Ok, so for those of you who don't know, I love all things creepy (except spiders and other bugs), and or scary. I love scary movies! My favorite is The Changeling (pg version with George C. Scott not the one with big lips Angelina) I love intense and weird TV shows, like X-files or Fringe! So, naturally, when the chance arose to check out one of the weirdest, creepiest, coolest museums in the US I jumped at the chance!
I am talking about the Mütter Museum. It is a medical museum filled with unusual bits of medical history, and some really cool/gross medical anomalies. My sister came to visit with her husband last week and we took a road trip to Philly specifically to see this museum. She thought it was cool too.
Dave, however, had a different opinion. His exact words when I asked him what he thought were, "It was creepy and gross and I am going to have nightmares about it for the rest of my life!" Hahaha... we are so different!
They wouldn't let us take pictures, but being the computer geek I am, I found a few pictures on the internet of what we saw for your viewing pleasure!
The Wall of Skulls
This was really interesting. All of these skulls had cards that listed the date of their death, any medical anomalies and how they died. All of them had pretty reasonable explanations for how they died, except for one... it simply listed the reason for death as "imbecile", I laughed for quite a while about that!
Two Bodies, One Head
They had quite a few examples of conjoined twins, this one was the most interesting and the least gross. =)
A Preserved Slice of a Face
They had this wall of brain slices that looked like a postmortem primitive cat-scan slide show. It was really interesting until I got to the slice with the face still attached! You could still see what they looked like in life... eyelashes and everything!
Eye Disease and Injury
This was the only part of the museum that made me squeamish. I only looked at it long enough to notice the toothpick in the eye. Luckily these were wax models and not real samples.
Chang and Eng Bunker
The museum had a cast model of Chang and Eng Bunker. Probably the most famous of all conjoined twins. We saw pictures of them at the PT Barnum museum as well. The coolest bit about these two is that between the both of them they fathered 21 children.
A View of the Museum of Awesomeness
This is a view of what the museum looks like from upstairs! It was beyond awesome, it was be-awesome! (Teehee! Ya gotta love Bolt)
Can you guess what this is?
This is disgusting, prepare yourself. This amazingly large grotesque lumpy thing just happens to be a portion of large intestine and colon. This came from the body of a man who was apparently unable to have bowel movements for quite a while. The picture of him was awful. He had a big round stomach and everything else was small or normal size. So, now I am even more inclined to take the advice of my Grandpa Dalpias who used to say of passing gas, "It is better to bare the shame than bare the pain."
Last but not Least
You can't really get a clear idea about the proportions of these figures from this picture, but the one on the left is an average size human. I saved one of the least gross things for last! =)
All, in all it was really cool and really creepy! I had so much fun! I will post more pictures from our vacation later! Things that are perhaps a lot less disturbing! =)
