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| 19 S 22nd St, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
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Mütter Museum
This museum in the College of Physicians of Philadelphia is home to some of the most interesting medical specimens ever, ranging from the tallest skeleton on display in North America, to a collection of 2,000 objects removed from people's throats. Started in 1858 by Thomas Dent Mütter, it was originally used to educate new doctors on anatomy and human medical anomalies. Now it is open to the general public, only one downside though is that no photography or filming is allowed of the specimens. Exceptions are made for scholars and filmmakers on a case by case basis.
Thomas Dent Mütter
Doctor Thomas Dent Mütter served as the Professor of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia from 1841 through 1856. During his medical career, he collected a sizable collection of medical curiosities which he donated upon his retirement in 1856. Mütter passed away only a few years later in 1859. These initial specimens formed the beginnings of the Mütter Museum. Over the years others have contributed items or entire collections to the museum.
The Hyrtal Skull Collection
This collection of human skulls contains 139 specimens in total. They came from the collection of Josef Hyrtl, a professor of anatomy at the University of Prague in the 1800s. The skulls came from people across Eastern and Central Europe. The point of Hyrtal's collection was to display the differences in skulls from people of different ethnicities. The entire collection is housed in a cabinet near the entrance of the Mütter Museum.
The Soap Lady
The Soap Lady is a corpse on display at the Mütter Museum. Apparently an obese woman in life, the conditions of her burial resulted in the transformation of her body fat into a substance medically known as adipocere. Also known as "grave wax", the substance is created through a process called saponification and is a type of soap. Adipocere actually can act as an inhibitor to putrefaction, sometimes doing a better job of preserving a corpse than embalming.
Dr. Joseph Leidy donated the specimen known as the Soap Lady to the Mütter Museum on Nov. 18, 1875. Leidy claimed that the corpse had been exhumed from an old burial yard and that she was a yellow fever victim from the late 1700s. The corpse had been removed from her resting place apparently due to city project that involved claiming a portion of a cemetery for development purposes. Doctor Leidy purchased both the Soap Lady and a male corpse that had also turned into adipocere from the cemetery caretaker. The male corpse (Soap Man) was eventually donated to the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. (the Smithsonian is not displaying the Soap Man at the time of this writing and has him in storage).
In 1942, Dr. Joseph McFarland (then curator of the Mütter Museum) researched the story surrounding the origins of the Soap Lady. He discovered multiple discrepancies in the name given for the deceased (Ellenbogen), the time period she was said to have died and the fact that the cemetery in question apparently never existed. Decades later in 1987, X-rays would reveal buttons and other items buried in the adipocere. These items revealed that the Soap Lady must have actually died in the 1830s.
Later X-rays and CT scans have revealed the approximate age of the Soap Lady (30-40 years), which shows further discrepancy with the information that was originally presented about the corpse. Similar examinations of the Soap Man's corpse revealed similar discrepancies. Still, both the Soap Lady and her male companion at the Smithsonian remain an unsolved mystery. Who were they and where were they actually exhumed from? It is likely that nobody will ever know.
Chang & Eng
Born on May 11, 1811 in Samutsongkram, Siam (now Thailand), Chang and Eng were conjoined twins. The twins were joined at their midsections, just below their rib cages. Unable to be medically separated in the time period they lived, Chang and Eng had a lifetime of facing each other. King Rama II (Buddha Loetla Nabhalai), is said to have ordered that the twins be put to death as conjoined twins were superstitiously believed to be a bad omen. For some reason this order was stalled and eventually dropped as no great disasters followed the birth of the boys. Brought before King Rama III (Jessadabodindra) in their teens, the twins found themselves in the king's favor and were named as ambassadors.
Starting in 1829, the twins began touring and publicly displaying themselves in sideshows, eventually winding up part of P.T. Barnham's circus. During their years in the sideshow Chang and Eng were billed as the "Siamese Twins". This reference to their birthplace would become synonymous with the term conjoined twins. To this day, the description Siamese twins is still mistakenly used by many people to describe people afflicted with this medical condition.
Change and Eng continued their show business career until 1839, when they changed their last name to Bunker and settled down. They purchased a plantation in Wilkesboro, North Carolina and slaves to work it. On April 13, 1843, Chang an Eng married sisters Adelaide and Sarah Anne Yates. Between the two of them, they fathered 21 children by their wives.
Chang and Eng died a few hours apart on January 17, 1874. Doctors Harrison Allen and William Pancoast conducted an autopsy of Chang and Eng at the College of Physicians where the Mütter Museum is housed. The autopsy revealed the band of flesh that conjoined the twins was primarily cartilage. While their livers were conjoined as well, they both complete and capable of functioning separately. Separating them would have been easy with modern medicine.
A death cast made of Chang and Eng is on display at the museum. A chair that was built specially for the twins to sit in is also on display along with their preserved conjoined livers. It is perhaps slightly ironic that Chang and Eng's lives were so greatly affected by the second and thirds King Ramas of Siam. Later King Rama V (Chulalongkorn) would found the Siriraj Hospital. Siriraj Hospital serves as medical school and contains a medical museum much like the one that Chang and Eng's liver wound up displayed in. Perhaps if Chang and Eng had not left their home country, they would now be on display in Thailand instead.
Historical Body Parts
The Mütter Museum also has a tumor on display that was removed from the mouth of US President Grover Cleveland. The operation to remove the tumor was done secretly on board a yacht travelling to Long Island, NY. It was kept secret to prevent any panic over the president's health. Dental work was used as a cover story to explain temporary changes in the president's speech and appearance. Instruments used in the removal of the tumor are likewise on included in the exhibit.
Also on display are items tied to the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln. The blood-stained collar of Lincoln's shirt is on display, along with a piece of his assassin's body. A bit of John Wilkes Booth's thorax floats there in a jar. Another presidential assassin has a part of himself on display at the Mütter as well. Charles J. Guiteau, the assassin of President James A. Garfield had his brain removed for examination following his execution. Chunks of it are on display in the museum.
The bladder stones of Chief Justice John Marshall are also featured in an exhibit.
The Giant Colon
A circus sideshow performer who was billed as both the "Balloon Man" and the "Human Windbag" has a part of himself on permanent display in the Mütter Museum. A grotesquely enlarged colon and severe constipation gave the poor man an over-sized and unusually shaped abdomen. While he made his unusual appearance into his occupation, his affliction ultimately killed him before he even reached the age of 30. An autopsy of the circus performer found his colon contained 40 pounds of feces at the time of his death. The colon, which is on display, measures an incredible 8 feet in length and 27 inches in circumference.
Skeletons
There are many skeletons and partial skeletons to be seen at the Mütter Museum. The skeleton of a man who was 7' 6" in height stands next to the diminutive skeleton of a dwarf prostitute who died in childbirth. There is also the skeleton of a man whose connective tissues calcified to bone, gradually and agonizingly killing him. One of the iconic images associated with the Mütter Museum is the tiny delicate skeleton of a pair of conjoined twins. Stillborn, the twins have separate bodies, with skulls so completely merged together that it almost forms just a single skull.
Stillborn Fetuses
Perhaps most likely to shock and disturb visitors are the rows of jars displaying deformed stillborn fetuses. It can be both heartbreaking and horrifying to witness these innocents doomed by misfires of nature. It is also enlightening to witness deformities that likely led to some creatures of ancient myth. An example is the fetus whose deformity resulted in the narrowing his head, leading to the eyes merging into one. This deformity also results in the nose migrating upward above the eye. The end result is easy to connect with the Greek myth of the horned cyclops.
Education
While the items on display may bring to mind sideshows (indeed there are parts of more than one sideshow performer on display), the museum is very academic in appearance and nature. The nature of the subjects may be shocking, but the presentation is scientific and professional. The museum also houses numerous exhibits dealing with pathology as well as anatomy, showing medicine's triumph over diseases now relegated to the past as well as demonstrating the diseases still in need of a cure. The Mütter Museum is there to educate both future medical professionals and the public. It has done the former for more than a century, and the public visitors continue to grow in number with each passing year. |
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Mutter Museum
Main page for the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. |
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| See Also on TheCabinet.com |
| Dark Destinations in the News (8/24/07) |
| Blog: The Demise of Chang and Eng (01/17/09) |
| Blog: The Siamese Twins of the Mutter Museum (05/11/09) |
| Blog: Odd Tales of the Lincoln Assassination (04/11/10) |
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