Mütter Museum

The Mütter Museum is the place Philadelphians send friends who say they have seen everything. Run by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the country's oldest professional medical society, it began with the teaching collection that the surgeon Thomas Dent Mütter donated in the 1850s, and it has grown into a museum of medical history unlike anything else in the United States: anatomical and pathological specimens preserved in jars, skeletons, wax models, medical instruments and photographs that together tell the story of how doctors learned what they know about the human body, often from patients who had little say in the matter. The famous holdings include a large collection of human skulls assembled by the nineteenth-century anatomist Joseph Hyrtl, slides of Albert Einstein's brain, the so-called Soap Lady, the skeleton of a very tall man displayed beside much smaller ones, a cabinet of objects swallowed by patients and removed by the laryngologist Chevalier Jackson, and medical artifacts from the Civil War. The museum sits in the College's grand building at 19 South 22nd Street, a short walk west of Rittenhouse Square, and the visit includes the Benjamin Rush Medicinal Plant Garden, a quiet herb garden next door. Current special exhibitions have explored subjects from botany in the revolutionary era to art therapy, Philadelphia's history as a city of medicine and the marketing of cures. The museum opens Wednesday through Monday, roughly 10am to 5pm, with last entry an hour before close; it is closed Tuesdays apart from seasonal evening events. Photography inside the galleries has long been restricted, so plan to look rather than shoot. Admission is moderate, with discounts for youth, students, seniors and military, and young children free. One to two hours is right for most visitors.

The tone has changed in recent years, and it is worth knowing before you go. The museum's leadership has been re-examining how it displays and talks about human remains, putting more emphasis on the people behind the specimens and the ethics of collecting them, and some online content and displays have been reconsidered as a result. That does not make the visit any less memorable; it makes it more thoughtful. Expect fascinating, sometimes graphic material presented with care, and expect to come away thinking about medicine, disease and consent as much as about oddities. Many visitors find the most affecting cases are not the strangest ones but the ordinary ones: diseases now easily cured, injuries now routinely repaired, and the instruments doctors once used with no anesthesia at all. The museum is, in the end, a record of how much medicine has changed in a few generations.

Visit craft: book ahead for weekends and holidays, when the galleries get crowded, and give yourself time in the main gallery, where the densest cases are. Parents should judge their own children; the museum is visited by plenty of curious teenagers, but very young or sensitive children may find some of it distressing. Sensory-friendly sessions and accessible facilities are offered. In the warmer months the medicinal garden is a calm place to decompress afterward, and the museum has occasionally run seasonal evening programs with access to the galleries and garden.

Pairing and fit: walk east to Rittenhouse Square for coffee and a park bench, then on to the Rittenhouse shopping streets; or walk north to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the art museums. Combine it with Eastern State Penitentiary for a deliberately macabre day, or with the Franklin Institute for a science-heavy one. It suits history lovers, medical and science professionals, true-crime and oddity fans, and older kids who are fascinated by the human body.