While conducting research for an exhibition on Edvard Munch and medicine, I was rummaging around in boxes recently transferred from the state hospital (Rikshospitalet) to the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology (Teknisk Museum) when I came across this collection of historical surgical instruments. The tags indicate that they were part of a teaching collection, but the objects appear to have been hastily boxed up and are now detached from their inventory. A poetic jumble of objects, they speak of a medical past that is in danger of being lost as medical collections are consolidated, dispersed, and even destroyed.