The Royal College of Surgeons Museum in 1900

Antiques from London on eBay

CARDIGAN + London to Acton Antique Road Map.#1/2 1736
12 Jul 2011 at 6:45am
US $39.95
End Date: Tuesday Feb-07-2012 3:50:21 PST
Buy It Now for only: US $39.95
Buy it now | Add to watch list
925 Sterling Silver London Spoon with Crest Not Scrap
13 Apr 2011 at 9:51am
US $71.10
End Date: Tuesday Feb-07-2012 6:56:59 PST
Buy It Now for only: US $71.10
Buy it now | Add to watch list

London's museums: here Arthur H. Beavan surveys the Royal College of Surgeons' Museum in Imperial London, 1901:

Across Lincoln's Inn Fields from the Sir John Soane Museum was a dignified modern building, the College of Surgeons, standing on the site of the Duke's Theatre (temp. Charles II), where Nell Gwynn, Betterton, etc, once acted.

Its Museum was famous all the world over as having been founded upon John Hunter's (the anatomist's) collection, purchased by the Government in 1793 for £15,000, and since greatly added to.

There was enough here to occupy the attention of an ardent physiologist for days together; pathological and osteological preparations, among the latter being specimen skulls of every race of mankind, and a marvellous series of skeletons of the human foetus in all its stages; wax representations of terrible skin diseases admirable in their exactitude though particularly disagreeable to look at - bottled samples of nearly every portion of the human body diseased or otherwise; abnormal growths; and dreadful human monstrosities.

There was the skeleton of O'Brien, the eight-foot giant, and the mummified body of Mrs. Van-Butchell, the first wife of a notorious doctor in the eighteenth century, who is said to have kept the melancholy relic in his drawing-room!

In this collection were also examples of extraordinary recoveries from apparently mortal injury by accidents, etc, and, in a separate department, some very fine osteological specimens of both extinct and existing vertebrated animals.

Preserved in spirits, but no longer publicly exhibited, was a human relic of historic interest, the fatal cancerous growth extracted after death from the body of Napoleon the Great, and brought home from St. Helena by the English surgeon and presented to the Royal College of Surgeons Museum.

There were spacious rooms devoted to the preparation of specimens, and also a very fine scientific library attached to this noble institution, which had a council, elected Fellows, and admitted Members, etc, with all the usual formulae of other learned but non-professional Societies.

For those who were interested in such subjects, there were attached to most of the leading hospitals in London in 1900, complete pathological and anatomical museums which could be generally seen by proper introduction.

Next: London museums in 1900: The Natural History Museum

Visit the official Royal College of Surgeons Museum website: http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums