When the Final Curtain Falls
Along University
Hospital Drive, a handsome sculpture of a physician comforting an ailing man
stands known to many as the place they might visit someday but never
do.
The 26
year old Hospital Museum of Surgical
Science located in P1 Level brings in 2,000 visitors
in a good year. It could soon become a much busier place as it
taps into a fascination, shown over t
he last decade, with seeing perfectly preserved human cadavers, dissected
to display the complexity
of anatomy.
The palatinate
bodies produced since the 1900’s by “Body Worlds,” a German company has
proved so popular in exhibits that competitors popped up to produce
similar displays.
One of those competitors
aids produced an exhibit called “Our Body: the Universe Within,”
which opened early this month and renamed the Surgical Science
Museum. It’s an exhibit close in
size and scope to Body Worlds and is being mounted with the hope of boosting
attendance view a
factor of three, four or more, said
Max Down ham, executive director of the International College
of Surgeons,
which own the museum. If it
does, it could become a permanent part of the museum’s
collection.
What’s
different at the Museum of Surgical Science, is that the exhibit is set among
the
permanent galleries at the surgical museum that depict the history and
evolution of medical
practice and treatment. Our curators have worked with the other curators to
place their material in
our existing galleries where our artifacts complement and enhance the displays.
In a
room devoted to the history of X-rays and medical imaging, for instance, there
is lying face
up a plasticized body of a person who stood 5 feet 6 inches
tall. Cut into 1-inch horizontal slabs
spaced a few inches apart the body stretches out to 18 feet and shows
the relationship of all the
internal organs similar to images produce by CT-scan images.
To be continued…
DR KARL WALLACE DDS To see more stories go to: karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
