The Library and Museum of the local health department ASL 5 were established with the objective of conserving historical material coming from Volterra’s two old hospitals, the Santa Maria Maddalena and the San Girolamo Insane Asylum, whose collections were merged in 1980.

The collection of medical instruments, purchased between 1985 and 1992, consists of approximately three hundred items, and is divided into four sections: odontological apparatus, dating from the Thirties to the Fifties; ophthalmological devices, dating from the Twenties to the Sixties; miscellaneous instrumentation, including equipment for general anaesthesia, part of an operating table from the early years of the 20th century, scales, microscopes and pharmaceutical instrumentation. The last section is dedicated to the former San Girolamo Insane Asylum; it contains uniforms, crockery, lanterns, keys and locks, telephones and a lightening rod, dating from the first years of the 20th century up to the Forties.

The collection is kept on the first floor of the building known as the Lombroso Department, in premises shared with the Library, and in the corridors.