Margaret Mitchell

Are surgical museums such as the Hunterian doomed?

The redesigned Hunterian rightly hasn't hidden away its 2,000 specimen jars – but the ethics of such displays are increasingly being questioned

The redesigned Hunterian concentrates on the wonders of surgery rather than the museum’s doomed Eurocentrism. © Hufton+Crow  
issue 27 May 2023

I have a soft spot for specimen jars and skeletal remains. Museums of natural history, surgical pioneering or anthropological oddities have always struck me as equally suitable for lunch breaks and first dates as for serious study and research. As far as public and casually accessible encounters with mortality go, these kinds of museums are the most straightforward way of confronting the realities of human nature.

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