Müsings on the Mütter Museum

As we know, Philadelphia is home to an array of museums.  There are the ones than span the Parkway like the Art Museum and the Franklin, and there are the ones over in Old City like the Jewish Museum and Independence Seaport.  Away from the primary tourist areas, however, lies a museum with a reputation as a frightening house of horrors, one for only the bravest of travelers.  That is, of course, none other than the Rosenbach Museum and Library.  Just kidding, it’s the Mütter.

The Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia is tucked away between Market and Chestnut on 22nd Street in Center City.  It’s collection is dedicated to medical oddities, including both real specimens and wax models, which are just as lifelike as the former.  The highlights of the collection include slides of Albert Einstein’s brain, the conjoined liver of Chang and Eng (where the term “Siamese twins” come from), a woman with a horn growing out of her forehead, the infamous Soap Lady, shrunken heads, and the Hrytl Skull collection, a wall of 139 skulls.  There’s also the world’s largest colon, loaded with 40 pounds of excrement.  If you ask me, that’s…

 It also has samples of a variety of illnesses and ailments, deformed fetuses, and skeletons of one of the tallest and shortest people to ever live.  I find myself imagining conversing with that tall guy.  Anyway, it actually is interesting stuff, even if it is, as the slogan goes, disturbingly informative.  If you ask me, the most disturbing thing is a toss up between the deformed fetuses and historical medical photographs.

There are, however, some other things worth mentioning.  What you see at the Mütter is not what Thomas Mütter had in mind when founding this museum.  At the time, Mütter’s collection was extremely influential, allowing medical students to study on real specimens rather than learning from a textbook.  As someone who believes that kind of learning is the most effective, I think Mütter was correct with this.  However, this library of innovation is no longer what the Mütter Museum is viewed as.  Instead it is thought of as a massive freak show, where you can go and look at disgusting things for shock value.  That is not what Thomas Mütter had in mind when opening this to the public.  He wanted people to learn, not gawk at people with bizzare illnesses.   He wanted a the future of medicine to be born here, not to set up a tourist trap.

Which segways perfectly into the other thing I wanted to talk about.  When you look at these things, such as the giant colon, or the woman with the horn, you want to feel disgusted and appalled by it all.  I find myself not wanting to.  You see, it’s hard to imagine that these were indeed real people who tried to live normal lives, but were inflicted with these horrific diseases.  If you were walking down the street or on the train, what would you think if you saw a woman with a horn growing out of her head?  One of the other messages the Mütter tries to tell is that people are not defined by diseases or conditions.  Anyone who’s read The Fault in our Stars knows that.  But yet it’s hard not to be appalled, no matter how much you don’t want to be.  It general is viewed as a freaky and disgusting place, but I think that it is as sad as it is disturbing.  That is, very.

On a side note, people always pronounce this place wrong.  It’s not “mudder” it’s “mooter”  And, if you’re curious how to make a ü, on Windows you hold down Alt, then hit 0252 on the keypad on the right side of your keyboard.


Oh by the way, if you’re curious as to where this would land on the Top 10 Museums in Philadelphia, it wouldn’t.  Granted, I know that my list is extremely flawed, but either way, there are other museums on a whole different caliber.  Honestly, the Rittenhouse location gives the same vibe as Rosenbach, but they are just so different.  I know that there’s nothing like the Mütter Museum, but that doesn’t make it that good.  The other reason it’s not top 10 material is that the crowds are unbearable.  It’s small and compact, so the crowds aren’t that big, but it makes the place dense with people.  The fact that I’m really short probably has something to do with that, but still.

Leave a Reply


Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.