PROFESSION

Magical medical tour: The quirky collections of healing

From hairballs to bloody tables from the Civil War, the country's medical museums are reminders of how far medicine has come.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. July 12, 2004.

Summer has hit its stride, and vacation ideas are filling your head. The Statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon and Disney World might be on the list.

But what about the hairball in Washington, D.C.? Or the amputation devices in North Carolina that were used to cut off a Civil War general's arm? And don't forget a U.S. Supreme Court justice's bladder stones in Philadelphia.

These and other morsels of medical history can be found at medical museums, which provide an entertaining and informative reminder that medicine has come a long way in a short time.

So whether you're a serious historian or simply looking to explore the stranger side of early medicine, here are some places to consider.

One of three hairballs at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., is a stomach-size clump of hair removed during surgery from a 12-year-old girl. Since age 6, she had suffered from trichophagia, an emotional disorder that caused her to eat her hair.

That's just one of the unusual sights at a museum with 24 million specimens and artifacts.

"You've got hairballs. You've got an elephantiasis leg. If there's something here that doesn't interest you or gross you out, we haven't done our job," said Jim Connor, PhD, the museum's assistant director.

The museum is home to one of the world's largest collections of fluid-preserved and other human specimens. Its anatomical collections contain more than 5,000 skeletal specimens and about 8,000 preserved organs, documenting cases of disease and injury.

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