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Abstract: Medical bodies on display: the history and context of medical museums

Cornelia (Nina) Thompson - PhD Student, Heritage Studies

UCL Institute of Archaeology

Medical bodies on display: the history and context of medical museums This paper addresses how the historic and current context of bodies on display shapes audience engagement. Most existing literature around bodies in museums centres anthropological collections. This research focuses on medical museums, demonstrating how the history and context of these collections affects their reception. Medical museums started with anatomical collections to train doctors, limiting access to medical students and practitioners. However, since the mid-20th century these collections have increasingly opened to the public, attracting growing interest and investment. Even though these collections are no longer limited to medical education, what effect does the medical framing of these bodies continue to have? Bodies in a medical context are defined by disconnection while also intended to stand in for a generalised human body. By disconnection, I mean both the ways medical practice intentionally de-personalises and anonymises remains, as well as the processes through which bodies became available for anatomical study (bodies of criminals, the poor and otherwise isolated individuals). I argue that this medical framing of human remains engenders a distinct kind of audience engagement. Through combining historic analysis of medical museums, including contemporary reactions to the display of bodies, with current museum studies and visitor studies scholarship, I suggest a framework for visitor interaction with bodies in medical museums as they exist today. Research conducted in partnership with the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garrett (as part of my PhD) serves as a case study to demonstrate public understandings of, and reactions to, bodies on display in a medical museum, using archival research, interviews with staff, and qualitative visitor feedback data. Through focusing on medical museums, this research contributes to the study of bodies on display and the significance of context in shaping public understandings. 

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