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Special Exhibitions
The Mobile Medical Museum organizes special exhibitions that are on display at the museum and at sites around Mobile for a limited time only. Here is a partial listing of our recent and ongoing special exhibitions. All are displayed in the Museum's Mary Elizabeth and Charles Bernard Rodning Gallery, unless otherwise specified.
King > City > University: A Hospital Older than America
November 2026—May 2027
Featuring objects, photos, and video footage from the Museum's collection and other archives, this exhibition tells the story of the University of South Alabama University Hospital, which can trace its lineage back to a French hospital founded in 1711, making it the oldest operating hospital system in the United States.
Support for the exhibition is provided by USA Health.
Rebel Distempers: Medicine in Colonial and Revolutionary America
February—July 2026
In observance of the 250th anniversary of American independence, this exhibition features spectacles, bloodletting devices, pewter syringes, and other objects and archival documents to explore historical debates about yellow fever, racial difference and natural rights, and the “body politic.”
The Dr. Hilton and Mrs. Irene Silver Collection: Domestic Medicine in the Nineteenth Century
February—July 2025
A selection of objects recently donated to the Museum by private collectors, this exhibition shows how home healthcare products such as infant feeders, patent medicines, and health manuals were designed for homemakers during the Jacksonian Era, while in the later nineteenth century, new innovations and changing attitudes toward public health led to the rise of "domestic science."
to the bone
March—July 2024
Featuring rarely seen artifacts from the Museum's collection, this exhibition presents the history of bone health diagnosis and treatment, from prehistoric times through the present. The human skeletal system is viewed in all its complexity, including its nutritional and developmental requirements and its relationships to other body systems.
Public Health, Common Good
February 2023—January 2024
An exploration of how the principle of the common good drives the work of public health in the U.S., from its inception as a federal maritime quarantine program to its later branches in disease control, environmental safety, family wellness, and international health policy.