Hunterian Museum, London

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Hunterian Museum
Hunterian Collection.jpg
The skeleton of the 7+12-foot (2.3 m) tall "Irish Giant" is visible in the middle of the photo.
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Location within central London
Established1799;225 years ago (1799)
Location Royal College of Surgeons of England, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, England
Coordinates 51°30′55″N0°6′57″W / 51.51528°N 0.11583°W / 51.51528; -0.11583
Collection sizeapproximately 3,500 specimens [1]
Visitors85,000 per year [2]
Public transit access Underground no-text.svg Holborn
Website

The Hunterian Museum is a museum of anatomical specimens in London, located in the building of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Contents

History

In 1799 the government purchased the collection of the Scottish surgeon John Hunter which they presented to the college. This formed the basis of the Hunterian Collection, which has since been supplemented by others including an Odontological Collection (curated by A. E. W. Miles until the early 1990s) and the natural history collections of Richard Owen.

The first museum building was considered inadequate in terms of space, and was closed in April 1834 to allow for an expansion project which added additional East and West galleries, completed in February 1837. A third room was added in 1852, and two further galleries were added between 1888 and 1892. [1] In May 1941 the college building was badly damaged by bombs, with Rooms IV and V of the museum being completely destroyed along with their contents. After a slow process of entirely new construction in which some of the original design features were maintained, the Hunterian Museum reopened in a reduced form in 1963. [1] [2]

Collections

The Hunterian Museum is a member of The London Museums of Health & Medicine group, and displays thousands of anatomical specimens, including the Evelyn tables, instruments belonging to Joseph Lister, and the skeleton of the "Irish giant" Charles Byrne (procured against Byrne's dying wishes), surgical equipment, and paintings and sculptures about medical individuals and medicine. [3] [4] The museum's odontological collection includes teeth retrieved from soldiers at the battle of Waterloo, a necklace of human teeth brought to England by explorer Henry Morton Stanley, and a set of dentures belonging to Winston Churchill. [1] The museum also holds the foot an Ancient Egyptian mummy dissected by John Hadley in 16 December 1763. [5] This was the first recorded dissection of a mummy in British history. [5] For reasons that are unclear an onion was attached to the foot at some point prior to the dissection. [5]

The museum closed in May 2017 for renovation work, and reopened on 16 May 2023. [6] As part of the work, Charles Byrne's skeleton was removed from public display, although it was retained in the museum collection to allow for future research. [7]

Curators

Related Research Articles

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John Hunter was a British surgeon, one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day. He was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific methods in medicine. He was a teacher of, and collaborator with, Edward Jenner, pioneer of the smallpox vaccine. He paid for the stolen body of Charles Byrne, and proceeded to study and exhibit it against the deceased's explicit wishes. His wife, Anne Hunter (née Home), was a poet, some of whose poems were set to music by Joseph Haydn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Hunter (anatomist)</span> Scottish physician (1718–1783)

William Hunter was a Scottish anatomist and physician. He was a leading teacher of anatomy, and the outstanding obstetrician of his day. His guidance and training of his equally famous brother, John Hunter, was also of great importance.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal College of Surgeons of England</span> Professional body in England, United Kingdom

The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity that promotes and advances standards of surgical care for patients, and regulates surgery and dentistry in England and Wales. The college is located at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. It publishes multiple medical journals including the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Faculty Dental Journal, and the Bulletin of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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The Hunterian is a complex of museums located in and operated by the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the oldest museum in Scotland. It covers the Hunterian Museum, the Hunterian Art Gallery, the Mackintosh House, the Zoology Museum and the Anatomy Museum, which are all located in various buildings on the main campus of the university in the west end of Glasgow.

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Dissection is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause of death in humans. Less extensive dissection of plants and smaller animals preserved in a formaldehyde solution is typically carried out or demonstrated in biology and natural science classes in middle school and high school, while extensive dissections of cadavers of adults and children, both fresh and preserved are carried out by medical students in medical schools as a part of the teaching in subjects such as anatomy, pathology and forensic medicine. Consequently, dissection is typically conducted in a morgue or in an anatomy lab.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Byrne (giant)</span> Irish entertainer (1761–1783)

Charles Byrne, or "The Irish Giant", was a man regarded as a curiosity or freak in London in the 1780s for his large stature. Byrne's exact height is of some conjecture. Some accounts refer to him as being 8 ft 2 in (2.49 m) to 8 ft 4 in (2.54 m) tall, but skeletal evidence places him at just over 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m).

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great North Museum: Hancock</span> Natural history museum in Newcastle upon Tyne, England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Struthers (anatomist)</span> Regius Professor of Anatomy at the University of Aberdeen (1823–1899)

Sir John Struthers MD FRCSE FRSE was the first Regius Professor of Anatomy at the University of Aberdeen. He was a dynamic teacher and administrator, transforming the status of the institutions in which he worked. He was equally passionate about anatomy, enthusiastically seeking out and dissecting the largest and finest specimens, including whales, and troubling his colleagues with his single-minded quest for money and space for his collection. His collection was donated to Surgeon's Hall in Edinburgh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surgeons' Hall</span> HQ of Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh

Surgeons' Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland, is the headquarters of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd). It houses the Surgeons' Hall Museum, and the library and archive of the RCSEd. The present Surgeons' Hall was designed by William Henry Playfair and completed in 1832, and is a category A listed building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evelyn tables</span> 17th century anatomical preparations

The Evelyn tables are a set of four anatomical preparations on wooden boards that are thought to be the oldest anatomical preparations in Europe. They were acquired by John Evelyn in Padua in 1646 and later donated by Evelyn to the Royal Society. They are currently owned by the Royal College of Surgeons, and displayed there at the Hunterian Museum in London. Six similar tables are held by the Royal College of Physicians, brought to London from Italy by John Finch.

William Clift FRS was a British illustrator and conservator.

Charles Stewart was an English zoologist and comparative anatomist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 4 June 1896, and he was the president of the Linnean Society from 1890 to 1894.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Owen</span> English biologist and palaeontologist (1804–1892)

Sir Richard Owen was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunterian Collection</span>

The Hunterian Collection is one of the best-known collections of the University of Glasgow and is cared for by the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery and Glasgow University Library. It contains 650 manuscripts and some 10,000 printed books, 30,000 coins and 15,000 anatomical and natural history specimens. The collection was originally assembled by the anatomist William Hunter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom</span> People employed to exhume bodies during the 18th and 19th centuries

Resurrectionists were body snatchers who were commonly employed by anatomists in the United Kingdom during the 18th and 19th centuries to exhume the bodies of the recently dead. Between 1506 and 1752 only a very few cadavers were available each year for anatomical research. The supply was increased when, in an attempt to intensify the deterrent effect of the death penalty, Parliament passed the Murder Act 1752. By allowing judges to substitute the public display of executed criminals with dissection, the new law significantly increased the number of bodies anatomists could legally access. This proved insufficient to meet the needs of the hospitals and teaching centres that opened during the 18th century. Corpses and their component parts became a commodity, but although the practice of disinterment was hated by the general public, bodies were not legally anyone's property. The resurrectionists therefore operated in a legal grey area.

Samuel George Shattock FRS was a British pathologist.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "History". Royal College of Surgeons.
  2. 1 2 "Building On Our Heritage". Royal College of Surgeons.
  3. "Medical Museums". medicalmuseums.org. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
  4. "Collections". Hunterian Museum. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 Stienne, Angela (2022). Mummified: The Stories Behind Egyptian Mummies in Museums. Manchester University Press. pp. 109–113. ISBN   9781526161895.
  6. "London's Hunterian Museum reopens next month". ianVisits. Retrieved 13 April 2023.
  7. Kendall Adams, Geraldine (13 January 2023). "Hunterian Museum defends decision to retain skeleton of 'Irish giant' Charles Byrne". Museums Journal. Retrieved 18 January 2023.