Hunterian Museum: Morbid Curiosities

"I am not the least afraid to die”
― Charles Darwin

Look away now if you are of a delicate disposition, this place is not for the faint hearted. The Hunterian Museum is tucked away in the Royal College of Surgeons in central London.  It houses an impressive collection of human anatomy, pathology, natural history and even art history which has been collected over the last 250 years.

It has the feeling of a private museum; off the beaten track, contained within a university. This may be deliberate as the exhibits require a certain degree of respect and dignity. In the late 19th century and early 20th the college was a major research hub for human evolution. Objects within the collection have generously informed the medical world and would've undoubtedly contributed to research which has found treatments and cures for many illnesses and medical conditions.

If anything, the museum is a celebration of the beautiful and most complex of all living creatures to exist on this earth: the human being. Tracing the very early and sometimes barbaric practices of dissection in the 16th century, the specimens move through the age of science and reason to modern day medicine. 

William Hogarth
The Four Stages of Cruelty: The Reward of Cruelty 1 February 1751
Etching and engraving

This etching by 18th Century artist, Hogarth is the final print of a series entitled 'The Four Stages of Cruelty'. It was a propaganda stunt to de-romanticise criminal life and act as a deterrent. But he may have gone too far; illustrating the noose still attached to the freshly hung victim's neck and the bones of another being boiled for later study. The skeletons of dissected criminals were usually refused a Christian burial and subsequently displayed as specimens, as can be seen in the niches to the left and right. Originally a surgeon did not study like a physician; instead they carried out apprenticeships and attended public dissections. However, it did seem that at the time there were simply not enough executions to meet the demand for public dissection.  'Body snatching' was a common practice; some criminals going so far as to murder people to sell their bodies to science. Can you imagine this type of thing going on in the UK today?

The skeleton of the 'Irish Giant', Charles Byrne who stood at 7ft 7"

I found the story of Charles Byrne quite moving. His exaggeratedly elongated skeleton peers over you from a glass case. Born in Co.Tyrone in the north of Ireland in 1763, Byrne soon became known as 'The Irish Giant', and eventually toured with a traveling show in England where people would pay to come face to face with this 7ft 7"  (2.31m) titanic figure.  It was later discovered that he suffered from the then unknown condition Giantism, which is when a tumor develops in the pituitary gland causing an overproduction of the growth hormone. This meant that his bones kept growing past adolescence and into adulthood. Though Byrne did not live very long, dying at the young age of 22, he was all too aware of vulturous demand for his corpse amongst the medical world and his dying wish was to be buried at sea. 

However, sadly his body was sold to John Hunter, a wealthy and prestigious surgeon and collector of medical curios for the sum of £500. One journal allegedly said that on his death,

"The whole tribe of surgeons put in a claim for the poor departed Irishman and surrounded his house just as harpooners would an enormous whale."

But what did humans do before science? How have we managed to survive and multiply when so much has been against us? I found myself quite moved by the whole museum experience in ways that I had not anticipated. There is a part of me, as in all humans that is morbidly fascinated by such things. I don't believe that it is a type voyeurism, but rather a fear of death and a search for answers to our questions of immorality. This is not only relevant to our own fatality but that of our loved ones. You find yourself being slightly disturbed by what you're seeing and yet you can't look away. Personally, I wouldn't fancy some of my body parts petrified in a glass jar, bleached by formaldehyde and on public display. But then again, medicine wouldn't be where it is today if it were not for the collection and study of these specimens.

Skull and photograph of a Tasmanian Tiger, now extinct.

There is a small section of the museum which houses specimens of species that are under threat or now extinct. Some were collected over 100 years before and include that of a Dodo, Panda Bear, Polar Bear and Mountain Gorilla. There is also the skull of a Tasmanian tiger. After the colonization of mainland Australia these animals became unique only to it's offshore state, Tasmania. They were called 'tigers' because of the stripes across their backs, however the Thylacine was actually the largest of the carnivorous marsupials. The very last one (pictured above in the photograph behind the skull) sadly died in captivity in 1936, after a barbaric 200 year campaign to demonize the unfortunate creatures and trophy-hunt them to extinction.

After two hours of being faced with cross sections of great anatomical detail:  from a series of foetus showing the stages of gestation, which were both fascinating and upsetting, to  diseased petrified and peni in glass specimen jars, my stomach had just about had enough. I was feeling a little peckish before I'd come to the museum, but by 4pm I had lost my appetite completely and swore never to touch a piece of meat again.

The place is a fascinating Aladdin's cave of pathology and natural science and should satisfy anyone's morbid curiosity and teach you to take better care of yourself.

London: Southbank

Today was the first Wednesday I have had free in a long time and I spent it with Aimeé Matthew-St.John, who not only has a wonderful name but is also a very talented and newly fledged fashion designer. We visited the National Theater in London's Southbank to view the life's work of the innovative and rather fun British fashion photographer, Norman Parkinson. The first images we came across had been taken at locations nearby, which I had just passed on my bus journey to Waterloo, but in the distant past; in the 1950s.

Inspired by Parkinson's photography, the dramatic modernist concrete setting of the National Theater and stimulating conversation about fashion, photography and the promise of my first summer in London. I found myself snapping happily away at the many distracting unborn photographs that seemed to surround me from the book market under Waterloo bridge to the reflective puddles and windows. Here are some of the images I took today, which had the rather ominous date of 13-3-13. The day Pope Francis the 1st was elected and hopefully one of the final days of winter.

 

Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green, London

The V&A Museum of Childhood is located in Bethnal Green, in east London. It houses artefacts and memorabilia associated with children's daily lives dating from the last 400 years. It's fascinating for both adults and children. The space is open and highly accessible. When I visited it earlier today, whilst peering through these glass cases crammed with puppets, ragged glass eyed dolls and moth eaten teddy bears, the sound of the children in the museum was an almost ethereal din of the ghosts of the little ones who once created and played with many of the exhibits.

It's a really touching place, full of toys that were hand made by loving parents and friends for children whose imaginations must have thrived on the stimulating objects put before them. It traces how children learn from play, whether it's a doll that gives birth to a new baby, a specimen kit or a 17th century doll's house that teaches little girls good house keeping skills. 

Noah's Arc

The one question that did strike me as I left was that in this 'computer age', is our imagination being stimulated enough? Nowadays everything is produced using computer programs, before people made puppets and models by hand, children played with toys, created objects, experimented instead of sitting on a couch for hours playing computer games or watching TV. Play is such an important way of developing our creativity, everyone has that potential, and it's up to the child's parents to nurture it.

Because, in the past, toys were so expensive to buy, people appeared to be more inventive and resourceful making things instead from wood, leather or paper. Basically whatever was available at the time. Perhaps I am looking at my childhood through rose tinted glasses, but I do recall being overjoyed when my parents purchased a new washing machine because I could then make a house from the enormous cardboard box it was delivered in. I cut out windows, made curtains, painted bricks onto the outside and decorated the interior with a lamp, table and cloth; all very civilized. I was basically creating my own home from the only template I knew, my parent's home. The fact that so many of the exhibits were in fact doll's houses just illustrates the fact how important a home is to a child. 

Photography by Alva

Home, Head and Heart

Photography by Alva

Patti Smith: Style Icon

"Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine"

So far I've listed the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and American musician Stevie Nicks amongst my style icons. Next up is American singer/song writer, poet, artist and writer Patti Smith. Even though they are each so different, it's their sense of identity that intrigues me. All of them are extremely strong women who survived many hardships using their art as a vehicle to carry them through their ups and downs. Their style was yet another mode of expression for these innately creative women.

Patti Smith's style is one that evolved over time, when she was young she never considered herself beautiful because of her tall and square boyish frame which is now the main template for any fashion model. She felt awkward and shy. When she arrived in New York from Chicago in the early 1970s she soon hooked up with her first love, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who was also lost and on the run from life, and like Patti traveling there in search of some kind of fatalistic dream. The reality was that they both spent some time sleeping on  streets and in parks, desperately trying to survive. They eventually found their place amongst the bohemian clientele at the famous Chelsea Hotel. There they rubbed shoulders with up and coming musicians, writers and artists.

It was an experience that helped Patti find herself first and foremost as a poet, then later as a performer and musician. Her hair style which she chopped herself was influenced by Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones. Her clothes were collected from thrift stores and bizarres, however they hung on her square frame effortlessly. She has always been associated with an androgynous look, from the portrait of her taken by Robert on the cover of her debut album 'Horses'. She always loved to experiment and was never scared of how people would judge her appearance. Perhaps after a long time of feeling like a misfit and an outsider she felt that she belonged more within the male dominated punk rock scene in 1970s New York. She came out of her shell and fused poetry, performance art and music in her electrical stage performances. She was and still is undoubtedly a free spirit channeling her creative expression through her art and her very own distinctive identity.

Wilderness by Patti Smith

Do animals make a human cry
when their loved one staggers
fowled dragged down
the blue veined river

Does the female wail
miming the wolf of suffering
do lilies trumpet the pup
plucked for skin and skein

Do animals cry like humans
as I having lost you
yowled flagged
curled in a ball

This is how
we beat the icy field
shoeless and empty handed
hardly human at all

Negotiating a wilderness
we have yet to know
this is where time stops
and we have none to go 

At 66, Patti is still writing, she recently published a biography called 'Just Kids' about her early years in New York and her complex and intense relationship with Robert whom she has described as "the artist of my life". She is also still performing live with her band, they will be touring Europe in 2013 to promote her newest album, 'Banga' (Believe or explode), which was released in early June 2012 with critical acclaim.