A UNIQUE MUSEUM

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 55, 2 September 1937, Page 23

A UNIQUE MUSEUM

SURGICAL TREASURES

THE HUNTERIAN COLLECTION

Several' million people pass the museum of the Royal College of * Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Fields, daily, but Cew of them are aware that behind the grey, colonnaded entrance is housed a Unique physiological collection, says a writer in "The Times."

The Hunte'rian Collection of nearly 14,000 specimens, which forms the basis of the contents of the present museum, was originally arranged In a building which its founder, Dr. John Hunter, erected for it in 1784 behind his house in Leicester Square. When John Hunter died in X 793, the museum was acquired by the Government.

With the aid. of Government grants and a sum of about £21*000 from the funds of the College of Surgeons, the museum building was erected on the present site and the museum was opened in 1813. Since'then smaller collections have been added, among them being the collection on historic pathology given by Sir G. Elliot Smith, which consists of the bones of ancient Egyptians, unearthed during excavations preparatory to the construction of the Assuan Dam. Many of the skulls have round holes chiselled in them, apparently to allow evil spirits to escape from the bodies of the owners.

The museum was founded before the days of scientific specialisation. It shows the influence of the naturalist rather than of the modern scientist. Hunter based his researches on the dictum that the shape of organs was determined by their function, and though he lived before Darwin formulated his theory of evolution it is obvious from the arrangement of the museum that at least he believed in the Aristotelian theory of evolution.

NORMAL AND ABNORMAL.

The collection can be roughly divided ih to two sections—the physiological, showing normal structures, and the patheological, showing abnormal » structures, malformations, and monsters. In the brain section it ■is possible to trace cerebral development from the rudimentary brain of the ant through most of the variations of the animal kingdom to homo sapiens. This unique collection is being constantly improved by the addition, of new specimens. The brain of the okapi, which died'recently at the London Zoo, is to be included.

Adjoining the brain section is that devoted to the nervous system. Beautifully dissected specimens trace the development of the nerves from the crustacean stage. There are four interesting diagrams of the nerves, arteries, and veins of the human body. They have been made by dissecting a body and glueing nerves, veins, and arteries to varnished wooden' panels, without disturbing their natural arrangement. , The four panels were prepared in Padua in 1646, and are treasured as much for their antiquity as their anatomical accuracy.

A queer subsidiary, of the main museum is the collection of mummies. Besides several tattoed Maori heads, there are six dried heads of Amazonian Indians, shrunken by some secret process to the size of a child's list. The effect of a tiny face beneath a mop of hair, made unnaturally thick by the shrunken scalp, is most grotesque. The mummy of Ha Nefer, a Memphite noble of the Fourth Dynasty of Ancient. Egypt, reposes, stripped of its wrappings, in a glass case. Ra Nefer died about 2900 B.C. Only three complete mummies of that distant period are known to exist. The features and bodily contours have been preserved with remarkable fidelity by wrapping the body in scores of layers of finest muslin built up with resin.

A GIANT SKELETON.

*A mummy of\ more recent date is the embalmed body of the first wife of the eccentric Dr. Martin Van But' chell, who was a pupil of Dr. Hunter. Dr. Van Butchell was wont to ride abroad in a carriage drawn -by a white pony painted with purple spots. He carried with him a large bone to defend himself against the ridicule of the populace, When his first wife died, Dr. Van Butchell kept her mummißed remains, together with those of her pet parrot, in a glass cage in ' his parlour.

Outside the mummy room is an Omaliko fetish from Onitsha, Southern Nigeria. , The ju-ju belonged to a notorious witch doctor who made such strong "medicine" with it that the Governor seized it and sent it to London to be out of the way. It consists of a mass of "medicine" surrounded by a circle of eight human skulls. The "medicine" is composed of four human thigh bones, a fetish figure carved in wood, coconut fibre, and several telegraph forms, by the inclusion of whiqh it was apparently hoped to enlist 'the mystic aid of the Py£tmaster-General.

The monsters displayed in the pathological section of the museum are sufr flcient reason for excluding the general public. Dr. Cave, the assistant curator, explained that many of the specimens had been preserved in spirits for 200 years, strang growths and freaks, relics of a bygone age, which, thanks to the progress of medical science, would probably not be

seen again. There is the skeleton, of Charles Byrne, the Irish giant who was 7ft B£in high when he died, aged 30. Beside him stands the skeleton !of Caroline Crachami, a Sicilian dwarf not 20in high. Several specimens of malformed hands and feet show hideous over-development of fingers and

In the last room the departing visito is confronted by an array of human skulls arranged in tiers around the four walls. Cranial specimens of nearly every race on earth glare from the shelves, and grin a mirthless farewell.