Morbid Curiosities: Medical Museums in Nineteenth-Century Britain by Samuel J. M. M. Alberti (review)

Anyone who enjoys museums is curious about what goes on behind the scenes. How do objects get to their special places on storage shelves or in exhibits? How are they acquired, prepared, and preserved? How do curators choose what to display? Samuel J. M. M. Alberti’s informative and meticulously referenced book takes the reader on a comprehensive tour of the world of the nineteenth-century medical museum, following diseased objects as they move from patient to museum. He focuses on the extensive late-century collections that developed as pathology became a discrete disciplinary endeavor, separate from earlier anatomical collections. He begins and ends by considering a specimen of an ulcerated oesophagus in London’s Hunterian Museum. Tracing the specimen’s journey from an unnamed female patient, via her well-known physician, to the renowned anatomist John Hunter, Alberti describes its changes in nature and meaning. He compares the individual body parts to Marilyn Strathern’s anthropological work on “dividuals,” asking “how the dividual pathological body was constructed in medical museum displays with preserved body parts” (142).

The main narrative begins with the description of the institutions, key characters, and spaces that were central to nineteenth-century pathology. Highlighting the major centers of London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Manchester, Alberti demonstrates how museums and collections were integrated into medical education, research, and practice. Here in the first chapter, the story loses some of its energy as it becomes bogged down in details; it’s hard for the non-expert reader to keep track. The next topic, involving the ways in which diseased bodies came into those collections, the acquisition process, and the transformation from “person to thing,” is more compelling (100). Alberti makes the interesting point that the origin of pathological specimens (from living patients or through autopsy) was very different from that of anatomical specimens obtained from dissections of legally or illegally obtained corpses. Collections were also purchased, many having gained significant value through association with their collectors. Hints of humor appear in the description of the pupil of the surgeon and baronet Astley Cooper returning from a recently deceased patient with a “precious, though not over fragrant, relic of the old lady’s interior” (76).

Alberti now arrives at the museum, and begins his description of the processes and activities that take place backstage. We learn how specimens are preserved and prepared for display, and about the ways in which changes in those practices impacted the research, use, and development of collections. From drying methods to the increasing use of wet preservatives, Alberti’s detailed discussion mirrors the significant thought and care that went into deciding the exact composition of the preservative, the method of preservation, the specimen jar, sealants, and the type of labels. All of these continue to be the subject of active discussion in museums today. Interesting side notes enliven the story. For example, we learn that the University of Edinburgh anatomy museum was granted twelve gallons of whiskey a year by the city in 1800 and that, by the turn of the next century (despite the invention of formalin), British museums were using 34,000 gallons of methylated spirits per year. As morbid collections grew in relation to the anatomy collections, so too did the challenge of how to bring order to this “unruly mass” and how best to display them relative to each other, and to their anatomical counterparts (137). The story moves on to describe the ways in which these collections were arranged and interpreted in the exhibit space. Alberti provides a brief overview of the use of two-dimensional illustrations, three-dimensional models, and label and catalog texts. A photograph of one of Joseph Towne’s famous wax models at Guy’s Hospital provides the best illustration in the book. There is an interesting discussion of the display of female sexual organs and the special attention they received. [End Page...