Mütter Museum facts for kids
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The museum is housed within the College of Physicians of Philadelphia
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| Established | 1863 (original location) 1909 (present location) |
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| Location | 19 S. 22nd Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Type | Medical history and science |
| Accreditation | Not accredited |
| Collections | Medical instruments, anatomical models, biological specimens |
| Collection size | 25,000+ |
| Visitors | 120,000+ |
| Founder | Thomas Dent Mütter |
| Owner | The College of Physicians of Philadelphia |
| Public transit access |  22nd Street:   SEPTA bus: 7, 31, 44, 62, 124, 125 Philly PHLASH (at 20th and Market streets) |
| Nearest parking | On-street metered parking, parking garage at S. 21st St. |
The Mütter Museum is a special museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It focuses on the history of medicine and science. The museum has a large collection of human body parts, wax models, and old medical equipment. It is part of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter started the museum with a gift on December 11, 1858. Its first goal was to teach medical professionals and students. It became open to everyone in the mid-1970s. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia is a group dedicated to improving science and medicine.
The museum has over 37,000 items in its collection. About 10% of these items were on display in 2023. The museum also has a huge collection of books in its Historical Medical Library. This library is also located within The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
Many items in the museum were bought from all over the world. Doctors who were part of the College of Physicians bought these items during their travels. Other items were given as gifts from doctors' private collections. In October 2023, the Mütter Museum received a grant. This grant helps them research how human remains were added to their collection. They also hold public discussions about the museum's future.
Contents
Skeletal Specimens
The Mütter Museum has over 3,000 skeletal specimens. These include several full human skeletons. One famous skeleton is that of Harry Raymond Eastlack. He had a rare condition that turned his muscles into bone.
Other interesting skeletal specimens include:
- The Mütter American Giant: This is the tallest human skeleton on display in North America. It stands about 229 cm (7 feet 6 inches) tall.
- The Hyrtl Skull Collection: This collection has 139 skulls from an Austrian anatomist named Josef Hyrtl. He collected them to show how different European skulls could be. This helped to prove that some old ideas about "racial science" were wrong.
- The skeleton of Mary Ashberry: She was a woman with achondroplasia, a type of dwarfism. She died in 1856 due to complications during childbirth.
- Ten skulls and five other skull parts that show the effects of a serious illness. Many of these were part of Dr. Mütter's original gift.
Wet Specimens
The Mütter Collection has almost 1,500 "wet specimens." These are body parts preserved in liquid. They were collected between the 1800s and the 2000s. These specimens include unusual growths, cysts, and other health problems from almost every part of the body.
Some examples are:
- The heart of Robert Pendarvis, a living donor with a condition called acromegaly.
- Intestinal specimens collected during a cholera outbreak in 1849. Dr. John Neill, who was a curator at the time, collected these.
- Tattooed skin from the 1800s and early 1900s.
Wax Models
The museum also displays many wax models. These models show different health conditions in the human body. They were made mostly by artists from Paris and London. These wax models were used for teaching when it was hard to get and preserve real human bodies. Some models even used real bones inside them.
One famous wax model at the Mütter Museum is of Madame Dimanche. She had a "human horn" growing on her head. It was removed after six years of growth in the early 1800s. This model was part of Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter's first collection.
Other Interesting Specimens
The museum's collection also includes:
- A tumor removed from President Grover Cleveland's mouth.
- The conjoined liver and a plaster model of the bodies of the Thai-American Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker.
- A piece of tissue from the chest of John Wilkes Booth. He was the person who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.
- A part of the brain of Charles J. Guiteau. He assassinated President James A. Garfield.
- The Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection: This is a collection of 2,374 objects that people swallowed or breathed in. Dr. Jackson removed these items from patients' throats, food pipes, and lungs. He did this over his almost 75-year career. Most of these items are on display.
- Half of Albert Einstein's brain.
Exhibitions
Dr. Benjamin Rush Medicinal Plant Garden
Dr. Rush helped start The College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1787. The Mütter Museum is now located there. Dr. Rush wanted a garden of medicinal plants. This would help doctors refill their medicine chests. The garden was finally created in 1937. It has between 50 and 60 different medicinal herbs and plants. These include strawberries, wormwort, and bugleweed.
Special Exhibitions
The museum also hosts different special exhibits that change over time.
Curators
Dr. Joseph McFarland
Dr. Joseph McFarland was the curator of the Mütter Museum from 1937 to 1945. He wrote many papers about the history of some museum collections. He looked into stories about "The Soap Lady" and "The Mütter American Giant." Dr. McFarland used historical research to find out the true stories behind these items.
Ella N. Wade
Ella Wade (1892–1980) started working at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia as a clerk. She became the first female curator of the Mütter Museum. She was also the first curator who was not a medical doctor.
Gretchen Worden
Gretchen Worden started working at the museum in 1975. She became the museum's curator in 1982 and its director in 1988. Worden often appeared on TV shows and documentaries. She talked about the museum and its unique collections. She helped the museum become much more popular. When she passed away, the number of visitors had grown from a few hundred to over 60,000 each year.
After her death, the Mütter Museum opened a gallery in her memory. This gallery, called the "Gretchen Worden Room," displays many interesting items. These include preserved human organs, skulls showing signs of illness, and bones twisted by disease. Worden believed that even though some of these bodies might look unusual, there was a powerful beauty in the strength of those who lived with these conditions.
Podcast
In September 2020, the Mütter Museum started a medical history podcast. It is called "My Favorite Malady."
Other Related Projects
Several books have been published about the Mütter Museum. These books often feature photographs of the museum's exhibits.
One book, published in 2002, is called The Mütter Museum: Of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. It has pictures taken by famous photographers. Another book, from 2007, is Mütter Museum Historic Medical Photographs.
A screenplay about Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter, the museum's founder, won an award in 2003. The writer, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, later wrote a biography about Dr. Mütter. This book, Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, was released in 2014. It became a bestseller.
In 2016, a book called Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums was published. It includes a chapter about the history of collecting at the Mütter Museum.
