Mutter museum

The Mutter museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is one of the few remaining medical museums that remain open to the public, but I would also include it in the category of cabinets of curiosities. I have just recently visited it again, and the museum hasn’t changed much from my prior visit, some 10 years ago. Although this museum is filled with many “fantastic” and “eye-opening” items, my favorite exhibition remains the file cabinet with numerous rows of lateral files, which when pulled open, contain for viewing: “things swallowed or inhaled.”

The museum also houses the connected liver(s) of Chang and Eng (relatively famous Siamese twins) floating in formaldehyde and in plain view for those visiting the museum. Other oddities in this museum include: the corpse of a woman who turned to soap, a large collection of skulls, “monster” babies in jars and, for the easily impressed, a stuffed rattler snake.

If you have your own specimens and you believe they are of “museum quality” and belong in a Cabinet of Curiosities for exhibition, please send us an image and description of your collectible for inclusion in our on-line museum “Web Wundekammer.”