The world has Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter to thank for the creation of the widely acclaimed Mütter Museum, as it was his interest in the unusual and strange that prompted the first collections. While the things a visitor will see inside these walls are seemingly quite unnatural, in truth, they are just the opposite - Mütter's appreciation for the rather bizarre side of medical history and study is what has made this museum such a gem in the medical world and for those interested in it. It's likely one of the world's weirdest museums, but it's also simultaneously one of America's creepiest museums.
Today, the museum is home to more than 25,000 specimens on display, after what started with only 1,700 specimens and a personal donation from Mütter himself. While the museum does play home to somewhat disturbing and harrowing medical cases, its intentions are altruistic - visitors who walk through the door will undoubtedly walk back out knowing more than they had when they entered. Because of that, it has gained a worldwide reputation and continues to draw attention from all over.
Yes, Visitors Will See Real Human Specimens Inside The Museum
There are many family-friendly museums in the country, but to say this is not for the faint of heart would be an understatement - this museum specializes in everything from disturbingly preserved specimens to specimens donated to demonstrate the effects of mental illness. Among these, visitors will find a full jar of dried skin peeled from the foot of a woman diagnosed with Dermatillomania, a compulsive skin-picking disorder.
Another display contains sliver-thin sections of Einstein's brain, perfectly preserved in between glass slides. Perfectly preserved specimens include the hands of a patient suffering from gout and a collection of genital warts that are strung on a necklace for "easier studying" by doctors.
Medial Tools And Procedures Are Part Of The Exhibit
Medical tools from every turn of the century have been donated to this museum, and there's no shortage of what one might find there. Dating back to 1870, a medical kit intended for post-mortem dissection is on full display, complete with every gruesome and crude tool.
This kit was passed down through a family of locals, the Leavitts, and donated in 1975. During the civil war, embalming was not unusual, and visitors can see a medical kit that freelance embalmers would have used in order to send soldiers home - for a steep fee.
Grimm's Fairy Tales, In Real Life
Dried hands are not an unusual thing to run into at Mütter Museum, and some are even responsible for the fairy tales many of us have heard so many times. Grimm's Fairy Tales, the original fairy tales, were far more morbid than the kid-friendly versions told today. The inspiration for some of them was the deformed hands of those which are on display in the Mütter Museum, featuring the crooked, thin, and bony features we often associate with witches and monsters.
Teaching Tools: How The Museum Is Continuing To Educate Future Medical Students
In the midst of all the bizarre displays one can find here, visitors will also stumble upon a wall of skulls. These were donated to the museum by Joseph Hyrtl, an anatomist, and there are 139 skulls in total.
Visitors are free to examine these through the glass along with other interesting displays, such as a fully-deformed wax eyeball that's intended to demonstrate various eye disorders. Of wax displays, there are many - including one depicting the case of a woman, Madame Dimanche, with a horn-like growth protruding from her forehead.