The Mütter Museum is a medical history and science
museum
A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...
located in the
Center City area of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
. It contains a collection of
anatomical
Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...
and
pathological specimens,
wax models, and antique
medical equipment
A medical device is any device intended to be used for medical purposes. Significant potential for hazards are inherent when using a device for medical purposes and thus medical devices must be proved safe and effective with reasonable assura ...
. The museum is part of
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The original purpose of the museum, founded with a gift from Dr.
Thomas Dent Mütter on December 11, 1858, was for the education of medical professionals, medical students, and invited guests of College Fellows, and did not become open to non-Fellows until the mid-1970s.
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia is itself not a teaching organization, but rather a member organization or "scientific body dedicated to the advancement of science and medicine".
The museum has a collection of over 37,000 specimens, of which about 10% were on display as of 2023. This does not include the large literary collection contained within the Historical Medical Library, which is also housed within the
College of Physicians of Philadelphia
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia is the oldest private medical society in the United States. Founded in 1787 by 24 Philadelphia physicians "to advance the Science of Medicine, and thereby lessen human misery, by investigating the dise ...
.
Collection items, artifacts, and specimens were acquired globally, and as Ella Wade (curator from 1939 to 1957) says, "The Mütter Museum Committee, as the minutes show, proceeded to spend Dr. Mütter's money like sailors on shore leave".
In other words, some museum material was purchased by College Fellows as they travelled the world, and they were reimbursed for each purchase and any expenses incurred in connection with acquisitions. Other collection items were donated from the private collections of physicians.
In October 2023, the Mütter Museum was awarded a grant from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage to research the history of the collection of human remains to better understand how each body and specimen came into the museum collections and to conduct discussions with members of the public to discuss the future of the museum. The first Town Hall discussion took place on November 17, 2023.
Osteological (skeletal) specimens
The Mütter Museum is home to over 3,000 osteological specimens, including several full skeletons. One of the most famous of these is the fully articulated skeleton of
Harry Raymond Eastlack, who suffered from
FOP.
Other osteological specimens include:
* The Mütter American Giant, the tallest human skeleton on exhibit in North America, at tall.
* The Hyrtl Skull Collection, a collection of 139 skulls from
Josef Hyrtl, an Austrian anatomist. This collection's original purpose was to show the diversity of cranial anatomy in Europeans, thereby disproving the racial science of
phrenology
Phrenology is a pseudoscience that involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits. It is based on the concept that the Human brain, brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific ...
.
* The skeleton of Mary Ashberry, a woman with
achondroplasia
Achondroplasia is a genetic disorder with an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance whose primary feature is dwarfism. It is the most common cause of dwarfism and affects about 1 in 27,500 people. In those with the condition, the Rhizomeli ...
who died in 1856 due to medical negligence during childbirth.
* 10 skulls and 5 crania with extensive syphilitic involvement, many of which are specimens from the original Mütter donation.
Wet specimens
The Mütter Collection comprises almost 1,500 wet specimens acquired between the 19th and 21st centuries. These include
teratological specimens, cysts, tumors and other pathologies from nearly every organ of the body.
These include:
* The heart of Robert Pendarvis, a living donor with acromegaly
* Intestinal specimens collected during the 1849 cholera outbreak by Dr. John Neill, curator of what was then known as the Pathological Cabinet of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
* 19th and early 20th century tattooed skin
Wax models
Augmenting the real human specimens on display are numerous wax models displaying various examples of pathology in the human body. These models, mostly produced by Tramond of Paris and Joseph Towne of London, were used for educational purposes when cadavers were difficult to acquire and preserve. Some moulages are known to have used skeletal remains as a part of their construction. One of the most famous wax models on display in the Mütter Museum is the last known remaining model of Madame Dimanche, who had a, "human horn (
cutaneous horn). Successfully removed after six-years growth from Madame Dimanche, a Parisian widow, in the early 19th century. From the original collection of Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter (1811-1859)".
Other specimens
The museum's holdings also include:
* A
malignant
Malignancy () is the tendency of a medical condition to become progressively worse; the term is most familiar as a characterization of cancer.
A ''malignant'' tumor contrasts with a non-cancerous benign tumor, ''benign'' tumor in that a malig ...
tumor
A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...
removed from President
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms and the first Hist ...
's
hard palate
The hard palate is a thin horizontal bony plate made up of two bones of the facial skeleton, located in the roof of the mouth. The bones are the palatine process of the maxilla and the horizontal plate of palatine bone. The hard palate spans ...
* The conjoined
liver
The liver is a major metabolic organ (anatomy), organ exclusively found in vertebrates, which performs many essential biological Function (biology), functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the Protein biosynthesis, synthesis of var ...
and plaster torso death cast of Thai-American
Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker
Chang Bunker (จัน บังเกอร์) and Eng Bunker (อิน บังเกอร์) (May 11, 1811 – January 17, 1874) were Siamese (Thai)-American conjoined twins, conjoined twin brothers whose fame propelled the expression " ...
* A piece of thoracic tissue removed from
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838April 26, 1865) was an American stage actor who Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, assassinated United States president Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the p ...
, the
assassin
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives.
Assassinations are orde ...
of
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...
* A section of the brain of
Charles J. Guiteau, the
assassin
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives.
Assassinations are orde ...
of President
James A. Garfield
* The
Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection, a collection of 2,374 swallowed or inhaled objects that Dr. Jackson extracted from patients’ throats, esophaguses, and lungs during his almost 75-year-long career. Most of the items are on display.
* Half of
Albert Einstein's brain
Exhibitions
''Dr. Benjamin Rush Medicinal Plant Garden''
Dr. Rush helped to found the
College of Physicians of Philadelphia
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia is the oldest private medical society in the United States. Founded in 1787 by 24 Philadelphia physicians "to advance the Science of Medicine, and thereby lessen human misery, by investigating the dise ...
in 1787, which is now home to the Mütter Museum. Dr. Rush pushed for the maintenance of a medicinal garden to allow College Fellows to replenish items in their medicinal chests. The Garden was eventually founded in 1937. It displays between 50 and 60 medicinal herbs and plants, which include strawberries, wormwort, and bugleweed.
Special exhibitions
The museum is also host to a variety of changing special exhibits.
Curators
Dr. Joseph McFarland
Dr.
Joseph McFarland was the curator of the Mütter Museum from 1937 to 1945. He published multiple papers looking into some of the more questionable histories of museum collections, including The Soap Lady, and the Mütter American Giant. McFarland was able to prove, through dogged historical and archival research, that Leidy's stories for both "The Petrified Woman" at the Mütter Museum, and "The Petrified Man" at the Wistar Institute were complete nonsense. McFarland read through the annals of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia nearly 70 years after The Mütter American Giant first graced its halls and ascertained that there truly was nothing known about the former owner.
Ella N. Wade
Ella Wade (1892–1980), began her tenure at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia as a clerk. She became the first female curator and the first curator without an MD.
Gretchen Worden
Gretchen Worden joined the museum staff as a curatorial assistant in 1975 and became the museum's curator in 1982 and its director in 1988.
Worden was a frequent guest on the ''
Late Show with David Letterman
''Late Show with David Letterman'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS, the first iteration of the ''Late Show'' franchise. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and was produced by Letterman's production com ...
'', "displaying a mischievous glee as she frightened him with human hairballs and wicked-looking Victorian surgical tools, only to disarm him with her antic laugh"
and appeared in numerous
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
,
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
and cable television documentaries (including an episode of
Errol Morris
Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of their subjects, and the invention of the Interrotron. In 2003, his '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Li ...
' show ''
First Person'') as well as
NPR's "
Fresh Air
''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's hosts are Terry Gross and Tonya Mosl ...
with
Terry Gross
Terry Gross (born February 14, 1951) is an American journalist who is the host and co-executive producer of '' Fresh Air'', an interview-based radio show produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and distributed nationally by NPR. Since joining NP ...
" on the museum's behalf. She was also instrumental in the creation of numerous Mütter Museum projects, including the popular Mütter Museum calendars and the book, ''The Mütter Museum: Of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia''. During Worden's tenure, the visitorship of the museum grew from several hundred visitors each year to, at the time of her death, more than 60,000 tourists annually.
After her death, the Mütter Museum opened a gallery in her memory. In an article written about the gallery's September 30, 2005 opening, the ''New York Times'' described the "Gretchen Worden Room":
Worden was known for using humor and shock factor to garner interest in the museum. In the foreword of ''The Mütter Museum: Of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia'', she wrote "While these bodies may be ugly, there is a terrifying beauty in the spirits of those forced to endure these afflictions."
Podcast
In September 2020, the Mütter Museum launched a medical history podcast, entitled My Favorite Malady.
Other related projects
Blast Books has published two large books of photography involving the Mütter Museum.
The first book, 2002's ''The Mütter Museum: Of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia'', contains images of the museum's exhibits shot by contemporary fine art photographers.
William Wegman,
Joel-Peter Witkin and
Shelby Lee Adams have work that appear in the book.
The second book was 2007's ''Mütter Museum Historic Medical Photographs''.
''Mütter'', a screenplay based on the life of Mütter Museum founder Thomas Dent Mütter, won the 2003 "Set In Philadelphia" Screenwriting Award at the Philadelphia Film Festival
and a
Sloan Foundation
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is an American philanthropic nonprofit organization. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., president and chief executive officer of General Motors.
The Sloan Foundation makes grants to support origin ...
Fellowship at the 2004 Hampton International Film Festival.
[Aptowicz bio on Sloan Foundation-related website](_blank)
/ref> The screenplay, written by poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
and Philadelphia native Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, remains unproduced, although a short based on the feature-length script was created as a part of the Philadelphia Film Festival prize package.
In 2010, Aptowicz was named the 2010–2011 University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
ArtsEdge Writer-in-Residence and she noted that she will be using the residency to work on a biography of Thomas Dent Mütter. The museum has granted Aptowicz full access to their museum, library and archives for the duration of the residency so that she may conduct her research for the book, and the Mütter Museum's Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine has additionally awarded Aptowicz with a Wood Institute Travel Grant to help further fund and support her work on this project. In April 2013, it was announced that Aptowicz's biography of Mütter will be published in Fall 2014 by the Gotham Books division of Penguin. On September 4, 2014, ''Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine'' was released to critical acclaim, including starred reviews in ''Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
'',[''Publishers Weekly'' Review of ''Dr Mütter's Marvels''](_blank)
/ref> ''Library Journal
''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional prac ...
'', ''School Library Journal
''School Library Journal'' (''SLJ'') is an American monthly magazine containing reviews and other articles for school librarians, media specialists, and public librarians who work with young people. Articles cover a wide variety of topics, wi ...
'' and Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...
, as well as lengthy positive reviews in ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'', The Onion
''The Onion'' is an American digital media company and newspaper organization that publishes satirical articles on international, national, and local news. The company is currently based in Chicago, but originated as a weekly print publication ...
's AV Club and NPR. The book would debut at #7 on The New York Times Bestseller List
''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...
for Books about Health.[The New York Times Bestseller List](_blank)
for Books on Health October 2014
In 2016, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou.
The pres ...
published ''Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums''. The author, Samuel J. Redman, completed a pair of residencies through the Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine program in 2010 and 2015. A chapter in the book examines the history of collecting at the Mütter Museum.
References
External links
*
''Mütter'': short film based on the life of the Mütter Museum's founder, filmed at the Mütter Museum as part of the 2003 Philadelphia Film Festival
* ttp://jdc.jefferson.edu/jeffbiographies/8/ A Discourse Commemorative of the Late Professor T.D. Mütter, M.D., LL.D. from 1859
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mutter Museum
Museums in Philadelphia
Medical museums in Pennsylvania
Science museums in Pennsylvania
Center City, Philadelphia
Museums established in 1863
1863 establishments in Pennsylvania