Significant pieces in the museum include:
- William Smellie's obstetrical forceps
ANZJOG 2004; 44: 184-85 - Melissa Campbell
The RANZCOG museum holds an extensive collection of early obstetric forceps. The most significant is a pair of William Smellie's straight forceps dated circa 1750. These forceps provide a tangible and direct link with the development of obstetrics as a specialty and the training of Australians and New Zealanders in Britain and Ireland through the RCOG in London...William Smellie's obstetrical forceps - Dr Mitchell Henry O'Sullivan's Bag
ANZJOG 2003; 43: 412-413 - Melissa Campbell
Dr Mitchell Henry O'Sullivan's (1892 - 1972) obstetric bag is a time capsule containing instruments and items that document the obstetrical practice of a country doctor in Victoria in the years between the two world wars. Items of particular interest include the amber chloroform drop bottle that was used in the early 1920s, predating the cobalt blue bottles used later, and the early examples of suture material that includes a box of silk worm gut and vials of catgut...Dr Mitchell Henry O'Sullivan's Bag - Victor Bonney's portable operating table
ANZJOG 2003; 43: 190-91 - Melissa Campbell
Dr Victor Bonney (1872 - 1953) followed his father into medicine and trained at St Bartholomew's and the Middlesex Hospitals. Writing his obituary in 1953, FW Roques said of Bonney that he "'made three great gifts to surgery. First he was the pioneer of myomectomy; second, with Berkeley, he extended and perfected Wertheim's operation for carcinoma of the cervix; and third, he devised a fine surgical technique emulated by so many of his pupils. To theatre sisters, labour-ward sisters and young house-surgeons he will always be remembered as the discoverer of 'Bonney's Blue' [antiseptic solution].'" Bonney's utilitarian, portable operating table has a round, worn scrubbed patch showing traces of his famous blue solution...Victor Bonney's portable operating table - Mrs Howlett's Box and Certificate
ANZJOG 2003; 43: 2-3 - Melissa Campbell, Rosalind Winspear
Mary Livingstone Howlett (1840 - 1922) practised as a midwife in country Victoria from 1866, attending between 10 and 12 cases a year until 1920. She arrived from Scotland as a 12-year-old with her family, living at Shelford, an easy coach ride from Geelong. Mrs Howlett's 1887 certificate is from the Melbourne Lying-In Hospital in Madeline Street, North Melbourne (now Swanston Street, Carlton), and certifies her as "thoroughly qualified to discharge the duties of Ladies' Monthly Nurse"...Mrs Howlett's Box and Certificate
