Porters and museum staff at the Royal College of Surgeons of England carrying a large whale bone on their shoulders down the front steps of the College in the 1930s, when the collection of whale specimens was being transferred to the Natural History Museum.
Opened Up: 200 years of the Hunterian Museum
14th May–9th November 2013
Described as a ‘Post Mortem Palace’ by Charles Dickens in 1850, the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons over the last two hundred years has boasted renowned collections of human anatomy and pathology as well as natural history and works of art.
This bicentenary exhibition asks who took care of them, where and how were they displayed, who visited them and what role does the museum play in surgical education today?
Discover how these diverse objects have informed the medical world and fascinated illustrious visitors from medics to monarchs. See hidden objects brought out of our stores and cutting edge medical models crafted by those working behind the scenes both then and now, continuing two centuries of medical museum tradition.