THE red-brick colonial building which houses the Museum of Medical Sciences was built in 1906 as the Bacteriological Institute in the wake of a deadly epidemic of bubonic plague.
At its height - between May 1894 and 1923 - 20,489 people died from the plague, which broke out in the overcrowded Tai Ping Shan area of Sai Ying Pun.
At the time, there was no treatment for the disease. Officials built the three-storey institute to carry out research into possible cures.
In 1947, the building was renamed the Pathology Institute and laboratory tests were conducted and vaccines produced.
A small farm, now a park, was set up next door to keep animals for research and calves for producing smallpox vaccines.
The building was classified Grade One listed and handed to the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences Society.
