Mutter Museum
YOU CAN NOT TAKE PICTURES INSIDE THE MUSEUM.
The Mutter Museum is located
at and run by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia at 19 South 22nd St.,
right in Center City. The museum originated as the private collection of Thomas
Dent Mutter, a professor of surgery at Jefferson Medical College, also in
Philadelphia. He donated his collection of medical specimens and anomalies to
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1858, and since then, they've
continued to add to the collection. According to their website, the Mutter Museum
now has more than 20,000 items. Most of them gross.
The entire museum
takes up only a few rooms of the building on two connecting floors. The first
thing you see upon entering is a wall that looks like Attila the Hun's trophy
case. On prominent display in neat rows are a series of 139 human skulls.
Apparently, this is another private-collection-turned-public, this time from a
man named Joseph Hyrtl.