The Hunterian Museum
One of the bizarrest and yet most treasured places in London is the Hunterian Museum, which is part of the Royal College of Surgeons. This is one of the world’s largest displays of human body parts in jars. This incredibly old museum which is full of skeletons, skulls and relics is enjoying it’s two hundred year anniversary in 2013. This museum is committed to enable surgeons to achieve and maintain the highest standards of surgical practice and patient care.
The museum is centrally located at Lincoln’s In Fields within walking distance of Piccadilly and Temple underground stations. This lovely old area is bordered by large natural parks and cemeteries and considered to be a treasured heritage site. The College of Surgeons is still in operation training surgeons until this day.
This museum also stores specimens and images of long extinct and endangered animals. You can see the remains of a big wooly mammoth, a huge Megalodon shark as well as the bones of creatures that became extinct only a few decades ago such as the Tasmanian tiger. This part of the museum raises awareness about the plight of endangered species.
There are also many human fossils that were acquired in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century when the college was a major research center for human evolution. Most of the casts were made by evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith.
Another interesting exhibition is called BIG which showcases large oversized animal jaws from different species including the cranium of a killer whale, the tusks of a hippopotamus and the skull love a black rhino.
In the past this historically precious museum has also showed exhibitions featuring old surgical instruments, elite sport surgery displays, surgery in science fiction, 150 Years of Gray’s Anatomy and a show about Churchill’s Dentures. There has also been exhibitions showcasing Guinea Pigs that have been used for research, a display of well-crafted artificial eyes and old drug store jars.
The museum also sponsors several walk-throughs in the museum. One of the most interesting and gruesome is called The Resurrectionists and Their Victims. This features the history of bodysnatching from Jonathan Wild and the Italian Boy to Irish Giant Charles Byrne.
To celebrate it’s bicentennial the Hunterian Museum is taking audiences a step back two centuries to the anatomy theatres of 1813 to show how dissections were done back then. The cadaver in use is not real!