The collection of Dr. Thomas Mütter begat this funhouse of morbid curiosity, which currently houses over 20,000 specimens of medical abnormalities in downtown Philadelphia.
A human head from the 1930s on display.ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo
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Tonics and serums used to treat the wounded during the Civil War. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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The skeletal remains of a fetus.ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo
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Various Milagros, or votive offerings, from the museum's collection. These items are religious folk charms often used to heal the body parts they depict. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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The death cast of Chang and Eng Bunker, the "original" Siamese twins.
Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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Jewelry that belonged to Carol Ann Orzel, a woman born with Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP).
FOP is a condition that causes the body to grow bone in places it normally would not. The genetic mutation causes the body's ligaments, tendons, and muscles into bone, meaning that over time all of the joints in a person's skeletal system will become fused.
A permanent exhibit dedicated to Carol Ann Orzel and Harry Eastlack, who also had the condition, is on display at the museum.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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Staff at an anonymous medical school found this jar in a closet, which contains a stillborn conjoined twin study specimen from the 19th century. They donated it to the Mütter Museum.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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During a cholera outbreak in 1849, members of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia preserved and examined specimens of intestines from cholera patients, and in 2013 this strain was finally identified.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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A bust depicting a man with a facial tumor, part of Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter's original collection from when he was teaching at Jefferson College. When he started the museum, this was among the first donations.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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These human hands from the 19th century collection of Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter show the effects of a condition called gout - an ailment Mütter suffered from himself later in life. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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This embalming kit dates from the turn of the 20th century. Before then most Americans regarded embalming as a pagan custom but during the Civil War when soldiers were dying far away, freelance embalmers performed this pricey service in order to bring the bodies home. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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The Soap Lady is the name given to this mummified woman whose body was exhumed in Philadelphia in 1875; unique because a fatty substance called adipocere encases the remains - essentially turning her into soap.Harry Fisher/Allentown Morning Call/MCT via Getty Images
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An X-ray image of the Soap Lady.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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Dr. Joseph Leidy examined the Soap Lady's body at the time she was exhumed and determined that she must have died during the yellow fever epidemic in the 1790s.
Later analysis in 1987, however, revealed that her clothing had buttons that were not made in the United States until the 1830s. She also likely died in her 20s. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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Genital warts strung like a necklace for easier study in the lab by doctors in the 19th century. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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A preserved dura mater, the outermost of the three meninges, tough membranes that protect the brain and spinal cord.ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo
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The fin of a giant turtle. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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The skeleton of conjoined twins.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia/Reddit
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A trichobezoar, or a dense deposit formed in the stomach from hair and other minerals, from a cow that was among the studious materials of Dr. Edward Jenner, the man who worked to create a smallpox vaccine by studying cowpox. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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Parts of Einstein’s brain ended up with researchers all over the world but for decades after its 1955 removal, pathologist Thomas Harvey kept his Einstein brain sections in two mason jars within a cider box.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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A dissected head and neck wax model on display at the Mütter Museum. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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One large display room at the Mütter Museum.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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A Torbena water crock that once held radium water. These jugs were made in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to allow people to transport radium ore and irradiate water placed inside.
Radium water was heavily marketed in the 1920s as a catch-all healing tonic for a variety of health problems.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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Circa 1870, this heirloom medical tool set for post-mortem dissection was passed down through generations of physicians in the Leavitt family of Philadelphia - and donated to the museum in 1975.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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A skillful anatomist cut away the outer bone layers of this child’s skull (with normal tooth development) to show the structure of the adult teeth sometime before 1941. The donor is unknown.
Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
The Hyrtl Skull exhibit at the Mütter Museum of Philadelphia. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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Dried hands are part of The Grimm's Anatomy exhibit at the Mütter Museum, reiterating the morbidity of the fairy tales that spawned the child-friendly versions we hear today. Harry Fisher/Allentown Morning Call/MCT via Getty Images
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This Esmarch inhaler anesthesia kit contains a glass flask, inhaler, and tongue forceps; these were popular during the 1840s in Great Britain and the United States for military and civilian use - even up to the 1950s.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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This wax model is an important medical teaching tool from the 1800s, and shows the ravages of late-stage syphilis on human flesh. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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Museum-goers may balk at this full, human large intestine from 1892, but the dried organ is filled with stuffing, not old waste; it represents congenital aganglionic megacolon - or chronic constipation - which the sufferer (coined “Balloon Man”) died from.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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A jar of dried human skin, donated in 2009, belonged to a 23-year-old woman who saved skin she peeled off her feet; it serves as a visual representation of the mental disorder Dermatillomania, the compulsive need to pick at the skin.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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The tools in this set were used for bloodletting, a medical practice used extensively in the United States until the mid 19th century to supposedly prevent or cure diseases.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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The Mütter Museum houses a collection of painful-looking eyes modeled in wax (purchased in 1882 from the Paris firm of Maison Tramond) as a teaching tool for medical students to learn how to diagnose eye conditions. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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The Mütter Museum acquired these human skulls from Viennese anatomist Joseph Hyrtl in 1874. Hyrtl's attempt to counter phrenology claims led him to collect 139 of them. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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This carbolic acid steam atomizer, developed by Lord Joseph Lister (1827-1912), produced a cloying, sweet-smelling cloud of atomized germ-killing carbolic acid that soaked the surrounding area - even the surgeon.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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A wax model of a mysteriously appearing human horn (cornu cutaneum) which was successfully removed after six years of growth from Parisian widow Madame Dimanche in the early 19th century.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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Pennsylvania laryngologist Chevalier Jackson (1865–1958), used this cloth doll named “Michelle,” with a child-sized trachea and esophagus to demonstrate his non-surgical techniques for removing foreign objects from the throats of children.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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The mother of these 19th century twins had hydramnios, a condition where one fetus crowds out the other; upon the healthy birth of one boy, a tiny, compressed second fetus was revealed in the placenta, which is studied for clues about fetal development.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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During the Civil War, many soldiers’ amputated limbs or bodies got buried, but Union surgeons managed to save some for research purposes; here are a partial pelvis and a right hand originally prepared for the Army Medical Museum in Washington, DC.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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A donated ovarian cyst weighing 74 pounds when it was surgically removed in 1865. Surprisingly it is not the largest cyst recorded - an astounding 182-lb cyst was removed from a Shanghai woman one year prior in 1864.
Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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The family of Dr. Benjamin Rush donated his heirloom medical chest. Rush was a premier physician practicing at the Pennsylvania Hospital from 1783 until his death in 1813. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
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This wet specimen of a colon infected with Dysentery (severe diarrhea with bleeding) - a common ailment in the late 19th and early 20th century - was for lab study. Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
25 Medical Oddities On Display At The Mütter Museum
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Connoisseurs of the medical macabre have likely heard tales of the legendary Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This world-renowned wonderland of weird is filled with anatomical oddities, pathological specimens, human curiosities, and vintage medical instruments — along with the only known samples of Albert Einstein's brain.
Inside the creepy yet clinical Mütter Museum, skeletons of all shapes and sizes reside as well as President Grover Cleveland's jaw tumor, deformed babies in jars, and preserved organs of all kinds.
While its contents may resemble a mad scientist's funhouse, the museum's roots actually pay tribute to one of the most humane, respected, and talented surgeons in American history.
The Man Behind The Museum, Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter
The National Library of MedicineThomas Dent Mütter in the 1830s.
Born in Virginia in 1811, Thomas Dent Mütter was orphaned at just 8 years old and went on to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania's medical school in 1831. Dr. Mütter opened his own office shortly thereafter and his unique empathy as a young surgeon quickly garnered many loyal patients around Philadelphia.
The good doctor was inclined to help even the most hopeless of cases; those with drastic disfigurements that most people considered "monsters." He also became renowned for his knowledge and ability to treat rare conditions, and he would be the first surgeon in the United States to administer anesthesia to patients.
Over the course of his career, Thomas Mütter amassed a large collection of research materials along with medical oddities and anomalies that he used to teach his students as a professor. This wide array of specimens would be what first populated the museum when it opened in 1863, just four years after his death from gout and lung disease.
Inside The Mütter Museum Of Medical Oddities
It started with 1,700 objects and the famed doctor's donation of $30,000. The museum has since grown to over 25,000 specimens along with a vast literary and research collection that's maintained by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
Public DomainThe entrance to the Mütter Museum on 22nd Street in the Center City neighborhood of Philadelphia.
There are both permanent and special exhibitions, including the Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits: Injury, Death, and Healing in Civil War Philadelphia.
This exhibit explores war injuries: how to treat them and what it was like experience them. It comes complete with an interactive opportunity to see what it would be like to have an arm amputated.
Of all the exhibits in the Mütter Museum, the Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits might be the most emotionally wrenching. It contains letters, surgical tools, and samples of weaponry designed to rip the human body to shreds.
Another popular exhibit at the Mütter Museum is Grimm's Anatomy: Magic and Medicine, which delves into the more disturbing side of the iconic fairy tales. For example, the exhibit explores how German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's version of Cinderella draws visceral parallels to the tradition of Chinese foot-binding.
"So many of the Grimms' fairy tales deal with the corporeal human body, whether dealing with sicknesses or a magical transformation or the various unpleasant things that can happen to the body," curator Anna Dhody tells The Metro West Daily News. "Quite often, there is no happily ever after."
Controversial Leadership Change And Re-Examination Of Museum Exhibits
Of course, there are detractors who find the Mütter Museum's macabre exhibitions to be in poor taste. The question of ethics surrounding the display of actual human bodies has been raised numerous times, but most often curators of the museum have cited the scientific merits of the museum's collection, and the museum has frequently leaned into the controversy a bit in a tongue-in-cheek manner.
That changed, however, in September 2022, when the museum acquired a new executive director named Kate Quinn.
Mütter Museum of PhiladelphiaKate Quinn, the controversial former director of the Mütter Museum.
Almost immediately upon her arrival, Quinn made a series of controversial decisions that reignited the debate over the collection's ethics, including pulling most of the museum's online content for review included criticizing previous directors of their alleged lack of ethical standards. Defending her choices in an interview with Philadelphia magazine, Quinn said, "I still do believe in the power of collections to teach. But the ethics have to be at the forefront of what you're doing."
Quinn's decisions drew instant criticism. Some accused Quinn of snobbery, others said she was ignoring the museum's historical significance in order to push an agenda. The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed from a former head of the College titled "Cancel Culture Comes for Philly's Weirdest Museum." Employees began speaking out anonymously about their tense relationship with the new director — with one report stating that 13 employees had resigned within Quinn's first nine months in the position.
"I think anyone who is in this role and coming in at this time would be the face of change," Quinn said. "It's not me coming in and saying, We have to change everything. Society is changing around us."
Whether society was indeed changing in a way that disagreed with Quinn's changes, though, her assertion did not stop the criticism. Online petitions emerged calling for her removal from the role, as well as the removal of Mira Irons as the CEO of the College. Social media feeds were rife with detractors critical of the changes being made at the Mütter Museum — many of whom accused Quinn of simply disliking the museum as a concept, which Quinn denied.
In June 2024, WHYY reported that two donors to the museum — not financial donors, but people who donated their body parts — were so upset about the removal of the museum's online content that they asked for their body parts back. One of those donors, Robert Pendarvis, had donated his heart to the museum and worked with a previous curator to make videos about acromegaly, a rare condition he had which causes organs, bones, and tissue to grow beyond the average size.
Pendarvis showed those videos to medical providers to help educate them on the condition. When the videos were taken down and he asked for his heart back, he said, "I didn't come across this decision lightly. It's just that they're not letting it be in use for the reason why I gave it to the museum... I think they are actually more disrespectful to donors that have donated to the museum for education, and the education aspect of their donation is being squashed."
Mütter Museum of PhiladelphiaStaff complained to HR regularly about disputes with Quinn during her tenure.
Another donor, Rachel Lance, who donated an unusually large noncancerous tumor that she'd had surgically removed, also reached out to the museum to ask about her donation. Recounting the phone call she had with Quinn, she said:
"The things that she said to me during that phone call were in my opinion extremely alarming: For example, she told me that once a museum has tissue they could do whatever they want with it. There's no need for them to be responsible to any governing authority or the people who donated it. She verbatim told me that she sees no difference between human donation sand human remains or a piece of pottery."
Both the International Council of Museums and the American Alliance Museums have guidelines saying that human remains have to respect the wishes of the people and communities where the remains came from.
The controversy continued up until April 2025. After just two and a half years in the position, Quinn stepped down and the College of Physicians announced that science historians Erin McLeary and Sara Ray would be taking over Quinn's former role. This followed another change with the College earlier in the year, when thoracic surgeon Dr. Larry Kaiser took over as CEO.
Speaking to WHYY after the leadership shakeup in 2025, one current employee said that the staff were thrilled about Quinn's departure: "We are now in a position where we have the right people in place to move forward with that information in a way that is responsible, and is true to the nature of the museum and the collection, and is not going to be a kind of destructive process."
Certainly, museums must change with the times, but if Quinn's tenure as director is anything to go by, both the museum's staff and patrons agree that the institution, although macabre, is of important historical and scientific value. Hopefully, current and future directors keep this in mind.
An All That's Interesting writer since 2013, Erin Kelly focuses on historic places, natural wonders, environmental issues, and the world of science. Her work has also been featured in Smithsonian and she's designed several book covers as a graphic artist.
A staff writer for All That's Interesting, Austin Harvey has also had work published with Discover Magazine, Giddy, and Lucid covering topics on mental health, sexual health, history, and sociology. He holds a Bachelor's degree from Point Park University.
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Kelly, Erin. "25 Medical Oddities On Display At The Mütter Museum." AllThatsInteresting.com, September 13, 2018, https://allthatsinteresting.com/mutter-museum. Accessed July 10, 2025.