Morbid Curiosities Medical Museums in Nineteenth-Century Britain [Hardcover]

Morbid Curiositiesis the first comprehensive study of nineteenth-century medical museums in Britain. It traces the afterlives of diseased body parts, asking how they came to be in these collections, what happened to them there, and who used them.

Pathologists dismembered the dead body and preserved it, whether by injection or by storage in fluid, thereby transforming it into material culture. Thus fragmented body parts followed complex paths - harvested from hospital wards, given to a prestigious institution, or once again fragmented at auction. Human remains acquired new meanings as they were exchanged and, once in museums, specimens were re-integrated to form a physical map of disease. Curators juxtaposed organic specimens with paintings, photographs, and models, and rendered them legible with extensive catalogues - paper, wax, and text formed a series of overlapping systems. They were intended to standardize the educational experience that was the ostensible purpose of most of the museums, and yet visitors refused to be policed, responding powerfully, whether with wonder or disgust.

Morbid Curiositiesis a history of the material culture of medical knowledge, from prepared human remains to models, illustrations, and even architectural pillars and galleries.

1. Introduction: A Parliament of Monsters
2. Situating Pathology: A Cultural Cartography
3. Collecting Pathology: Fragmentation and the Traffic in Morbid Flesh
4. Preserving Pathology: Craft and Technique in the Medical Museum
5. Displaying Pathology: Maps of Morbidity
6. Viewing Pathology: Medical Museums and their Visitors
7. Conclusion: A Catalogue of Errors
Select Bibliography

As both a museum professional and a historian, Samuel J. M. M. Alberti is excellently placed to writeMorbid Curiosities, a well-researched and engaging contribution to this growing field centered on nineteenth-century medical museums in Britain...Morbid Cl��