Body parts and pickled bits

Listen to an edited
recording of this event.
Download an
MP3.
Simon Chaplin, Head of the Wellcome Library and
former Curator of the Hunterian Museum, explored the intriguing and
often gruesome story of anatomy museums, dissection and specimens
with Quentin Cooper. The mystery object was the preserved femur of
Frederick Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 1783.
It is part of the Hunterian Museum collection and was preserved by
John Hunter after a post mortem he carried out on the
Archbishop. Hunter subsequently displayed it (to the public, as
well as to medical students) in his museum in Leicester Square.
This event was recorded live at Wellcome Collection on 28
September 2011.