The Experience
The Mütter Museum is a riveting storehouse for the anatomically strange. The Museum’s display of 20,000 provocative items is designed to give a beneath-the-surface perspective of what physicians study — and it’s not always pretty.
Inside the Museum, you’ll find a wide smattering of abnormal body parts preserved in fluid. You’ll encounter skeletal formations — like that of a 7’6” man — that don’t seem quite possible. Diseased and enlarged organs are tastefully displayed within glass-encased oak frames.
For the sake of comparison, illustrations of normal anatomical formations are cast in wax, plaster and papier mâché throughout the museum.
Connections to the famous include Marie Curie’s electrometer, Dr. Benjamin Rush’s medicine chest and, most spectacularly, the death cast of Chang and Eng, the original “Siamese Twins,” whose autopsy was performed in the museum.