By Jackson Stocker ‘27
In Philadelphia, a city locals call “The Birthplace Of America,” a museum that holds important medical history is located right inside the city. The Mütter Museum is a “riveting storehouse for the anatomically peculiar” according to Visit Philadelphia. If you have ever visited the Mütter Museum, you may agree.
The Mütter Museum was founded in 1863 by college fellow Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter. He created this museum for the public to promote curiosity and wonder in people to understand the beauty of the human body.
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia said, “the museum was created in order to build appreciation for the history of diagnosis and treatment of disease.”
Before Mütter’s death, he donated the museum to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. They have worked hard to protect and display the pieces inside the museum for many years.
There are multiple rooms inside the museum, including a Covid-19 Timeline room that shows each big milestone in the history of the 2020 epidemic.
In the Covid Timeline room, there are also doors that lead outside to a garden. This is known as the Benjamin Rush Medical Plant Garden, which has a variety of plants that were used for medical use during the years that Mr. Rush practiced medicine.
Upstairs there are multiple display cases showing medical tools and other gadgets that have been used in the past years of medicine practice.
The downstairs of the museum is the main attraction, with multiple exhibits that show medical oddities and explain the history of what the medical field looked like in past years.
A few of the most famous exhibits include the Soap Lady, the Hyrtl Skull Collection, and the Chang + Eng conjoined twins. There are also exhibits that focus on the human skin, a condition that causes a person to have two skeletons, and a collection of over 2,374 items that were swallowed by people.
The Mütter Museum has a large collection of different things in store to show off the incredible biology of human life. This spring would be an amazing time to go to the museum.
The gift shop has many souvenirs to offer, and is a great place to stop before going back home.
Sources:
https://muttermuseum.org/on-view
https://collegeofphysicians.org/our-work/mutter-museum