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Reviewed by:
  • Mütter Museum: Historic Medical Photographs
  • James M. Edmonson
Laura Lindgren , ed. Mütter Museum: Historic Medical Photographs. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. New York: Blast Books, 2007. 223 pp. Ill. $50.00 (978-0-922233-28-1).

Mütter Museum: Historic Medical Photographs is a compelling demonstration of how medical museums have morphed and evolved. Created to educate medical students and advance medical science through the study of anatomy and pathology [End Page 231] collections, few medical museums actively pursue those missions today. Having relinquished their original reason for being, medical museums have in several instances been reinvented to become unique resources for understanding the medical past. Moreover, medical museum collections are now subject to reinterpretation by a new generation of caretakers. Long tended by medical men and women, medical museums are increasingly curated and directed by historians, anthropologists, and museum professionals. Their challenge consists of deriving meaning and understanding from the collections in their care and sharing this new perspective with a wider audience.

At the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, this search for a new mission and purpose took a particularly innovative tack under the inspired direction of Gretchen Worden (1947–2004). Worden charted a course for vivid engagement with the visual arts but, sadly, did not live to see the continuing fulfillment of the transformative changes that she initiated. Two recent books edited by Laura Lindgren of Blast Books showcase her achievement. The first book, entitled simply Mütter Museum, brought together the work of contemporary photographers who looked at the Mütter collections through a new lens, both literally and figuratively.1 The resulting images graced a series of remarkable calendars directed and designed by Lindgren and issued by the Mütter. This was a brilliant public relations stroke and really put the Mütter on the map, bringing Worden's vision of the museum to new audiences. By the time of her death in summer 2004, the Mütter had become a virtual brand name, a must-see tourist destination in Philadelphia, and an internationally known institution. Visitation this year may well top 100,000. The second book under review here, Mütter Museum: Historic Medical Photographs, presents the Mütter collection of historic clinical photographs in their own right. The book had been discussed and planned before Worden's death, and for Laura Lindgren, its publication constitutes an homage to a dear friend's memory. The result is at one and the same time arresting, compelling, and even troubling. In short, this book manifests the very features that draw visitors to the Mütter.

The foreword by physician and photographer Max Aguilera-Hellweg makes the case for considering the photo-documentary images that predominate in this work as a distinct genre of artwork. Gretchen Worden's introductory essay reiterates this point, noting the aesthetic as well as documentary value of photography. Her essay touches on the principal technical innovations in medical photography as well as on some of the more important publications that showcased medical images. She briefly discusses the changing conventions of medical photography, particularly the objectification of the patient in the nineteenth century. Reductionism in medicine, with attention focused first on organ, then on tissue, and then on cell, led to increasing patient anonymity or obscurity, as the malignancy or deformity diverted the focus of attention, leaving the person in the shadows. I suspect that Worden, had she lived longer, would have done considerably more [End Page 232] with a cultural analysis of the medium, as has been attempted by others, notably Stanley Burns and Erin O'Connor.2 But this work is more inspired than crafted by Worden; it is essentially Laura Lindgren's aesthetic that shaped the book, as she selected some 200 images from more than 3,000 historic medical photographs in the Mütter collection.

Organizationally, Mütter Museum: Historic Medical Photographs presents groupings of like images under thirteen distinct categories, beginning with trauma and ending with autopsy. Among these categories, one encounters intriguing appliances used to cope with deformity and infirmity; the anomalies, oddities, and curiosities that one might expect to find in a medical museum (or so...

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