Past and current identity of the Zoology Museum of Ghent University

Abstract

This paper investigates the history and aim of the Ghent University Zoology Museum on a whole, and looks at the achievements of its more interesting directors and curators in specific. In 1817 Ghent University purchased a natural history collection in order to illustrate the lectures. Anatomy and zoology were taught in sciences and medicine by people of importance to the university, and the Flemish community. The paper stresses on the specific views of the directors, e.g. Professor F. Plateau was convinced that anatomy was best studied by dissecting animals yourself. Very important to the University, Flemish community and the city of Ghent, McLeod introduced Dutch as the teaching language. This didactic collection struggled between the Great War and World War II, but from the late 1990s evolved into a museum on demand, introducing science communication within and outside the university, and eventually growing into a workshop centre promoting the scientific method and critical reasoning.