time period.

- [J. Robert] Today, we have become so jaded to the wonders and advancements of science that it's good to reflect on how little time has passed in the fight against human suffering.

And to that purpose, the Indiana Medical History Museum will stand, a link to a world not long gone.

(lively music) - [Narrator] For more "Across Indiana" stories, go to wfyi.org/acrossindiana.