The Mutter Museum located at 19 South Twenty-Second Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was founded to educate future doctors about anatomy and human medical anomalies.
Their one-of-a-kind treasures include:
- The plaster cast of the torso of world-famous Siamese Twins, Chang & Eng, and their conjoined livers
- Joseph Hyrtl's collection of 139 skulls from Central and Eastern Europe
- Preserved body of the "Soap Lady"
- Collection of 2,000 objects extracted from people's throats
- Cancerous growth removed from President Grover Cleveland
- Tallest skeleton on display in North America
On May 20, 1856, Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter wrote to the College of Physicians that he was retiring from teaching because of ill health and wished to offer the guardianship of his personal museum to them as they were the "body best qualified by the character of its members and the nature of its pursuits for undertaking the trust." A professor of surgery at Jefferson Medical College, Mutter had amassed a unique and valuable collection of anatomical and pathological materials for use in his classes.
In 1859, two months before he died at age 48, Dr. Mutter's collection of bones, wet specimens, plaster casts, wax and papier-mache models, dried preparations, and medical illustrations - over 1700 items in all - joined the 92 specimens from the College's earlier collection in the new quarters. Many of the items which today`s visitors find most memorable date from that time: the bladder stones removed from Chief Justice John Marshall; and the skeleton of a woman whose rib-cage was compressed by tight lacing.
In 1874, the museum made several noteworthy additions to its collections. The autopsy of the 63-year-old Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng, was performed in the museum. Their bodies were returned to their home in North Carolina, but the College was allowed to keep their connected livers and a plaster cast of their torsos showing the band of skin and cartilage that joined them at the chest.
If want to go, let AusGrl know...I think I'll skip this one!
10 comments:
I think I'll be skippin it too...*shudders*.
Skip it? you would skip it?........ well you know what Im like with skulls lmfao...... I wanna go there..... bloody amazing...
Sighhhhhhhh just finished printing off the last of me 47 policies X 13 etc.... already got all the signed ones sorted and signed by the parents.... plus the contracts...... now all the rest are filed in each nippers file folder and ready to be torn apart by me inspector LOL.....
x
I love weird museums like that one. I like going to those Ripley ones and they always have off stuff like that. I think that the neatest one I've ever been to (I think you'd call it a museum now) is Alcatraz. I could actually feel the souls of the men who lived there.
ewww I don't wanna go there!!! ewwww
I think I'd rather have a bar of soap.
Mutter museum is called the museum of disturbing oddities but if you look closely, it actually is a musuem of medical miracles. Originally founded to educate young Dr's on anomalies it is now more of an extremly valuable educational tool for Dr's of all ages. The collection of medical instruments that the museum houses enlightens us on how advanced our medical system truly is. We have gone from medical instruments of torture to medical instruments of healing. It also shows the progression of medicinal treatment and its extreme advancement over a what is truly a relative short peroid of time. Also an amazing education on why we dont need wars with the collection of war injuries on display. A superbly fascinating account of the groth of medical practice. If you can look past the "Bizzare or Odd or Goulishness" of it all I am sure even the least likely would be fascinated.
Just to note the Museum tuned 150 years old this year :-)
When we were in Philly last summer, my husband really wanted to go to The Mutter Museum. We didn't end up going because I didn't want to (gross!). So we ended up walking to the art gallery and took pics with Rocky. :)
I wouldn't mind going... Sounds interesting. I bet my brother would come too. He likes disgusting and weird stuff.
I might be enticed to go, although if a display was too gross, I would pass it up for something less icky, lol.
I agree with Aus, just 140 years ago, the damage that was done to the body by war, then by the doctors was so primitive. It's amazing how far we've come in medical treatments and care.
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