On a train between Riga and Jūrmala, 14 August acquired a bitter place in Latvian medical history. On 14 August 1958, Pauls Stradiņš died suddenly – a surgeon, oncologist, University of Latvia professor, and the man who had assembled the collection for the future Museum of the History of Medicine. He had already created the Cancer Hospital, the blood transfusion station, and his own school of surgeons; his last journey was from work to Jūrmala.

Stradiņš worked during the formative decades of Latvia’s medical institutions, from interwar Latvia into the Soviet occupation years. In 1958, both the hospital and the museum were named after him; in 1998, so was Rīga Stradiņš University.