Visitors to London should know that the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons has recently reopened after several years of restoration. For the first time it is open to the public without appointment (free of charge). Further details are here. Note that there is no separate entrance to the museum: you have to go in at the main entrance to the Royal College of Surgeons, tell a receptionist you want to visit the museum, and they will give you a visitor’s badge.
The core of the museum is the collection of the 18th century anatomist John Hunter, augmented by later additions. It includes anatomical and pathological specimens (human and animal), surgical instruments, and paintings. The exhibits include the skeleton of the famous Irish Giant, the ‘man with three spines’ (really one spine and two strips of abnormal bone), a huge hydrocephalic skull, some remarkable 17th century dissections of nerves and blood vessels, the brain of Charles Babbage, and the rectum of the Bishop of Durham (fortunately not the present Bishop!) The exhibits are fascinating (though I must admit that after a while one pickled organ in a jar looks much like another), and the presentation is superb.
The museum was featured in a recent article in the London Times, where the reporter seemed more interested by what was not on display than what is. Apparently, in the storage rooms
There is an item so grisly that not only will the museum not display it, but the curators won’t even tell you what it is. Anyone thinking in a blasé sort of way, “oh, it will be a diseased penis that looks like a burst sausage,” should think again because, of course, they have those on display. A whole cabinet full.
The reporter tried to get the curator, Simon Chaplin, to spill the beans, but he stoutly resisted
“It can’t be worse than Ebola, surely?” I ask.
“God, yes,” Chaplin says, “It is.”
“Is it a disease?”
“No, a one-off accident.”
“Aw, go on. I like disgusting things.”
“Really,” he says, firmly, “there are some things it is best not to know.”
Whatever can it be?
Posted by David B at 07:44 AM