From President Cleveland's tumor to Albert Einstein's brain, the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia holds an array of macabre anatomical curiosities.
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 to turn 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
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
Radium water was heavily marketed in the 1920s as a catch-all healing tonic for a variety of health problems.Mütter Museum of Philadelphia
Connoisseurs of the medical macabre have likely heard tales of the legendary Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. This world-renowned wonderland of weird is filled with anatomical oddities, pathological specimens, human curiosities, and vintage medical instruments — and the only known samples of Albert Einstein's brain.
Inside the creepy yet clinical Mütter Museum, skeletons of all shapes and sizes reside alongside 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 eight 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, such as those with drastic disfigurements who 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 Philadelphia to administer ether 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, such as Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits: Injury, Death, and Healing in Civil War Philadelphia.
This exhibit explores war injuries, from how to treat them to what it was like to experience them. It comes complete with an interactive opportunity to see what it would be like to have an arm amputated.
Another popular exhibit at the Mütter Museum is Grimm's Anatomy: Magic and Medicine, which delves into the more disturbing side of iconic fairy tales. For example, it 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 told the Metro West Daily News in 2012. "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 the curators of the museum have cited the scientific merits of the collection, and the Mütter has frequently leaned into the controversy in a tongue-in-cheek manner.
That changed, however, in September 2022, when a new executive director named Kate Quinn took over at the museum.
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 and criticizing previous directors for their alleged lack of ethical standards. Defending her choices in a 2023 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 her of snobbery, while 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."
Quinn's assertions did not stop the criticism. Online petitions emerged calling for her removal from the role. Social media feeds were rife with detractors angry at 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 Mütter's online content that they asked for their body parts back. One of those donors, Robert Pendarvis, had given his heart to the museum and worked with a previous curator to make videos about acromegaly, a rare condition he had that 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 gave the museum an unusually large noncancerous tumor that she'd had surgically removed, also reached out to the Mütter 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 donations and human remains or a piece of pottery."
Both the International Council of Museums and the American Alliance of Museums have guidelines saying that human remains have to respect the wishes of the people they came from.
The controversy continued up until April 2025. After less than three 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 her former role.
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 Mütter 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.
After seeing some of the oddities of the Mütter Museum, check out these haunting photos of insane asylum patients from the 19th century. Then, learn about P. T. Barnum's most famous sideshow oddities.
