A museum houses organs, bones, fetuses and statues that will leave you with chills. Mütter Museum is a home to medical peculiarities, antique medical equipment alongside Einstein's prized brain.
The Mütter Museum is a medical museum located in the Center City area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The museum is part of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Originally, the purpose of the collection, which was donated by Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter in 1858, was for biomedical research and education.
The Mütter Museum originated as a collection of specimens and medical tools used for education in medicine. At present, the Museum brags a collection of over 20,000 specimens, of which only 13 percent are on display. This does not include the large literary collection contained within the Historical Medical Library, which is also held at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
The Mütter Museum house the skeleton of the tallest man in North America and the fused bones of Harry Eastlack, who died of Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva. The soft connective tissue of the body ossifies, painfully freezing the body in an immobile state in an extremely rare disorder. These and many other exhibitions are showcased in the same Victorian cabinets that the museum started within 1858.
Another piece displayed in Mutter Museum is the collection of 2,000 objects taken out from people's throats, contained in attractive wooden pullout display drawers. These are from the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection, collected by Chevalier Jackson, who is considered to be the greatest laryngologist of all time. Also of specific interest in the Mutter Museum are the conjoined twin skeletons, carefully displayed in numerous jaunty positions, and the plaster death cast of Chang and Eng, conjoined twins who died within hours of each other.
Atlas Obscura reported that among Mutter Museum's broad collection, however, not on display is a set of brain slides curated not because of its defects, but because of its amazing brilliance. They look like threads of kelp, or shards of bark. In fact, these slides contain slices from the brain of the twentieth century's most famous scientist, Albert Einstein.
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