June 22, 2023 • 56 mins
This week Alyx and Robin are joined by Hanna Polasky MSc to talk about the Protect the Mütter petition that's going around! We talk a lot about the ethics of museums and having human remains in museums. A link to the petition that has some more information about what's going on will be posted on our Facebook and Instagram pages @strangetalkradio and follow @protectthemutter for up to date information
Music for this episode includes the Strange Talk Intro by Star Silk, Get Out by Karl Casey, and backing tracks by LoFiGeek.
Music for this episode includes the Strange Talk Intro by Star Silk, Get Out by Karl Casey, and backing tracks by LoFiGeek.
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Episode Transcript
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What you see. Good evening andwelcome to the hour dedicated to talk about
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things strange, weird and paranormal.You're listening to Strange Talk, broadcasting on
sixteen sixty AM in north Side ninetyone point seven af FM HG two to
v X you and Cincinnati. We'realso streaming at Radio Artifact dot com around
the entire planet roof. The intertrackto this episode is the Strange Chalk intro
by Starsiak And I'm your host,Alex and I'm Robin and we have a
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guest with us. You would liketo introduce yourself. Hi, my name
is Hannah Pulaski. I am thecurrent curader for British Online Archives. Yeah,
and part of why we had youon to day is we wanted to
talk about the Mujor Museum because I'veshared a couple of posts on our pages
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just kind of talking about what's goingon there right now and why it's so
important to preserve that museum. Yeah. And I'm qualified to discuss that because
I was an intern there and thena volunteer for three years and have never
really quite left. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and yeah, that's part
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of why I reached out to you. Background, just for anybody who's listening
who may not know what the mutuormuseum is is. It's a medical science
museum. It is open to thepublic. You do not currently have to
be a doctor to go there.And yeah, so I've shared a couple
of things. There's a petition goingaround to kind of try to preserve the
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museum right now because they're making alot of changes and like I know,
like the online archives have been likegutted. The biggest issue is that they're
not really engaging in any sort ofconversation any of their stakeholders. Yes,
these the online archive was gutted withno warning. The YouTube channel deleted all
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of its videos with no warning.Um their online exhibit, Memento Mooder,
was also deleted with no warning andno communication as to why until I started
and when I started talking about it. For listeners who aren't go of course,
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I was sorry. As I say, for listeners who aren't aren't familiar
with the Mooder Museum, could youjust give a brief background, a little
bar m The Mooder Museum is ownedby the College of Physicians Philadelphia, which
is one of the oldest medical institutionsin the country. It is considered the
birthplace of American medicine. The Mooditself was created in the early eighteen sixties
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with the collection of doctor Thomas D. Mooder, who was aware that he
was becoming ill and would no longerbe alive shortly after that. His original
stipulations for the collection would that thecollection be used for teaching and the furthering
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of medical science and reducing the sufferingof humanity. That medical professionals, medical
students, and artists be allowed toview the collection, and that nothing be
removed from the collection. So allof doctor MUD's original collection is still held
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by the museum. The collection includesmany residents who are whose stories are known,
and many of whom their stories areunknown. The Mood has grown to
encompass many different types of collections,many different object artifacts, and people.
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It has meant many things to manypeople over the years, and has since
opened to the public. It hasaround one hundred and eighty thousand visitors annually,
or it did before COVID, andyou can still see a lot of
the original people and objects on displaythat we're there in the eighteen sixties.
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What an awesome overview. My apologiesfor interrupting you there, But it's such
such a fascinating locations. It's alittle good bit of background for people who
maybe haven't heard of the museum,and we'll want to check it out.
Yeah, they used to have anamazing online presence. Their Instagram used to
have super educational posts, usually notwith the residents of the collection, but
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also but mostly with medicines or toolsthat may not make great displays but really
work well for social media and threesixty viewing. They used to have a
YouTube channel that had hundreds of thousandsof subscribers, and some of their videos
had like millions of hits because theywere always a little bit silly, always
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scientifically accurate, and always historically accurate. But sometimes learning about the past is
kind of hard to listen to,so making it a little bit more palatable
while still being respectful is usually warranted. That's all disappeared. So yeah.
I even was looking online today forsomething that I had seen forever ago on
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the website and it's not there anymore. And I was just like, okay,
great, And they had not madea statement about it until I started
posting on my medical history account calledpox and Frocks on Instagram and until people
started genuinely being outraged, because thebiggest issue here is the lack of communication
and the lack of transparency surrounding anychanges that a museum makes, because you
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have so many members, so manystakeholders, so many people who were invested
in the collection, and to notinform them of decisions that you're making is
not ideal to say the least.Yeah, privately or publicly funded. It
is a nonprofit that is owned bythe College of Physicians of Philadelphia, So
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I don't actually know how that breakupgoes. Okay, interesting, you know
that. So they're basically they've justdone sweeping changes without really engaging the community
or or talking to people. Andthat's it was only it was only after
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I started posting that they said anythingabout their being any type of ethics review
or accreditation being pursued. And thatto me tells you a lot. Now,
when you say when you use theterm residence, I'm assuming that you're
referring to the bodies of the diseasedto have components in the museum. Yeah,
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I like to use the term residencefor them because for a lot of
those people, you see their faces, you might they might be skeletal faces,
but you are looking at a personand you're learning their story, and
so they become very real people toyou. When you work there, you
don't just look at that old skeletonover there. You're looking at Mary Ashbury
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and you are learning her story andworking with her, not using her for
research, but working with her tohelp figure out more of her story.
I think it's a very respectful wayto think about it. Actually, It's
the way that a lot of thestaff when I was working there, definitely
did think about the people in themuseum. They are not objects. They
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are one hundred percent residents who areloved and charable, and I honestly I
think that's the best thing can lookat that, because I mean, like,
these were people, like you said, and I mean they still are
people, They're just not alive anymore, right. And when you work with
the dead in any sort of capacity, and I have a master's degree in
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paleopathology, so you are reconstructing storieseither of known individuals and trying to figure
out how different diseases help, likehinder them or affected the body, or
you are trying to piece together storyfrom archaeological remains, and there isn't much
difference other than having to physically piecetogether a person or getting to look at
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the person already together for you.Now, there's a lot of nuances that
come with that, I think,and it's can become very easy to overgeneralize
in situations, especially with emotional topicslike death or human remains, you know,
and there's a lot of cultural taboosthat come with that, both in
our own culture and in other cultures. But it's you know, as long
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as you're being respectful to the culturewhere the residents come from this, you
know, it's it's huge benefit forpeople to be able to see that,
not just artists and doctors. Ithink. Yeah, I have always been
of the opinion that while some peoplethink that it's uncomfortable or morbid or not
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ideal, I have always felt thatit's better to bring a child to a
museum like the Mooder and introduce theconcept of death in a non emotional way,
in a non traumatic way, becauseyou give a child the chance to
process the idea before they experience aloss, and you're allowing them to pursue
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the idea of learning from the deceasedas well as from the living. Because
in the current society we live in, most of us will not ever engage
with a dead body on any meaningfullevel. Most of us are not dying
at home. We die in hospitals. We really aren't being prepared for burial
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by our family and our friends.We are being prepared for burial by a
more kissian And you might see someoneat awake, but that is very different
than seeing someone who lived more thana hundred years ago and still getting to
learn from them, and especially like, yeah, what you said, getting
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kids introduced that concept early. I'mlike a big fan of trying to kind
of change the narrative with death.People don't talk about death. They're really
terrified of it. But I genuinelythink it's healthier for people if you acknowledge
it, because I mean, it'severybody dies at some point. It's going
to happen. There is no wayto outrun that. And the earlier you
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can kind of start processing that andkind of learning to accept it and like
kind of making it part of yourlife. Honestly, it's kind of one
of the healthier things you can do. And it's become part of the narrative
that has been published surrounding the MooderMuseum that they no longer want to focus
on death, but rather on healthand wellbeing. And firstly, I would
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like to say that the museum hasnever focused on death. It just happens
to post some dead residence. Butits focus that it has always focused on
health and medicine, and health andwell being are not the antithesis of death.
Death is a part of medicine.We wouldn't have the medical advancements we
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do now without the assistance of cadavers. Absolutely, I think that there's a
very large avoidance of anything that evenhas a peripheral connection to death in Western
culture in a lot of ways,especially that you get you get to a
certain point where it's just like youtry to avoid thinking about it, talking
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about it. You always want toact like you're going to live forever.
And that's not that's not psychologically orspiritually healthy. And you don't have a
lot of even with you know,certain certain spiritual or psychological programs. Thanatology
isn't something that's really in my opinion, it's it's not something that people still
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like to talk about. In alot of case i'd agree, I mean,
it really speaks volumes that the peoplein charge of the museum currently have
such a misconception of the purpose ofthe museum that they are sort of comparing
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it to a museum death, whenit is in fact a museum of the
history of medicine, which happens toincorporate some death, but it is not
focused on death. Yeah. Speakingof one of the things that I've been
reposting is there is a petition goingaround. Let me just let me see
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if I can bring it up realquick, because the petition kind of has
a lot of the changes that peopleare hoping will be made with the museum
in there. What is it?I don't there's changes that we hope will
be reversed that too, Yeah,actually, yeah, Or if you wanted
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to talk about some of the pointsin that petition, sure I can.
So this petition was created by agroup of people who first and foremost to
acknowledge that there are issues inherent withina museum of medical history, that there
are going to be topics that needmore context, and we are very well
aware that there are exhibits within themuseum that are lacking that context at the
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moment. But that aside. Oneof the things that we were very aware
of In different interviews, it hasbeen stated that both the leadership of the
Muder Museum are looking to remove theterritology collection from display. Now to give
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a little explanation as to what territologyis, because I do not expect anyone
who does not work at the MoodMuseum to have really ever encountered that word.
It's historic dictionary definition would be thestudy of monsters. What that really
means is the study of congenital malformationsand people who have genetic differences. And
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that is to put it in verysimple terms, it is the fetal and
infant displays at the museum. Thosemay make some people uncomfortable, but they
also shed a lot of light ontoplaces to people we have never met,
at people we could not have met, people who we now can meet.
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They allow people to explore a lotof the history of science and medical advancements
or the displays wholly unproblematic. No, they do need more contextualization, but
the solution is not to remove themfrom display. In the petition, we
ask that the YouTube get put backup with all of its videos. We
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ask that Memento mootor the online exhibitof forty nine objects and residents from the
museum get put backed up. Thereare several other asks that I cannot off
the top of my head. Tellyou hold on, I can pull up
the petition because I have that tabconstantly open. Oh nice, Yeah,
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I was trying to pull it up. I was like, I know it's
in here somewhere. Yeah. No, it's always up on my phone.
So we also want to make surethat with any sort of ethics review that
the museum commits to an inclusive anddiverse RESI representation on museum review committees,
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including members of the Medical Museum,research and sability communities because and the reason
for that is because the museum isno longer a buy physician for a physician
place. Its reputation and scope exceedthe bounds of the medical gays and embraces
our beautifully imperfect humanity. We askthe museum to commit to increase in better
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communication both internally and externally. AsI've said, one of the biggest issues
is that no one was communicated withabout these changes in advance of them being
made. Yes, we also askthat especially the members of the museum and
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the members of the public, butspecifically people who are donating to the museum
annually are engaged in a discussion aboutthese changes because the museum provides about forty
percent of the revenue of the Collegeof Positions of Philadelphia and so we are
truly stakeholders. We also asked thethree reading state researcher access to the collection
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and library images, because while thereare renovation projects ongoing within the museum,
that does not inherently mean that researchersshould not have any access. And that
was done with no real announcement.It was just a single sentence at the
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bottom of their website. Wow.Yeah, and our last point is that
the leadership needs to be removed.Yeah, and we give we give deeper
reasons for all of this within thepetition, but that is your basic overview.
Yeah, And that's part of whyI want to talk about this stuff.
Was just so people are kind ofaware of what's going on, because
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it is a really cool place,and I mean, like any museum,
it's not without and there is aright way to go about these things,
and that's why I appreciate that youare working so hard to make sure that
these things are being going about theright way. Yeah, it's not to
say that there are no exhibits thatdo need to be removed from display.
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The examples I have been giving andwill give you right now are one Albert
Einstein's brain slides. Those should neverhave been put on display in the first
place. Albert Einstein specifically requested tobe cremated and that no part of his
body be put on display, sothat people could not worship at his bones.
Yeah, and because a wealthy donorgave the brain slides to the museum,
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former leadership insisted that they be puton display. Yeah, that's unethical.
Yeah, that needs to be undonethat needs to be removed. I
understand if they are kept for medicalresearch purposes. I fully appreciate and understand
that nuance, but it's not anexhibit that needs to be continued. Yeah,
especially not just because you know,a wealthy donor was just like,
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hey, now put this on displaybecause I said so. Right. And
the other example that I tend togive is the exhibit of the soap Lady,
who was acquired in what was eventhen considered an unethical manner. Joseph
Leady Grave robbed a Well, hedidn't exactly have to grave rob There was
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a cemetery that was being disinterred andmoved, and doctor Joseph Lydy absconded with
the body that is now known asthe soap Lady and lied about her identity
so that he could get the cemeterywhat was he called the guard of the
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cemetery to allow him to take it. And yeah, he just caught.
He was so proud of that factthat he called it his great connivance.
Oh my gosh. Right, thesoaplay needs to be removed, not just
because of that, but because thenumber of visitors annually are causing vibrations in
the museum that are actually physically damagingher. Yeah, those are the exhibits
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that we should be talking about.Yeah, but there's a misconception that I've
seen going around the internet quite frequentlythat there are Indigenous bodies on display at
the museum. There's not a singleIndigenous remain on display at the museum.
The museum staff ten years ago wentand looked through and cataloged everything that they
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needed to speak to Nagra about.Nacre is a long process and repatriation does
not happen overnight. But all ofthe people who it applies to are not
on display. Yeah, there are, It is almost entirely people who are
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who are collected with the ethics ofthe times, medical consent or context.
You could not donate your body toscience in the United States until nineteen sixty
eight, and the state of NewYork did not have any rules guiding where
a cadaver was gotten until the nineteeneighties. Wow, that's a bit late
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in the game. Yeah. Right, So when we talk about the changing
ethics, these changes happen very veryquickly. But you sort of have to
acknowledge that a medical collection may nothave explicit consent in a manner that we
consider proper today. But it doesnot necessarily mean that people were wholly unaware
of what would happen to their remains. It does not necessarily mean that the
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proper answer is to put remains instorage. Yeah. Can we go back
for a second to the soap lady, I just could you? Could you?
When you say the soap lady,can you can you explain it a
little bit? Sure? Um,the soap lady underwent a process called supontification,
so based it is a part ofthe um, oh gosh, the
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decay process. Sorry, m buta body does not tend to become fully
suppontified um Chemically, the substance issimilar to soap, hence calling her the
soap Lady m but it takes veryspecific environmental factors for that to happen.
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I can't actually tell you what thefactors were in her specific case because we
don't actually know what graveyards she wasacquired from because Joseph Lady also lied about
that, Yeah, to make itvery hard to h to rebury her then
the same place then wow exactly.And one of the other issues with repatriating
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remains whose descendants are not known isthat in order if you were to simply
bury them, because that would bequote the right thing to do and the
most ethical thing to do, youmight actually be disrespecting them even more because
frankly, I don't know many Jewishpeople who would want a Catholic burial,
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yes, and I don't know manyCatholics who would be very happy with a
Jewish burial. When you don't knowsomeone's religious affiliation or their desires, because
you don't know their descendants, itis very difficult to repatriate remains. This
is not the same case as whenthere was outrage sparked by the move remains
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which were retained by Upen or theMorton Cranial Collection, who has several descendants
living in West Philadelphia. There isa very big difference between known descendants who
are requesting the remains back and unknownindividuals. And yes, there is a
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nuance as to whether or not theyshould be displayed, in what manner they
should be displayed, But in thecase of the Mooder Museum, they are
always treated with the utmost respect availableand possible, and with as much knowledge
and background as possible given constraints.And yes, that can percent be improved
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upon, it is my point,but it is not inherently unethical museum to
have. What are some of yourfavorite exhibits at the museum? Since you
obviously you're incredibly intimately familiar with it, you spend a lot of time there,
and clearly it matters immensely. Whatare some exhibits that you think speak
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to the real heart and soul ofthe museum that are maybe as the most
value to people who may not beaffiliated with the medical field that have an
interest. Sure, my absolute favoritedisplay to take people to is the one
that showcases the hurdle skulls. Now, the hurdle skulls are a cranial collection
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compiled by doctor Joseph Hurtle in theearly eighteen hundreds in specific response to the
theory of phrenology. Now, phrenologyis a pseudoscience wherein a person is supposedly
able to tell someone's moral character basedon the lumps and bumps felt on their
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skull. Joseph Hurtle was aware thatthis was not really scientifically viable, and
so he specifically sought out the skeletalremains of generally people who could not be
buried on hellow ground, because thoseare the people who were legally available for
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medical study. So all of thesepeople in this collection are a quote for
moral character in or. And theyare also almost entirely white Europeans. And
there is a very good reason forthat, because when you stand and look
at them, even from across aroom, you can see that no person
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looks exactly like another, No twoskulls look exactly the same. These are
all people who would have, basedon the ideas of chronology, had very
similarly shaped skulls, and not asingle one looks anything like another. And
I find that it is incredibly importantto explain this because a lot of the
common ideas that we have surrounding racetoday are based on phrenology. It is
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an incredibly racist pseudoscience that inspired eugenicistsin the future. And as a Jewish
woman, I find that incredibly importantto articulate to visitors. So that's a
superb that's that sounds absolutely fascinating,And yeah, you don't hear about phrenology
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very much anymore, but there's certainlyunfortunate descendants still exist. There are definite
vestiges within our current society. Oneof the many anthropological cranial collections were collected
with similar theories in mind, andthis is one where it was entirely legal
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and ethical collection by the ideas ofthe time. On like many of the
others. I would also when Igave tours of the museum, I would
always direct people to both the LuderAmerican Giant and Mary Ashbury. Mary Ashbury
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is a woman with a chondroplasia whodied in eighteen fifty seven in Norfolk,
Virginia. She actually died of medicalmalpractice, and I think that's an incredibly
important facet of her story. Shewas found attempting to give birth. The
problem with achondroplasia is that it meansthat your pelvis has a very very narrow
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outlet, so a baby's head isunlikely to easily be able to fit through
it. She was given well,so they initially decided to get the fetis
out in any way possible, notnecessarily caring about whether it lived or died,
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and they messed up the procedure andthen had to give her an emergency
C section. This was again eighteenfifty seven. German theory didn't really come
about until sixty so we are verywell aware that these instruments were probably not
the cleanness they could be. Shewas probably not in a very sterile environment,
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and she lived for three days afterthe procedure was completed. She is
incredibly important to me because I thinkthat she so much of her story is
known, and so much of thereis such an easy connection for any person.
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We all know someone who's had troublegiving birth, we all know people
who've had emergency c sections, andit just goes to draw this connection to
the past and see how much medicalscience has changed in the last one hundred
and fifty years. The murder AmericanGiant is one of those people who it
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would be incredibly difficult to repatriate.He was acquired in a new Questions Asked
deal in eighteen seventy. The museumhas future curators have tried desperately to figure
out his identity, and in fact, Ella Wade, who is a former
cure or who was a former curator, had published a nineteen forty one catalog
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of the contents of the museum,and within that catalog she tells the story
of two different occasions when former sideshow performers actually came to visit the museum
in order to see if this personwith acromegaly was actually someone they knew,
and he never was. He hasactually but he's saved lives after his death.
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He has saved lives. There isat least one incident that I know
of where someone was on a tourand heard his story and heard about petuitary
gigantism and said, huh, mynephew's six feet tall, and the tour
guide went, well, how oldis he? And the person on the
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tour responded that he was, infact in second grade and that he had
a very similar face shape to themurder American giant, And so the tour
guide was able to say, well, I'm not a medical doctor, but
I do know that the test forpituitary gigantism is one blood test, and
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I would really recommend that you goand take your or get your nephew's mum
to take him. And it turnsout that he is now one of the
youngest people ever diagnosed with pituitary gigantism, which means that they can help to
monitor his heart so that he doesnot have to deal with so many of
the health issues that come along withpituitary gigantism. That is extremely fascinating and
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I think it's a great example ofhow least type of exhibits can lead to
life altering and life saving impacts.And it's not that I would say that
it's fully ethical to have the Moodor American Giant on display. What I
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will say is that because he can'tbe reburied and we do not actually know
his wishes, the best we cando for him is to continue to allow
him to teach us, because theonly other fate that he would have is
to be relegated to a back roomand face what I and several of my
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colleagues call a second death. Therewould be a death of his memory.
Right now, he is remembered byeveryone who has ever met him in his
second life after death, and werehe simply put in storage, he would
just be forgotten. He's sort ofin limbo. You cannot just bury him
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in a hole and forget about him. Taking him off display is giving him
a second death. But keeping himout in view of the public and respectfully
telling his story and explaining the ethicalissues with the past and with the way
medicine was conducted, that's probably thebest respect you can give him. Well,
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especially with context. In an exhibitlike that, you can both teach
about the issues with gigantism as wellas with the issues of medical ethics and
the evolution of medical ethics, whichespecially if you have visitors who are considering
a field in some type of medicalprofession, that's extremely valuable because ethics courses
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can be a bit dry reading themin any type of educational setting or presentation
put on by a governing body.But to go and see real, live
examples of things like that that canleave an impression that education sometimes in other
forms can't. I completely agree,and I will say that, yeah,
most exhibits in the museum could onehundred percent use more context and That is
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not because people are incapable of understandingthat context. That is because the museum
had never had the space, thefunding, or the staff to properly work
on older exhibits, because older exhibitsdon't make money, New and changing exhibits
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do and are often funded by grants, and so the main gallery often fell
by the wayside. Is that great? No? Is that how most museums
work. Yes, is there roomfor improvement always? But the answer is
not to snap and say that remainshouldn't be on display. Pulsinge. Yeah.
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I think that there's such an emotionalconnection to things like that that it's
very easy for even experienced leadership inmuseums and nonprofits to sometimes have got,
you know, visceral reactions to thingssurrounding death, disease, human deformity,
anything like that. And it's butbeing confronted with those emotions I think is
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psychologically healthy. I think it's agood thing. We shouldn't always avoid those
tough topics. I completely agree.And considering that one of the exhibits that
has been discussed, there's an articleby The Inquirer where the Tirtology exhibit is
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discussed as potentially being on the choppingblock. That type of display is going
to give everyone some sort of emotionalreaction because it is inherently difficult to look
at a full person in a jar. However, it can also give people
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a window into their own disability.That is the case with Va Lever,
who just published an article in ArtNews the other day where she also has
many of the same critiques that Ido about the museum. There needs to
be more context things need to bereframed. The museum could do better and
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collaborate with disability activists and disability historiansand the disabled community in order to properly
contextualize exhibits. But the answer isnot to simply remove exhibits that are emotionally
provoking from display. I think thatthe provocation is something that I mean,
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we have so many emotionally provocative thingsin our culture right now. Anyway,
that being able to go to aplace that is dedicated to teaching, that
has strong historical background, it's notjust a shock piece. It's not just
it's not just something that's meant toelicit a response or to try and you
know, push a certain perspective forpolitical or you know, and informational purposes.
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It's it's not just it's not justshock jock work. It's it's literally
it is it has a much largerpurpose in the grand scheme of things,
and I think that people sometimes conflatethose type of exhibits with being equal when
they're not. Yeah, I thinka lot of people conflate the Mooder exhibits
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with sideshows and oddities, and thatdoes it a disservice because what the Mooder
has always been is a safe placefor those of us who would self identify
as weird, because we find communitywith people in the who in the past
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were other based on various conditions orlife experiences, and we tend to see
ourselves in these exhibits. Yeah,I know, kind of kind of what
we were talking about before we startedrecording was again, this is a museum
about the history of medicine, andthere's a lot of misogyny in the history
(40:36):
of medicine. I mean, women'smedicine still has a long way to go.
It hasn't caught up to the amountof knowledge that we have about men's
medicine. And I mean add intothat any number of like really like most
of medicine is based on white malemodels, and so you'll find a lot
(40:57):
of that into history of medicine becausethere was a lot of messed up stuff
as they were learning things. Andyou'll find a lot of the medical research
does not take into account all ofthe nuances of sex and gender, and
that you will have very little researchactually done into intersexuality. You will have
(41:22):
very little research done into conditions likeendometriosis or pcos because they are not based
in cus gendered men's bodies. Butthere's also an inherent violence in the history
of gynecology because James Marion Simms,who for a very long time was hailed
(41:47):
as the father of American gynecology,was a man who experimented on enslaved black
women with no sort of pain controlbecause he did not believe that black women
could feel pain in the same wayas white women. Any time of exico
(42:13):
vaginal fistula is repaired, we oweit to those women he experimented on,
And that is an incredibly uncomfortable factto acknowledge, but it does need to
be acknowledged. Those women deserve tobe remembered. But the history of medicine
isn't just. It's not pleasant tolearn about No, it's not. And
(42:37):
that's why it is very important tokind of come to grips with that ugly
truth of just how we've gotten tothe point we are. It wasn't always
ethical, and you kind of haveto look back in the eyes and our
ethics today are entirely different from theethics in the past to you know,
(43:02):
give some context. James Mary andSimms truly was operating under the ethics of
the time. He was not consideredthe most ethical, but he did ask
for consent. Yeah, he askedfor consent by the enslavers, because to
him, that was asking for consent, and did informed them and they gave
(43:27):
their consent. But it was notthe women themselves who consented. Yes,
it was the people who perceived themselvesas their owners. And that is something
that needs to be discussed, thatthe history of medicine isn't always ethical,
but that we can still learn fromit, and that we need to learn
from it because if we don't,we run the risk of dealing with more
(43:49):
theories on eugenics that we don't haveaccess to collections like the Hurdle Crania with
proper contextualization and an understanding that notthem but other collections like them help to
inspire the same theories that the Nazisused. We are doing ourselves to do
(44:10):
service well, wen't. We can'tnotignore our history. We have to learn
from it, yeah, because otherwiseyou're just going to keep doing the same
thing again and not realizing why it'sgetting the same exact results. It's true
we see new eugenic theories popping upall the time so often, way too
(44:32):
often, way too often, andeveryone always seems to think they've come up
with something new when they bring itup, and I'm like, no,
no, no, we're good.And places like the mood allow people to
explore the past in a place wherequestions are encouraged, discussion is encouraged.
(44:53):
The people who are teaching you mayno longer be alive, but you're keeping
your memory alive. And again,at speaking as a Jewish woman, that
to me is the utmost respect.Because in Judaism, you don't tend to
tell people, you know, maythey rest in peace, You say may
(45:15):
their memory be a blessing. Andevery single resident of the Mooder Museum's memory
is a blessing. Yeah, Andhonestly, I mean personally, when I
die I would rather my body bedonated to do some of that work,
Like I'm not going to be usingit anymore. I would love to be
able to help other people. Idon't know, I really like that may
(45:39):
be a blessing. What are someways that our listeners can be involved to
help both support the Mooder Museum andalso, in addition to signing the petition
sort of help along with the processof saving and keeping these exhibits open to
the public. Well, obviously signingthe petition and sharing the petition, but
(46:01):
also when doing that, talk aboutyour experiences with the museum, or the
experiences that you've had with medicine inways that you know the doctors could have
benefited from the museum or you didby learning about the procedure because of your
visit to the museum. Talk aboutfamily experiences, because I know that so
(46:24):
many people have them. I've alreadyread so many but these testimonials, the
more that we can add them up, the more that we can present them
to the Board of Trustees, themore that it will provide a context for
why people care so much about thismuseum. There are entire classes about the
ethics of museums and the ethical displayof human remains and the constant debate and
(46:47):
people are consistently in disagreement as tothe ethics and what where is that line
drawn? But I would also wantto erect all of the listeners who have
the opportunity to look up the HunterianMuseum in London, because they just reopened
(47:08):
with one of the most wonderful displaysI've ever seen that integrates medical tools,
medical specimens, and in the UKthat is the preferred term for any resident
of a museum. It is inthis country scene as the most humanizing way
(47:30):
to talk about them. But itprovides context, it provides many interactive exhibits,
and it has received so much acclaimand it is in actually a similar
situation to the Mootor in that theyneed to now go to timed tickets,
which they have never had to dobefore. The mood is not an entirely
(47:53):
unique place in terms of it beinga medical museum, but it is the
only one in the United States likeit is. There are at least four
that I can think of off thetop of my head in the UK.
And where where is the petition?It's is it on change dot org?
(48:13):
It is on it is a changedot org petition, mostly because we knew
that anyone who didn't know the peoplewho were organizing would still trust that as
a website that wasn't a fishing scam. But I would also like to say
about the petition that there is noreason to donate to this campaign. We
(48:35):
don't get access to the money,and we don't want the money. Change
dot org gets the money. Pleasedo not donate. Simply share the petitions,
sign and share. That's all That'sall you need and I'll read post
it on our page as well.I know I have funds. That's funny
that changed that arctics the money thatI didn't know that. Yeah, there's
(48:59):
no way that we can actually directit to, you know, preferred charity
or anything. It's just I guessit's helping keep change dot org running.
But this campaign is not trying toraise money. We don't want your money.
We just want to show the Boardof Trustees of the Mooder Museum and
(49:20):
also show the leadership of the Collegeof Physicians and of the Mooder Museum that
there are hundreds of thousands of peoplewho do love and care about the museum,
with the inclusion of human remains acknowledgingthat it does have its issues,
but that the solution is not tosimply remove human remains from display. And
(49:44):
if any of our listeners want tosee your other work, do you have
any websites or publishing publishings that wecan we can refer to them to or
social media. I can send youall of the links to all of the
articles published on this specific topic.You can also follow Protect the Mooder Museum
(50:07):
on Instagram or follow my medical historyaccount Hawks and Frocks on Instagram because I
have been pretty much only posting aboutthe Mooder Museum recently. We thank you
for talking with us and kind ofsharing what's going on. Like part of
why I wanted to talk about thisbecause I think it is so important and
(50:29):
I just wanted to kind of letother people know what's going on because I
know a lot of people will listento our show are into things like the
major museum, and also like weobviously want to kind of curate a culture
of like caring here because yeah,it is very important to have this,
but also it should be done inthe right way. Well, I would
(50:52):
never ever assume that a program likeStrange Talk would have some self proclaimed I've
never ever not a once, wesound as good. We had Sandwiches of
History on a little while back,and he was like, are you sure
your listeners would be into that?And I was just like, Yeah,
(51:13):
making weird historical sandwiches is pretty weird. Like I think, I follow his
accounts so lovely. He's such asweet, so nice. Yeah, I
love his content, so yeah,one hundred percent I could see where that
would fit in a yeah, Ithink little skeptical. It was awesome,
(51:35):
but yeah, thank you so muchagain for coming on with us and taking
some time out of your day becauseI mean, yeah, we're all in
different time zones here right now,so I mean, thank you guys for
listening and caring enough to reach out, because this is one of the most
important places I've ever gotten to work. It's the reason I have the job
I do today, It's the reasonI got into graduate school, and it
(52:01):
is above all a place I havealways felt safe being as weird as I
am. Yeah, and it ispotentially going to lose that, and I
really want to prevent that from happening. Yeah, And I really hope that
this will help save it. Honestly, I do too. Thank you guys
(52:25):
so much for having me seriously,no problem about pleasure, thank you for
joining us. Um yeah, andon that note, I guess we will.
We're going to sign off for thenight. Good night and good luck ch
What you see. Good evening andwelcome to the hour dedicated to talk about
(01:30):
things strange, weird and paranormal.You're listening to Strange Talk, broadcasting on
sixteen sixty AM in north Side ninetyone point seven af FM HG two to
v X you and Cincinnati. We'realso streaming at Radio Artifact dot com around
the entire planet roof. The intertrackto this episode is the Strange Chalk intro
by Starsiak And I'm your host,Alex and I'm Robin and we have a
(01:52):
guest with us. You would liketo introduce yourself. Hi, my name
is Hannah Pulaski. I am thecurrent curader for British Online Archives. Yeah,
and part of why we had youon to day is we wanted to
talk about the Mujor Museum because I'veshared a couple of posts on our pages
(02:14):
just kind of talking about what's goingon there right now and why it's so
important to preserve that museum. Yeah. And I'm qualified to discuss that because
I was an intern there and thena volunteer for three years and have never
really quite left. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and yeah, that's part
(02:38):
of why I reached out to you. Background, just for anybody who's listening
who may not know what the mutuormuseum is is. It's a medical science
museum. It is open to thepublic. You do not currently have to
be a doctor to go there.And yeah, so I've shared a couple
of things. There's a petition goingaround to kind of try to preserve the
(03:01):
museum right now because they're making alot of changes and like I know,
like the online archives have been likegutted. The biggest issue is that they're
not really engaging in any sort ofconversation any of their stakeholders. Yes,
these the online archive was gutted withno warning. The YouTube channel deleted all
(03:25):
of its videos with no warning.Um their online exhibit, Memento Mooder,
was also deleted with no warning andno communication as to why until I started
and when I started talking about it. For listeners who aren't go of course,
(03:50):
I was sorry. As I say, for listeners who aren't aren't familiar
with the Mooder Museum, could youjust give a brief background, a little
bar m The Mooder Museum is ownedby the College of Physicians Philadelphia, which
is one of the oldest medical institutionsin the country. It is considered the
birthplace of American medicine. The Mooditself was created in the early eighteen sixties
(04:17):
with the collection of doctor Thomas D. Mooder, who was aware that he
was becoming ill and would no longerbe alive shortly after that. His original
stipulations for the collection would that thecollection be used for teaching and the furthering
(04:38):
of medical science and reducing the sufferingof humanity. That medical professionals, medical
students, and artists be allowed toview the collection, and that nothing be
removed from the collection. So allof doctor MUD's original collection is still held
(04:59):
by the museum. The collection includesmany residents who are whose stories are known,
and many of whom their stories areunknown. The Mood has grown to
encompass many different types of collections,many different object artifacts, and people.
(05:23):
It has meant many things to manypeople over the years, and has since
opened to the public. It hasaround one hundred and eighty thousand visitors annually,
or it did before COVID, andyou can still see a lot of
the original people and objects on displaythat we're there in the eighteen sixties.
(05:48):
What an awesome overview. My apologiesfor interrupting you there, But it's such
such a fascinating locations. It's alittle good bit of background for people who
maybe haven't heard of the museum,and we'll want to check it out.
Yeah, they used to have anamazing online presence. Their Instagram used to
have super educational posts, usually notwith the residents of the collection, but
(06:10):
also but mostly with medicines or toolsthat may not make great displays but really
work well for social media and threesixty viewing. They used to have a
YouTube channel that had hundreds of thousandsof subscribers, and some of their videos
had like millions of hits because theywere always a little bit silly, always
(06:34):
scientifically accurate, and always historically accurate. But sometimes learning about the past is
kind of hard to listen to,so making it a little bit more palatable
while still being respectful is usually warranted. That's all disappeared. So yeah.
I even was looking online today forsomething that I had seen forever ago on
(06:56):
the website and it's not there anymore. And I was just like, okay,
great, And they had not madea statement about it until I started
posting on my medical history account calledpox and Frocks on Instagram and until people
started genuinely being outraged, because thebiggest issue here is the lack of communication
and the lack of transparency surrounding anychanges that a museum makes, because you
(07:23):
have so many members, so manystakeholders, so many people who were invested
in the collection, and to notinform them of decisions that you're making is
not ideal to say the least.Yeah, privately or publicly funded. It
is a nonprofit that is owned bythe College of Physicians of Philadelphia, So
(07:46):
I don't actually know how that breakupgoes. Okay, interesting, you know
that. So they're basically they've justdone sweeping changes without really engaging the community
or or talking to people. Andthat's it was only it was only after
(08:07):
I started posting that they said anythingabout their being any type of ethics review
or accreditation being pursued. And thatto me tells you a lot. Now,
when you say when you use theterm residence, I'm assuming that you're
referring to the bodies of the diseasedto have components in the museum. Yeah,
(08:33):
I like to use the term residencefor them because for a lot of
those people, you see their faces, you might they might be skeletal faces,
but you are looking at a personand you're learning their story, and
so they become very real people toyou. When you work there, you
don't just look at that old skeletonover there. You're looking at Mary Ashbury
(08:56):
and you are learning her story andworking with her, not using her for
research, but working with her tohelp figure out more of her story.
I think it's a very respectful wayto think about it. Actually, It's
the way that a lot of thestaff when I was working there, definitely
did think about the people in themuseum. They are not objects. They
(09:22):
are one hundred percent residents who areloved and charable, and I honestly I
think that's the best thing can lookat that, because I mean, like,
these were people, like you said, and I mean they still are
people, They're just not alive anymore, right. And when you work with
the dead in any sort of capacity, and I have a master's degree in
(09:45):
paleopathology, so you are reconstructing storieseither of known individuals and trying to figure
out how different diseases help, likehinder them or affected the body, or
you are trying to piece together storyfrom archaeological remains, and there isn't much
difference other than having to physically piecetogether a person or getting to look at
(10:07):
the person already together for you.Now, there's a lot of nuances that
come with that, I think,and it's can become very easy to overgeneralize
in situations, especially with emotional topicslike death or human remains, you know,
and there's a lot of cultural taboosthat come with that, both in
our own culture and in other cultures. But it's you know, as long
(10:31):
as you're being respectful to the culturewhere the residents come from this, you
know, it's it's huge benefit forpeople to be able to see that,
not just artists and doctors. Ithink. Yeah, I have always been
of the opinion that while some peoplethink that it's uncomfortable or morbid or not
(10:52):
ideal, I have always felt thatit's better to bring a child to a
museum like the Mooder and introduce theconcept of death in a non emotional way,
in a non traumatic way, becauseyou give a child the chance to
process the idea before they experience aloss, and you're allowing them to pursue
(11:16):
the idea of learning from the deceasedas well as from the living. Because
in the current society we live in, most of us will not ever engage
with a dead body on any meaningfullevel. Most of us are not dying
at home. We die in hospitals. We really aren't being prepared for burial
(11:39):
by our family and our friends.We are being prepared for burial by a
more kissian And you might see someoneat awake, but that is very different
than seeing someone who lived more thana hundred years ago and still getting to
learn from them, and especially like, yeah, what you said, getting
(12:00):
kids introduced that concept early. I'mlike a big fan of trying to kind
of change the narrative with death.People don't talk about death. They're really
terrified of it. But I genuinelythink it's healthier for people if you acknowledge
it, because I mean, it'severybody dies at some point. It's going
to happen. There is no wayto outrun that. And the earlier you
(12:24):
can kind of start processing that andkind of learning to accept it and like
kind of making it part of yourlife. Honestly, it's kind of one
of the healthier things you can do. And it's become part of the narrative
that has been published surrounding the MooderMuseum that they no longer want to focus
on death, but rather on healthand wellbeing. And firstly, I would
(12:52):
like to say that the museum hasnever focused on death. It just happens
to post some dead residence. Butits focus that it has always focused on
health and medicine, and health andwell being are not the antithesis of death.
Death is a part of medicine.We wouldn't have the medical advancements we
(13:13):
do now without the assistance of cadavers. Absolutely, I think that there's a
very large avoidance of anything that evenhas a peripheral connection to death in Western
culture in a lot of ways,especially that you get you get to a
certain point where it's just like youtry to avoid thinking about it, talking
(13:37):
about it. You always want toact like you're going to live forever.
And that's not that's not psychologically orspiritually healthy. And you don't have a
lot of even with you know,certain certain spiritual or psychological programs. Thanatology
isn't something that's really in my opinion, it's it's not something that people still
(13:58):
like to talk about. In alot of case i'd agree, I mean,
it really speaks volumes that the peoplein charge of the museum currently have
such a misconception of the purpose ofthe museum that they are sort of comparing
(14:20):
it to a museum death, whenit is in fact a museum of the
history of medicine, which happens toincorporate some death, but it is not
focused on death. Yeah. Speakingof one of the things that I've been
reposting is there is a petition goingaround. Let me just let me see
(14:43):
if I can bring it up realquick, because the petition kind of has
a lot of the changes that peopleare hoping will be made with the museum
in there. What is it?I don't there's changes that we hope will
be reversed that too, Yeah,actually, yeah, Or if you wanted
(15:07):
to talk about some of the pointsin that petition, sure I can.
So this petition was created by agroup of people who first and foremost to
acknowledge that there are issues inherent withina museum of medical history, that there
are going to be topics that needmore context, and we are very well
aware that there are exhibits within themuseum that are lacking that context at the
(15:31):
moment. But that aside. Oneof the things that we were very aware
of In different interviews, it hasbeen stated that both the leadership of the
Muder Museum are looking to remove theterritology collection from display. Now to give
(15:54):
a little explanation as to what territologyis, because I do not expect anyone
who does not work at the MoodMuseum to have really ever encountered that word.
It's historic dictionary definition would be thestudy of monsters. What that really
means is the study of congenital malformationsand people who have genetic differences. And
(16:22):
that is to put it in verysimple terms, it is the fetal and
infant displays at the museum. Thosemay make some people uncomfortable, but they
also shed a lot of light ontoplaces to people we have never met,
at people we could not have met, people who we now can meet.
(16:44):
They allow people to explore a lotof the history of science and medical advancements
or the displays wholly unproblematic. No, they do need more contextualization, but
the solution is not to remove themfrom display. In the petition, we
ask that the YouTube get put backup with all of its videos. We
(17:08):
ask that Memento mootor the online exhibitof forty nine objects and residents from the
museum get put backed up. Thereare several other asks that I cannot off
the top of my head. Tellyou hold on, I can pull up
the petition because I have that tabconstantly open. Oh nice, Yeah,
(17:33):
I was trying to pull it up. I was like, I know it's
in here somewhere. Yeah. No, it's always up on my phone.
So we also want to make surethat with any sort of ethics review that
the museum commits to an inclusive anddiverse RESI representation on museum review committees,
(17:56):
including members of the Medical Museum,research and sability communities because and the reason
for that is because the museum isno longer a buy physician for a physician
place. Its reputation and scope exceedthe bounds of the medical gays and embraces
our beautifully imperfect humanity. We askthe museum to commit to increase in better
(18:22):
communication both internally and externally. AsI've said, one of the biggest issues
is that no one was communicated withabout these changes in advance of them being
made. Yes, we also askthat especially the members of the museum and
(18:47):
the members of the public, butspecifically people who are donating to the museum
annually are engaged in a discussion aboutthese changes because the museum provides about forty
percent of the revenue of the Collegeof Positions of Philadelphia and so we are
truly stakeholders. We also asked thethree reading state researcher access to the collection
(19:08):
and library images, because while thereare renovation projects ongoing within the museum,
that does not inherently mean that researchersshould not have any access. And that
was done with no real announcement.It was just a single sentence at the
(19:29):
bottom of their website. Wow.Yeah, and our last point is that
the leadership needs to be removed.Yeah, and we give we give deeper
reasons for all of this within thepetition, but that is your basic overview.
Yeah, And that's part of whyI want to talk about this stuff.
Was just so people are kind ofaware of what's going on, because
(19:52):
it is a really cool place,and I mean, like any museum,
it's not without and there is aright way to go about these things,
and that's why I appreciate that youare working so hard to make sure that
these things are being going about theright way. Yeah, it's not to
say that there are no exhibits thatdo need to be removed from display.
(20:17):
The examples I have been giving andwill give you right now are one Albert
Einstein's brain slides. Those should neverhave been put on display in the first
place. Albert Einstein specifically requested tobe cremated and that no part of his
body be put on display, sothat people could not worship at his bones.
Yeah, and because a wealthy donorgave the brain slides to the museum,
(20:44):
former leadership insisted that they be puton display. Yeah, that's unethical.
Yeah, that needs to be undonethat needs to be removed. I
understand if they are kept for medicalresearch purposes. I fully appreciate and understand
that nuance, but it's not anexhibit that needs to be continued. Yeah,
especially not just because you know,a wealthy donor was just like,
(21:06):
hey, now put this on displaybecause I said so. Right. And
the other example that I tend togive is the exhibit of the soap Lady,
who was acquired in what was eventhen considered an unethical manner. Joseph
Leady Grave robbed a Well, hedidn't exactly have to grave rob There was
(21:30):
a cemetery that was being disinterred andmoved, and doctor Joseph Lydy absconded with
the body that is now known asthe soap Lady and lied about her identity
so that he could get the cemeterywhat was he called the guard of the
(21:51):
cemetery to allow him to take it. And yeah, he just caught.
He was so proud of that factthat he called it his great connivance.
Oh my gosh. Right, thesoaplay needs to be removed, not just
because of that, but because thenumber of visitors annually are causing vibrations in
the museum that are actually physically damagingher. Yeah, those are the exhibits
(22:18):
that we should be talking about.Yeah, but there's a misconception that I've
seen going around the internet quite frequentlythat there are Indigenous bodies on display at
the museum. There's not a singleIndigenous remain on display at the museum.
The museum staff ten years ago wentand looked through and cataloged everything that they
(22:40):
needed to speak to Nagra about.Nacre is a long process and repatriation does
not happen overnight. But all ofthe people who it applies to are not
on display. Yeah, there are, It is almost entirely people who are
(23:04):
who are collected with the ethics ofthe times, medical consent or context.
You could not donate your body toscience in the United States until nineteen sixty
eight, and the state of NewYork did not have any rules guiding where
a cadaver was gotten until the nineteeneighties. Wow, that's a bit late
(23:29):
in the game. Yeah. Right, So when we talk about the changing
ethics, these changes happen very veryquickly. But you sort of have to
acknowledge that a medical collection may nothave explicit consent in a manner that we
consider proper today. But it doesnot necessarily mean that people were wholly unaware
of what would happen to their remains. It does not necessarily mean that the
(23:52):
proper answer is to put remains instorage. Yeah. Can we go back
for a second to the soap lady, I just could you? Could you?
When you say the soap lady,can you can you explain it a
little bit? Sure? Um,the soap lady underwent a process called supontification,
so based it is a part ofthe um, oh gosh, the
(24:21):
decay process. Sorry, m buta body does not tend to become fully
suppontified um Chemically, the substance issimilar to soap, hence calling her the
soap Lady m but it takes veryspecific environmental factors for that to happen.
(24:44):
I can't actually tell you what thefactors were in her specific case because we
don't actually know what graveyards she wasacquired from because Joseph Lady also lied about
that, Yeah, to make itvery hard to h to rebury her then
the same place then wow exactly.And one of the other issues with repatriating
(25:06):
remains whose descendants are not known isthat in order if you were to simply
bury them, because that would bequote the right thing to do and the
most ethical thing to do, youmight actually be disrespecting them even more because
frankly, I don't know many Jewishpeople who would want a Catholic burial,
(25:29):
yes, and I don't know manyCatholics who would be very happy with a
Jewish burial. When you don't knowsomeone's religious affiliation or their desires, because
you don't know their descendants, itis very difficult to repatriate remains. This
is not the same case as whenthere was outrage sparked by the move remains
(25:49):
which were retained by Upen or theMorton Cranial Collection, who has several descendants
living in West Philadelphia. There isa very big difference between known descendants who
are requesting the remains back and unknownindividuals. And yes, there is a
(26:11):
nuance as to whether or not theyshould be displayed, in what manner they
should be displayed, But in thecase of the Mooder Museum, they are
always treated with the utmost respect availableand possible, and with as much knowledge
and background as possible given constraints.And yes, that can percent be improved
(26:34):
upon, it is my point,but it is not inherently unethical museum to
have. What are some of yourfavorite exhibits at the museum? Since you
obviously you're incredibly intimately familiar with it, you spend a lot of time there,
and clearly it matters immensely. Whatare some exhibits that you think speak
(26:55):
to the real heart and soul ofthe museum that are maybe as the most
value to people who may not beaffiliated with the medical field that have an
interest. Sure, my absolute favoritedisplay to take people to is the one
that showcases the hurdle skulls. Now, the hurdle skulls are a cranial collection
(27:18):
compiled by doctor Joseph Hurtle in theearly eighteen hundreds in specific response to the
theory of phrenology. Now, phrenologyis a pseudoscience wherein a person is supposedly
able to tell someone's moral character basedon the lumps and bumps felt on their
(27:42):
skull. Joseph Hurtle was aware thatthis was not really scientifically viable, and
so he specifically sought out the skeletalremains of generally people who could not be
buried on hellow ground, because thoseare the people who were legally available for
(28:03):
medical study. So all of thesepeople in this collection are a quote for
moral character in or. And theyare also almost entirely white Europeans. And
there is a very good reason forthat, because when you stand and look
at them, even from across aroom, you can see that no person
(28:26):
looks exactly like another, No twoskulls look exactly the same. These are
all people who would have, basedon the ideas of chronology, had very
similarly shaped skulls, and not asingle one looks anything like another. And
I find that it is incredibly importantto explain this because a lot of the
common ideas that we have surrounding racetoday are based on phrenology. It is
(28:52):
an incredibly racist pseudoscience that inspired eugenicistsin the future. And as a Jewish
woman, I find that incredibly importantto articulate to visitors. So that's a
superb that's that sounds absolutely fascinating,And yeah, you don't hear about phrenology
(29:14):
very much anymore, but there's certainlyunfortunate descendants still exist. There are definite
vestiges within our current society. Oneof the many anthropological cranial collections were collected
with similar theories in mind, andthis is one where it was entirely legal
(29:38):
and ethical collection by the ideas ofthe time. On like many of the
others. I would also when Igave tours of the museum, I would
always direct people to both the LuderAmerican Giant and Mary Ashbury. Mary Ashbury
(30:02):
is a woman with a chondroplasia whodied in eighteen fifty seven in Norfolk,
Virginia. She actually died of medicalmalpractice, and I think that's an incredibly
important facet of her story. Shewas found attempting to give birth. The
problem with achondroplasia is that it meansthat your pelvis has a very very narrow
(30:26):
outlet, so a baby's head isunlikely to easily be able to fit through
it. She was given well,so they initially decided to get the fetis
out in any way possible, notnecessarily caring about whether it lived or died,
(30:47):
and they messed up the procedure andthen had to give her an emergency
C section. This was again eighteenfifty seven. German theory didn't really come
about until sixty so we are verywell aware that these instruments were probably not
the cleanness they could be. Shewas probably not in a very sterile environment,
(31:08):
and she lived for three days afterthe procedure was completed. She is
incredibly important to me because I thinkthat she so much of her story is
known, and so much of thereis such an easy connection for any person.
(31:30):
We all know someone who's had troublegiving birth, we all know people
who've had emergency c sections, andit just goes to draw this connection to
the past and see how much medicalscience has changed in the last one hundred
and fifty years. The murder AmericanGiant is one of those people who it
(31:53):
would be incredibly difficult to repatriate.He was acquired in a new Questions Asked
deal in eighteen seventy. The museumhas future curators have tried desperately to figure
out his identity, and in fact, Ella Wade, who is a former
cure or who was a former curator, had published a nineteen forty one catalog
(32:19):
of the contents of the museum,and within that catalog she tells the story
of two different occasions when former sideshow performers actually came to visit the museum
in order to see if this personwith acromegaly was actually someone they knew,
and he never was. He hasactually but he's saved lives after his death.
(32:50):
He has saved lives. There isat least one incident that I know
of where someone was on a tourand heard his story and heard about petuitary
gigantism and said, huh, mynephew's six feet tall, and the tour
guide went, well, how oldis he? And the person on the
(33:14):
tour responded that he was, infact in second grade and that he had
a very similar face shape to themurder American giant, And so the tour
guide was able to say, well, I'm not a medical doctor, but
I do know that the test forpituitary gigantism is one blood test, and
(33:36):
I would really recommend that you goand take your or get your nephew's mum
to take him. And it turnsout that he is now one of the
youngest people ever diagnosed with pituitary gigantism, which means that they can help to
monitor his heart so that he doesnot have to deal with so many of
the health issues that come along withpituitary gigantism. That is extremely fascinating and
(34:01):
I think it's a great example ofhow least type of exhibits can lead to
life altering and life saving impacts.And it's not that I would say that
it's fully ethical to have the Moodor American Giant on display. What I
(34:21):
will say is that because he can'tbe reburied and we do not actually know
his wishes, the best we cando for him is to continue to allow
him to teach us, because theonly other fate that he would have is
to be relegated to a back roomand face what I and several of my
(34:42):
colleagues call a second death. Therewould be a death of his memory.
Right now, he is remembered byeveryone who has ever met him in his
second life after death, and werehe simply put in storage, he would
just be forgotten. He's sort ofin limbo. You cannot just bury him
(35:07):
in a hole and forget about him. Taking him off display is giving him
a second death. But keeping himout in view of the public and respectfully
telling his story and explaining the ethicalissues with the past and with the way
medicine was conducted, that's probably thebest respect you can give him. Well,
(35:30):
especially with context. In an exhibitlike that, you can both teach
about the issues with gigantism as wellas with the issues of medical ethics and
the evolution of medical ethics, whichespecially if you have visitors who are considering
a field in some type of medicalprofession, that's extremely valuable because ethics courses
(35:51):
can be a bit dry reading themin any type of educational setting or presentation
put on by a governing body.But to go and see real, live
examples of things like that that canleave an impression that education sometimes in other
forms can't. I completely agree,and I will say that, yeah,
most exhibits in the museum could onehundred percent use more context and That is
(36:15):
not because people are incapable of understandingthat context. That is because the museum
had never had the space, thefunding, or the staff to properly work
on older exhibits, because older exhibitsdon't make money, New and changing exhibits
(36:38):
do and are often funded by grants, and so the main gallery often fell
by the wayside. Is that great? No? Is that how most museums
work. Yes, is there roomfor improvement always? But the answer is
not to snap and say that remainshouldn't be on display. Pulsinge. Yeah.
(37:06):
I think that there's such an emotionalconnection to things like that that it's
very easy for even experienced leadership inmuseums and nonprofits to sometimes have got,
you know, visceral reactions to thingssurrounding death, disease, human deformity,
anything like that. And it's butbeing confronted with those emotions I think is
(37:30):
psychologically healthy. I think it's agood thing. We shouldn't always avoid those
tough topics. I completely agree.And considering that one of the exhibits that
has been discussed, there's an articleby The Inquirer where the Tirtology exhibit is
(37:52):
discussed as potentially being on the choppingblock. That type of display is going
to give everyone some sort of emotionalreaction because it is inherently difficult to look
at a full person in a jar. However, it can also give people
(38:16):
a window into their own disability.That is the case with Va Lever,
who just published an article in ArtNews the other day where she also has
many of the same critiques that Ido about the museum. There needs to
be more context things need to bereframed. The museum could do better and
(38:37):
collaborate with disability activists and disability historiansand the disabled community in order to properly
contextualize exhibits. But the answer isnot to simply remove exhibits that are emotionally
provoking from display. I think thatthe provocation is something that I mean,
(39:04):
we have so many emotionally provocative thingsin our culture right now. Anyway,
that being able to go to aplace that is dedicated to teaching, that
has strong historical background, it's notjust a shock piece. It's not just
it's not just something that's meant toelicit a response or to try and you
know, push a certain perspective forpolitical or you know, and informational purposes.
(39:29):
It's it's not just it's not justshock jock work. It's it's literally
it is it has a much largerpurpose in the grand scheme of things,
and I think that people sometimes conflatethose type of exhibits with being equal when
they're not. Yeah, I thinka lot of people conflate the Mooder exhibits
(39:51):
with sideshows and oddities, and thatdoes it a disservice because what the Mooder
has always been is a safe placefor those of us who would self identify
as weird, because we find communitywith people in the who in the past
(40:12):
were other based on various conditions orlife experiences, and we tend to see
ourselves in these exhibits. Yeah,I know, kind of kind of what
we were talking about before we startedrecording was again, this is a museum
about the history of medicine, andthere's a lot of misogyny in the history
(40:36):
of medicine. I mean, women'smedicine still has a long way to go.
It hasn't caught up to the amountof knowledge that we have about men's
medicine. And I mean add intothat any number of like really like most
of medicine is based on white malemodels, and so you'll find a lot
(40:57):
of that into history of medicine becausethere was a lot of messed up stuff
as they were learning things. Andyou'll find a lot of the medical research
does not take into account all ofthe nuances of sex and gender, and
that you will have very little researchactually done into intersexuality. You will have
(41:22):
very little research done into conditions likeendometriosis or pcos because they are not based
in cus gendered men's bodies. Butthere's also an inherent violence in the history
of gynecology because James Marion Simms,who for a very long time was hailed
(41:47):
as the father of American gynecology,was a man who experimented on enslaved black
women with no sort of pain controlbecause he did not believe that black women
could feel pain in the same wayas white women. Any time of exico
(42:13):
vaginal fistula is repaired, we oweit to those women he experimented on,
And that is an incredibly uncomfortable factto acknowledge, but it does need to
be acknowledged. Those women deserve tobe remembered. But the history of medicine
isn't just. It's not pleasant tolearn about No, it's not. And
(42:37):
that's why it is very important tokind of come to grips with that ugly
truth of just how we've gotten tothe point we are. It wasn't always
ethical, and you kind of haveto look back in the eyes and our
ethics today are entirely different from theethics in the past to you know,
(43:02):
give some context. James Mary andSimms truly was operating under the ethics of
the time. He was not consideredthe most ethical, but he did ask
for consent. Yeah, he askedfor consent by the enslavers, because to
him, that was asking for consent, and did informed them and they gave
(43:27):
their consent. But it was notthe women themselves who consented. Yes,
it was the people who perceived themselvesas their owners. And that is something
that needs to be discussed, thatthe history of medicine isn't always ethical,
but that we can still learn fromit, and that we need to learn
from it because if we don't,we run the risk of dealing with more
(43:49):
theories on eugenics that we don't haveaccess to collections like the Hurdle Crania with
proper contextualization and an understanding that notthem but other collections like them help to
inspire the same theories that the Nazisused. We are doing ourselves to do
(44:10):
service well, wen't. We can'tnotignore our history. We have to learn
from it, yeah, because otherwiseyou're just going to keep doing the same
thing again and not realizing why it'sgetting the same exact results. It's true
we see new eugenic theories popping upall the time so often, way too
(44:32):
often, way too often, andeveryone always seems to think they've come up
with something new when they bring itup, and I'm like, no,
no, no, we're good.And places like the mood allow people to
explore the past in a place wherequestions are encouraged, discussion is encouraged.
(44:53):
The people who are teaching you mayno longer be alive, but you're keeping
your memory alive. And again,at speaking as a Jewish woman, that
to me is the utmost respect.Because in Judaism, you don't tend to
tell people, you know, maythey rest in peace, You say may
(45:15):
their memory be a blessing. Andevery single resident of the Mooder Museum's memory
is a blessing. Yeah, Andhonestly, I mean personally, when I
die I would rather my body bedonated to do some of that work,
Like I'm not going to be usingit anymore. I would love to be
able to help other people. Idon't know, I really like that may
(45:39):
be a blessing. What are someways that our listeners can be involved to
help both support the Mooder Museum andalso, in addition to signing the petition
sort of help along with the processof saving and keeping these exhibits open to
the public. Well, obviously signingthe petition and sharing the petition, but
(46:01):
also when doing that, talk aboutyour experiences with the museum, or the
experiences that you've had with medicine inways that you know the doctors could have
benefited from the museum or you didby learning about the procedure because of your
visit to the museum. Talk aboutfamily experiences, because I know that so
(46:24):
many people have them. I've alreadyread so many but these testimonials, the
more that we can add them up, the more that we can present them
to the Board of Trustees, themore that it will provide a context for
why people care so much about thismuseum. There are entire classes about the
ethics of museums and the ethical displayof human remains and the constant debate and
(46:47):
people are consistently in disagreement as tothe ethics and what where is that line
drawn? But I would also wantto erect all of the listeners who have
the opportunity to look up the HunterianMuseum in London, because they just reopened
(47:08):
with one of the most wonderful displaysI've ever seen that integrates medical tools,
medical specimens, and in the UKthat is the preferred term for any resident
of a museum. It is inthis country scene as the most humanizing way
(47:30):
to talk about them. But itprovides context, it provides many interactive exhibits,
and it has received so much acclaimand it is in actually a similar
situation to the Mootor in that theyneed to now go to timed tickets,
which they have never had to dobefore. The mood is not an entirely
(47:53):
unique place in terms of it beinga medical museum, but it is the
only one in the United States likeit is. There are at least four
that I can think of off thetop of my head in the UK.
And where where is the petition?It's is it on change dot org?
(48:13):
It is on it is a changedot org petition, mostly because we knew
that anyone who didn't know the peoplewho were organizing would still trust that as
a website that wasn't a fishing scam. But I would also like to say
about the petition that there is noreason to donate to this campaign. We
(48:35):
don't get access to the money,and we don't want the money. Change
dot org gets the money. Pleasedo not donate. Simply share the petitions,
sign and share. That's all That'sall you need and I'll read post
it on our page as well.I know I have funds. That's funny
that changed that arctics the money thatI didn't know that. Yeah, there's
(48:59):
no way that we can actually directit to, you know, preferred charity
or anything. It's just I guessit's helping keep change dot org running.
But this campaign is not trying toraise money. We don't want your money.
We just want to show the Boardof Trustees of the Mooder Museum and
(49:20):
also show the leadership of the Collegeof Physicians and of the Mooder Museum that
there are hundreds of thousands of peoplewho do love and care about the museum,
with the inclusion of human remains acknowledgingthat it does have its issues,
but that the solution is not tosimply remove human remains from display. And
(49:44):
if any of our listeners want tosee your other work, do you have
any websites or publishing publishings that wecan we can refer to them to or
social media. I can send youall of the links to all of the
articles published on this specific topic.You can also follow Protect the Mooder Museum
(50:07):
on Instagram or follow my medical historyaccount Hawks and Frocks on Instagram because I
have been pretty much only posting aboutthe Mooder Museum recently. We thank you
for talking with us and kind ofsharing what's going on. Like part of
why I wanted to talk about thisbecause I think it is so important and
(50:29):
I just wanted to kind of letother people know what's going on because I
know a lot of people will listento our show are into things like the
major museum, and also like weobviously want to kind of curate a culture
of like caring here because yeah,it is very important to have this,
but also it should be done inthe right way. Well, I would
(50:52):
never ever assume that a program likeStrange Talk would have some self proclaimed I've
never ever not a once, wesound as good. We had Sandwiches of
History on a little while back,and he was like, are you sure
your listeners would be into that?And I was just like, Yeah,
(51:13):
making weird historical sandwiches is pretty weird. Like I think, I follow his
accounts so lovely. He's such asweet, so nice. Yeah, I
love his content, so yeah,one hundred percent I could see where that
would fit in a yeah, Ithink little skeptical. It was awesome,
(51:35):
but yeah, thank you so muchagain for coming on with us and taking
some time out of your day becauseI mean, yeah, we're all in
different time zones here right now,so I mean, thank you guys for
listening and caring enough to reach out, because this is one of the most
important places I've ever gotten to work. It's the reason I have the job
I do today, It's the reasonI got into graduate school, and it
(52:01):
is above all a place I havealways felt safe being as weird as I
am. Yeah, and it ispotentially going to lose that, and I
really want to prevent that from happening. Yeah, And I really hope that
this will help save it. Honestly, I do too. Thank you guys
(52:25):
so much for having me seriously,no problem about pleasure, thank you for
joining us. Um yeah, andon that note, I guess we will.
We're going to sign off for thenight. Good night and good luck ch
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