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Sara Sue Merritt
Week 7
Research Paper
The Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: A Story Told By
Someone Else
On the corner of South 22nd St. and Ludlow St. in Center City of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, resides the Mütter Museum. This museum, with the mission to collect, preserve
and interpret medical collections in order to engender curiosity and knowledge about the body
and health, and to increase understanding of medicine in its cultural context, is fast approaching
its 125th year of existence.1 With anatomical and pathological specimens, antique medical
instruments, wax and papier-mâché models, and other curiosities of medical practices past, The
Mütter Museum's collection is unparalleled to any other in the United States. While their
collection and exhibition displays have not changed much since its inception, its overall goals
and public face has.2 When taken into consideration that the Mütter Museum is a "museum of
museums," reflecting the almost extinct medical museum of the 19th century, I am amazed to
still find relevance and meaning from the medical knowledge and practices of a bygone era.3
There is a shared belief in the new museology world that the history shared by all
museums as sites for the expression of dominant ideologies is one they collectively wish to hide.
It is a history, which shows the narratives of power displayed within the museum as having a
strictly negative affect on society. 4 When I apply this theory to the Mütter Museum, I find it
lacking in compelling truth. The Mütter doesn’t try to hide the ideals that privileged, skilled
physicians and scientist have dominated the medical world, especially in historical contexts.
They make it very clear that the power in the Museum is one promoted by and for elite
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physicians and scientists (past and present.) Many of those past physicians still watch over the
Museum, the College, and its visitors from their lofty perches on the walls in beautiful oil
painted portraits. When it comes to the power that these physicians wield and wielded, I question,
“Is it really that bad?” I mean to say, American society does owe a lot of the current medicines
and medical practices to the very contributions made by many of the physicians represented in
the display cases in the Mütter Museum. Sure, some of them were only in it for the power and
money, but the majority was solely consumed with alleviating the suffering of the ill, wounded
and unfortunate. I believe these physicians deserve the veneration and respect they sought
through the Museum. They worked hard enough and long enough, let them have their egos
stroked just a bit more! It’s not like the Museum completely ignores the contributions from
patients, which are the subjects and objects on display. Although, these patients may not be
referred to by name, out of respect to current medical practices promoting patient confidentiality
and anonymity. The very people to whom physicians attended and owe their entire profession to
are just as equally venerated for their contributions to medicine. My arguments should not only
concern those critical of museum’s dialogues of power, it should concern anyone who has
dumped on a doctor because of their belief that they are underserving of their status of power.
Sure there are some shitty doctors out there, but those are not the majority, and those are surely
not the ones represented in the Mütter Museum.
One cannot begin assess the history of the Mütter Museum without first considering the
rich and amazing history of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia (CPP), to which it belongs.
The College is not a college in the modern sense, it does not instruct or certify physicians.
However, it is a private society of physicians who congregate with the common goal "to advance
the cause of health while upholding the ideals and heritage of medicine."5 It was originally
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founded in 1787, by twenty-four of America's most educated and highly regarded physicians of
the day. Just to name a few of those founders: Benjamin Rush a signer of the Declaration of
Independence and personal physician to George Washington; John Morgan founder of the
American Philosophical Society; and William Shippen Jr. who cofounded the medical school at
what is now the University of Pennsylvania (along with Morgan.) These physicians are where
the Mütter Museum’s dialogue of power starts. They all came together with noble intentions, to
form a College and Society of physicians dedicated "to advance the science of medicine, and
thereby to lessen human misery."6 Indeed, throughout the years the College and its Fellows have
met, deliberated and given advice to governmental authorities on treatment and prevention of
many troubling early American epidemics. For example, they deliberated and gave official
advice to the governing bodies of Philadelphia on the yellow fever epidemic in the 1790s, as well
as for cholera, smallpox and tuberculosis pandemics in the 19th century.7 The College is
America's oldest private medical society still in existence, and still only elects Fellows (elected
members of the CPP) of the highest caliber. And over the centuries, they have only increased
their efforts to help the public for the greater good of medical advancement and the
understanding of medical history.
In 1859, Fellow Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter, a highly regarded surgeon and educator of his
time, generously donated to the CPP his personal collection of almost 1,700 medical items
consisting of 1,439 specimens: 518 bones, 289 calculi, 364 watercolors, 48 oil paintings, and 200
casts.8 He also endowed his donation with a bequest of $30,000 to go towards paying a curator
and lecturer for the Museum.9 However, there was a catch to Dr. Mütter's generosity, the CPP
had to construct a fire-proof building to house the collection within 5 years in order to receive his
donation.10 Obviously, the CPP made good on these terms, and the Mütter Museum officially
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opened in 1863 in its first location on 13th St and Locust St. in Philadelphia. Dr. Mütter's
donation was the largest gift received by the College in the 19th century, and the endowment
ensured that new acquisitions could be made and that the collections would be well taken cared
of for many years.11 One such acquisition was the Dr. Joseph Hyrtl's collection of 139 skulls for
$6,000 in 1874.12 This purchase marked the Mütter Museum's transition from a personal
collection into a full-fledged medical museum.13
Up until the late 19th century and early 20th century, with the introduction of clinical
training and illustrated textbooks, medical museums and private collections were a medical
students’ and physicians’ primary source of education. The Mütter Museum's original intentions
were to aid local physicians and medical students in their education, teaching and research.14
Surprisingly, it was seldom used in comparison to the patronage it sees today. 15
The Mütter Museum's collection continued to grow throughout the 19th century, mostly
by donations from Fellows of the College and their widows. They saw the museum as a
repository for the memory and legacy of their practice and contributions, and as a way to
preserve them through the ages. By 1899, The Museum was filling to capacity with its
collections, and talk had started among the CPP in regards to moving to a new location and
constructing a larger building.16 In 1909, the current home of the CPP and Mütter Museum on
22nd St, opened its doors.17
For the majority of its existence, the Mütter Museum was only open to students and
practitioners of medicine. And I admit, that those patrons were the elite and the few within the
wider spectrum of the populace. Although Dr. Mütter's original trust required that the Museum's
collection always be open to the public, it wasn't really until the early 1970s that 'public' included
the non-medically trained visitors, better known as 'lay-men' or 'tourists.'18 The 1970s was a real
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period of transition for the Mütter Museum, the CPP noticed the public’s growing interest in the
Museum and they started to generate publicity that promoted the educational qualities it could
offer to their new patrons.19 These strive to promote historical medical knowledge to the public
could arguably be due more to the Museum’s rapidly dwindling obsolescence within the actual
medical learning communities, and less with the humanitarian aspects of a more democratic
dissemination of knowledge. But then again, the public was benefiting, they were learning and
entertained. So do the motives really matter? No one was hurt or exploited, and I, along with
many others, still like the Mütter Museum. By 1986, the Museum made some renovations and
changes to their exhibits. The exhibits were redesigned to better display the most rare and best
representations of specimens and instruments the Museum had to offer. Many of the labels and
textual panels were rewritten to give the visitors a better understanding of the exhibits and to
better convey their historical context.20
The growing popularity of the Mütter Museum was also due, in large part to one
Gretchen Worden. She started working at the Mütter Museum in 1975 as an assistant curator, by
1988 she was the Museum’s director, and she didn’t stop working for the Mütter Museum until
her death in 2004.21 She was a dedicated and enthusiastic worker, and became a poster-girl of
sorts for the Museum. In other words, she fucking loved the Mütter Museum. She made many
public appearances, and was even on The Late Show With David Letterman three times
promoting the Mütter’s collection.22 During her tenure as Director, the Museum’s annual
attendance skyrocketed from 5,000 to 65,000 visitors a year.23
In the late 1990s, the CPP strived to incorporate more active community and educational
outreach programs. They partnered up with the Philadelphia School District’s adopt-a-school
program and hired a museum educator to develop programs that would meet the Pennsylvania’s
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state curriculum guidelines.24 Even today, these “Mütter Lessons” are still educating
Philadelphia school children. In 2011, they reached over 2,000 students through 45 minutes
lessons.25 Another educational program offered by the CPP and Mütter Museum is the Karabots
Junior Fellows Program, which was officially launched in 2009. This 3-year program gives high
school students who are statistically under-represented in healthcare fields due to financial and
educational reasons opportunities to prepare for healthcare careers by offering them intensive
workshops, internships and mentoring.26
The 21st has century marked the CPP’s and Mütter Museum’s expansion into a more
modern era. No, the Museum still mainly focuses on 19th and early 20th century medical history,
but they have expanded their presence into the worldwide web. Eager to reach the age
demographics of 18-35, and to allow a wider audience to find the connection they so crave, the
Mütter Museum can now be found on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.27 The videos on
YouTube are particularly entertaining as well as informative, and I highly recommend to anyone
wishing to learn more about the Mütter Museum to check them out. The CPP also has two public
health websites that have been initiated in the past 4 years: whatsthemutter.org, and
historyofvaccines.org. The first offers youth and community health information provided by
local high school students working with the Museum, the latter offers reliable information about
the role of vaccines in human experience and its continuing influence on public health.28
Today, the Mütter Museum’s collection is an estimated 20,000 items, 10% of which are
on display at any given time.29 When I walk through the Museum, I see examples of diseases,
instruments, and medical practices that some doctors today wouldn’t be able to identify because
of how far medicine has progressed in the last century. The remnants of the scourges of small
pox, tuberculosis, syphilis, and polio are a haunting reminder of how life could have been had I
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been born even 40 or 50 years earlier. I am thankful for the contributions to science and medicine
that great physicians that lived so long before me had made. I recognize that it is one of the
undefined goals of the Museum to promote such feelings of reverence and respect towards such
physicians, and I see no problem in that. The Mütter Museum reminds us how fragile life once
was and still is today, and how far medicine has progressed and still has to go. All of the health
related woes of the world may never have a full and complete cure, but there is proof that as long
as there are willing and able people filled with knowledge and dedication, there is hope to
alleviate human suffering and misery. Perhaps, one-day the remainders of diseases like
HIV/AIDS, trachoma, Alzheimer’s, and cancer will fill the Mütter’s display cases along with
tools of medical practices from the 21st century. And people, far in the future will look upon
them and think “Wow, how far we have come.”
1
VolunteerMatch. "College of Physicians of Philadelphia's Mütter Museum." VolunteerMatch.org. 1998-2011.
Web. 21 Feb. 2012. http://www.volunteermatch.org/search/org54200.jsp
2
Jones, Nora L. The Mütter Museum: The Body as Spectacle, Specimen, and Art. Diss. Temple University, 2002.
UMI Dissertation Services. Print. Pg. 21.
3
From the Mütter Museum’s textual information panel “The Medical Museum in Contemporary Society.“
4
Witcomb, Andrea. "Unmasking a Different Museum." Re-imagining the Museum: Beyond the
Mausoleum. London: Routledge, 2003. 13-26. Print. Specifically referring to Daniel
Sherman and Irit Rogoff’s ideas that:
“The assumption is that the operations of power within the museum always has
negative impacts on society…this impact is one which the museum is at pains to
hide. For them, the history of the museum as a site for the expression of dominant
ideologies is not only shared by all museums. It is a history that museums
consciously strive to hide.” (Witcomb 15.)
5
College of Physicians of Philadelphia. "General Info." The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: Birthplace of
American Medicine. 2010. Web. 22 Feb. 2012. http://www.collphyphil.org/Site/General_info.html. This
page tells you where the College is located, office hours, as well as the mission statement and what that
means to the College.
6
Bell, Whitfield J., Jr. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: A Bicentennial History. Canton, Ma: Watson Pub
Intl, 1988. Print. Pg. 4
7
Bell, Whitfield J., Jr. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: A Bicentennial History. Canton, Ma: Watson Pub
Intl, 1988. Print.
"REGISTRATION OF TUBERCULOSIS. Special Meeting of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of
Philadelphia, Held Jan. 12, 1894, the President, S. WEIR MITCHELL, M. D., in the Chair." JAMA:
Journal of the American Medical Association XXII (1894): 222-26. Jama.ama-assn.org. JAMA. Web. 20
Feb. 2012. http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/XXII/7/222.full.pdf+html?sid=4594ce07-0781-4cf5-943859878983b5f6
8
Mutter Museum’s textual information panel “The Founding of the Mütter Museum“
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8
Bell, Whitfield J., Jr. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: A Bicentennial History. Canton, Ma: Watson Pub
Intl, 1988. Print. Pg. 151.
10
Bell, Whitfield J., Jr. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: A Bicentennial History. Canton, Ma: Watson Pub
Intl, 1988. Print. Pg. 114.
11
Bell, Whitfield J., Jr. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: A Bicentennial History. Canton, Ma: Watson Pub
Intl, 1988. Print. Pg. 119.
12
Bell, Whitfield J., Jr. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: A Bicentennial History. Canton, Ma: Watson Pub
Intl, 1988. Print. Pg. 150-151.
13
Quigley, Christine. Skulls and Skeletons: Human Bone Collections and Accumulations. Jefferson, NC: McFarland,
2001. Pg. 107.
14
Jones, Nora L. The Mütter Museum: The Body as Spectacle, Specimen, and Art. Diss. Temple University, 2002.
UMI Dissertation Services. Print. Pg. 1.
15
Bell, Whitfield J., Jr. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: A Bicentennial History. Canton, Ma: Watson
Pub Intl, 1988. Print. Pg. 151.
16
Bell, Whitfield J., Jr. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: A Bicentennial History. Canton, Ma: Watson
Pub Intl, 1988. Print. Pg. 205-206.
17
Bell, Whitfield J., Jr. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia: A Bicentennial History. Canton, Ma: Watson
Pub Intl, 1988. Print. Pg. 206.
18
Jones, Nora L. The Mütter Museum: The Body as Spectacle, Specimen, and Art. Diss. Temple University, 2002.
UMI Dissertation Services. Print. Pg. 1.
19
Jones, Nora L. The Mütter Museum: The Body as Spectacle, Specimen, and Art. Diss. Temple University, 2002.
UMI Dissertation Services. Print. Pg. 29.
20
Jones, Nora L. The Mütter Museum: The Body as Spectacle, Specimen, and Art. Diss. Temple University, 2002.
UMI Dissertation Services. Print. Pg. 30.
21
Strausbaugh, John. "A Curator's Tastes Were All Too Human." Www.nytimes.com. 11 Oct. 2005. Web. 20 Feb.
2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/arts/design/11mutt.html.
22
Strausbaugh, John. "A Curator's Tastes Were All Too Human." Www.nytimes.com. 11 Oct. 2005. Web. 20 Feb.
2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/arts/design/11mutt.html.
23
Moses, Nancy. "Pessaries: Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia." Lost in the Museum:
Buried Treasures and the Stories They Tell. Lanham, MD: AltaMira, 2008. 59-68. Print. Pg. 67.
24
Jones, Nora L. The Mütter Museum: The Body as Spectacle, Specimen, and Art. Diss. Temple University, 2002.
UMI Dissertation Services. Print. Pg. 34.
25
College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia 2011 Annual Report. Rep. 20112012. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. http://www.collphyphil.org/site/annualreport.html.
26
College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia 2011 Annual Report. Rep. 20112012. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. http://www.collphyphil.org/site/annualreport.html.
27
McAneny, DJ. "Philadelphia's Mütter Museum Goes Digital with New Webisodes." Gloucester County Times. 08
Jan. 2010. Web. 17 Feb. 2012. http://www.nj.com/gloucestercounty/towns/index.ssf/2010/01/philadelphia_museum_goes_digit.html.
28
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. What’s the Mütter?. WhatstheMütter.org. Web. 21 Feb. 2012.
http://www.whatsthemutter.org/.
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. History of Vaccines: A Vaccine History Project of The College of
Physicians of Philadelphia. HistoryofVaccines.org. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. http://www.historyofvaccines.org/.
29
Quigley, Christine. Skulls and Skeletons: Human Bone Collections and Accumulations. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 2001. Pg. 131.