The Mütter Museum

For those of you following the exploits of Merujo, you know that we made a sojourn to Philadelphia this past Friday to visit the Mütter Museum and hear Michael Penn play (which he did not do at the museum). Given that MapQuest has it in for us, we were a bit late in getting to the museum, which is not in the best of Philly neighborhoods, but by far not in the worst, either. Who says you can't have a Physicians' College just around the corner from an adult bookstore? Works for me, I guess.

I have wanted to visit this museum for a very long time, and I'm surprised that Merujo and I didn't make the trip sooner. (Actually, we did once not too long ago, but I got sick. My bad.) The Mütter Museum is decidedly old school, which I appreciate beyond measure. Lots of dark wood, brass, and glass. It makes you work, rather than spoonfeeding the information to you—no interactivity whatsoever. While there's a temporary exhibit at the beginning (right now they're covering the Lewis and Clark Expedition), the really good stuff lies just beyond. The permanent collection on display is fairly small—it's a not-very-big room on two floors, with a central staircase.

You start out on the top floor with a presentation on conjoined twins throughout history (more on them in a bit). Behind you is a set of 19th-century wax models of skin diseases. Some of them look disturbingly real. (There are several wax representations of disease throughout the entire collection, really. For me, this is a winning combination—wax museums and medical stuff. Life is really good sometimes.) At the top of the stairs is the Soap Lady, a woman whose body turned to adipocere (use caution before visiting this link) some time in the 1830s or 1840s. I was unexpectedly very touched by this display, and made a special trip back to see it just before the museum closed. As Merujo put it the next day, she "didn't look at rest." After the Soap Lady, you work your way around to the wall of skulls. Past the skulls, you work your way toward a study on early forensics (or the lack thereof), and learn how, despite evidence in the form of a skull with a huge hunk out of it, an axe murderer escaped justice. Once you've had your fill of the top floor, the lower gallery beckons.

The lower gallery consists of four main subject areas: Normal and Abnormal Fetal Development, Internal Medicine, Disorders of the Skeletal System, and Neurology. However, amidst the various and sundry wax models of hernias, baby spines, and ovarian cysts the size of basketballs, I only really want to focus on two things (okay, it could be three if you want to be technical about it): a massive colon and a plaster cast of Chang and Eng Bunker (the original Siamese Twins).

First, the colon. This thing was most likely around six feet long, and at its widest around 12-14" thick. The poor guy who had it went to see a doctor about it in 1892. Our poor wretch was told it was something minor and was sent home. He died within a few weeks. There are two photos of this guy, and he looks like he's overly pregnant. According to the display, the colon held (and you may want to skip this bit if you're faint of heart) "two and a half buckets" of waste, or nearly 40 pounds. And this is a minor problem? Uff da. The condition is now called Hirschprung's disease.

Then we come to Chang and Eng. Everyone thought (in 1874) that they shared a heart, and so once they died an autopsy was performed. It turned out that they only shared a liver (which is conveniently on display below the plaster cast—the liver's in formaldehyde and is bleached completely white). I bought a t-shirt. Is that tasteless?

I thought I was finished with my overview, but I can't leave you without quickly touching on the collection of foreign bodies. A doctor in the early 20th century developed tools to pull things out of the "broncho-esophageal" area. And, apparently, once he pulled them out, he saved them. Over 2,000 things pulled out of people's throats are completely cataloged and available for viewing in a set of drawers just past the massive colon. Who knew that people swallowed so many safety pins in the 1920s?

All in all, it was an excellent museum. I reveled in it's antique-ness, and would love to go again in the near future. Next time we'll know where to leave the car, thus saving us the agony of paying $23 for two hours' parking.