Sherman's Travel

Somewhere between the liver shared by history’s most famous set of conjoined twins and the wall of eye abnormalities, I learned that not all museums are created equal. I was in my late teens when I first visited the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia and had already developed a pretty opinion of museums as being stuffy and dull. The museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, however, showed me how wrong I was. Ever since that visit, it has remained one of my favorite venues for science, history, and, well, weirdness. I revisited the museum last fall and marveled once again at the collection that amazes, flabbergasts, and often disgusts many visitors. Part science museum, part history museum, with a dash of carnival slideshow thrown in, the Mütter Museum is far from your average place of learning. That’s part of it’s charm, though. Beyond that, it’s also a tribute to how much doctors and scientists have learned about the human body over the centuries. Read more