In 1787, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia was established.
Teaching physicians, then as now, was a hands-on proposition.
It required many specimens to demonstrate stuff.
Some of them real pieces of real people, and some of them wax, or plastic, or drawings.
Of course normal people aren't what physicians treat. So the ill, the maimed, the injured, and the deformed specimens were sought. And are now on display.
By the way, organs in formaldehyde could actually be anything at all--a worn out tennis shoe, for example--and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference from the real thing.
No photos were allowed, but I have a few observations:
The human body is very complex.
A LOT can go wrong with the body.
Many of the conditions we don't see so much anymore. Example: syphilitic caries: syphillus literally eats bones (like the skull) and tissue (like the brain) away.
People have endured an awfully lot of medical treatments. But many of the conditions on display can be cured today, probably because of the knowledge gained by those experiments.
The Civil War era was a really sucky time to get sick--or shot--due to the crudeness of surgery and medical knowledge.
It got better.
Happy Halloween to all my physician family and friends, who endured way more than the Mutter Museum to become doctors.
Oh yes, and there was one display too spooky for me to even look at: kidney stones....
Oh yes, and there was one display too spooky for me to even look at: kidney stones....
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