• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Morbid Exhibits

Lovely! 'Morbid' here meaning not 'a bit Gothic, like' but 'relating to, or characteristic of disease'.

(The page carries another article about how over-60s are ignoring offers of free bowel cancer screening. OK, Universe, I'll get it done.)
 
GOSH.jpg

After the Gunther von Hagens Anatomical exhibitions made headlines, the Minister for Knee-Jerk Reactions against Things that Make you Think decided that public exhibitions of non child-friendly objects needed new legislation. As a result many Hospitals and Institutes incinerated their collections rather than pay out thousands per year for a licence. Luckily the Royal Free in Hampstead, which houses the UCL Pathology Museum, kept their licence and took on other historic Teaching collections - such as from Great Ormond Street Hospital. I took a picture last year of a display from GOSH that shows some of the things children swallow and how far down the gullet they get.
 
My good friend from Germany is a doctor and on one visit to me (when I lived in London) he asked if I would like to go with him to visit the Royal College of Surgeons museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields. We weren't sure if I would actually be allowed in but when we got there he went up to the receptionist and asked if, as a visiting Dr from abroad, he could go in. He showed his German certification and we were allowed in (with me oozing as much medical authority as I could to at least seem like a doctor)

The museum was quite something to behold and I was doing well with my fake medical manner but when I got to the syphilitic penises (peni?) I couldn't suppress a few squeals. My friend suddenly appeared beside me and said sternly (and Germanicly) "Be quiet, you are obviously not a doctor!"
 
I don't remember lingering over any syphilitic penises at the Pathology Museum, although the exhibits do tend to blur after a while. The most poignant item I saw was a hand and wrist grossly deformed by arthritis, which was the founding item of the Great Ormond Street (Children's Hospital) collection. I believe the owner - Alice - was seven when she was afflicted.
 
A few years back l enjoyed a morning in the Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg. Highly recommended to any Fortean traveller, it’s essentially a museum-sized Cabinet of Curiosities established by Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century.

To give a hint of its range of delights: “He issued an ukase ordering malformed, still-born infants to be sent from all over the country to the imperial collection. He subsequently had them put on show in the Kunstkamera as examples of accidents of nature.”

Peter was also an enthusiastic amateur dentist, and delighted in exhibiting his skills on (not “to”, unfortunately...) visitors. His take from these impromptu demonstrations is also on display.

maximus otter
 
I agree Bad Bungle, some of the exhibits are poignant, there was suffering behind what is now a scientific exhibit.

I was particularly moved by the display of foetuses (foeti?) One for every month of pregnancy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top