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Abstract: Pathological Bodies: Visitor attitudes towards the display of historical potted specimens at two British medical museums.

Aoife Sutton-Butler (PhD Candidate, School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences, University of Bradford) 

Pathological Bodies: Visitor attitudes towards the display of historical potted specimens at two British medical museums.

 

Across Britain many educational and public institutions hold collections of historical anatomical and pathological fluid preserved potted human remains, sometimes referred to as ‘wet specimens.’ This paper will present data collected at the Surgeons Hall Museum (Edinburgh) and the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garrett (London) on the display of these types of human remains. One hundred and forty visitors were surveyed on the display of these human remains and comments from the visitor’s book were also analysed. Although these collections are still being used in teaching and research, some authors have called them ‘obsolete’ (Lee and Strkalj 2017). Potted specimen collections were the focus of the study for several reasons. They were considered the most valuable type of specimen by anatomists in the 18th century, and they still require a skill set which is not widely specialised in (Moore 2005; Bocaege et al 2013). These collections are also unique in appearance as they have soft tissue attached, despite being a couple of hundred years old. They are different to the archaeological remains on display in museums which are skeletonised or mummified in appearance and are sometimes used to compliment osteology students in the teaching of paleopathology (University of Bradford). The visitor surveys revealed that the public finds these collections interesting, not upsetting to see on display, and that they often ‘see themselves’ in these collections through shared pathologies. Anatomical and pathological potted specimens of the past have the potential to open up conversations linked to themes such as death, ethics, organ donation, the body on display, the preserved body, and socioeconomic status (Richardson 2006).

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