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Mütter Museum: Siamese Twins, Secret Tumors, and the Soap Lady
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia promises -- and delivers -- an afternoon of esoteric and incredible sights. The sophisticated, high-ceilinged gallery that houses this collection of medical monstrosities helps us rationalize our interest in it. Designed for perusal by present and future members of a dignified overpaid profession, the museum is two floors of dark wood-trimmed display cases with a library-like stateliness. Shouts of "Will ya look at this MONSTER BABY?" are entirely inappropriate.
The Mütter Museum collection of pathological specimens is well-known in medical circles, long ignored by the general public (though we may have contributed a bit to raising current awareness). Where else can you see a plaster cast of Chang and Eng -- AND their actual attached livers? Or the Chevalier Jackson Collection of objects swallowed and removed -- you don't say! Brains of murderers and epileptics -- I guess we could take a peek . . .
President's Tumor and Assassin's Thorax
Two celebrity body parts are must sees: the "Secret Tumor of Grover Cleveland," and the "Thorax of John Wilkes Booth." Grover's growth floats in a small jar, surreptitiously removed from his jaw while he was in office. Lincoln's Assassin's thorax was procured during the post mortem aboard a ship at the Washington Navy Yard. It ended up here.
The Big Colon
One highlight is a giant colon that looks like a sand worm from Frank Herbert's Dune -- arranged with one end rearing up from the tastefully underlit display. Doctors were applauded for being able to correctly diagnose this whopper a gross enlargement of the colon and not as a tumor -- without using X-rays. This digestive distention serves as an inspiration to new generations of doctors, and a warning to those of us who sometimes feel a little backed up.
Objects Swallowed and Removed
The Chevalier Jackson Collection of over 2,000 items is neatly organized in narrow lie-flat drawers. Dr. Jackson was an expert in this subspecialty, and many of the instruments he designed and used to extract foreign objects WITHOUT SURGERY are on display here. Some drawers are marked "bones"or "coins", others offer "Nuts, Seeds, Shells or Other Vegetal Substances." "Dental Material" is proof that sometimes people do swallow their dentures.
The Soap Woman
The Soap WomanPerhaps the oddest attraction is the body of the "Soap Woman." This is the body of a woman who died of Yellow Fever sometime in the 19th century and was buried in soil with certain chemical properties . . . that turned her into soap! An accompanying display shows an x-ray cross-section and tells her story. A "Soap Man," buried alongside the Soap Woman, is occasionally displayed at the Smithsonian Institute.
After every visit, our notebooks are brimming over. Here are some of the exhibits:
- Skeletons of a giant and a midget
- Broken bones
- Pott's Disease Skeletons
- Skull Collections, including the Muniz collection of trephinated (holes cut in them) Peruvian skulls
- "Brain Of A Murderer" - John Wilson hanged in Norristown, PA
- "Brains of epileptics"
- Longitudinal slices of the head, showing brain
- Brain of animals arranged from tiny frog to man, often with eyes attached
- Large collection of baby deformities.
- Hearing apparatti of mammals in butterfly collection-like cases.
- Photo of Lyndon Johnson lifting his shirt to show off his gall bladder operation scar
- Wax Renderings of Eye Disease Problems
- Iron Lung in the polio exhibit
(Mütter Museum: Philadelphia College of Physicians, 19 South 22nd Street, between Chestnut and Market Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 12-4pm. $10 regular, student discounted rates available.)
April 2005: The museum is adding a gallery by converting a storage room. The new gallery will be dedicated to Gretchen Worden, and will include her portrait, along with an assemblage of medical oddities drawn from the museum's collection of 20,000 items. The new gallery should be ready for public scrutiny in July.
August 2004: Sad news -- Mütter Museum director Gretchen Worden, 56, passed away August 2 after a short illness. We fondly remember Gretchen as our expert medical oddity buddy on visits to the museum, a fan of our books (and we were a fan of hers!), and a great booster of unusual museum exhibits. During her 15+ year watch on the museum, attendance increased from several hundred to over 60,000 a year.
November 2002: Mütter Museum book published. Gretchen Worden, museum director since 1988, has written and assembled a book of the best (and strangest) images culled from the museum's beloved annual calendars. Conjoined Twins, the Gangrene Hand, the Sliced Face -- lovingly captured by photographers and beautifully presented in hard cover. Buy the book through our Amazon Link! (it's ~$35.)
March 1999: The classic displays are always up, and ancillary exhibits such as "lobotomy" and "conjoined twins" have proven so popular that they're semi-permanent. An elaborate infectious diseases display has been added -- featuring Philly's own Legionnaire's Disease-- that boasts a kitchen exhibit (infection central) with a freeze-dried cat. "Little disease vectors," comments curator Gretchen Worden of the feline. "Don't ever let one up on the counter."