The Dead of London
Aug. 26th, 2008 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
major_clangerDissertation behind me, and my Bar course not starting until next week, I'm trying to get round a few more places in the city I live in. Today it was the turn of the Wellcome Collection, and in particular it's current exhibition of London Skeletons.
Some two dozen skeletons are displayed in glass cases, laid out on a faux black gravel that nicely emphases the colour and detail of the bone. I wondered if the exhibition would be ghoulish or creepy, but in actual fact it's anything but. Perhaps that's because skeletons seem somehow very divorced from the bodies that they once were, and are so iconic and commonplace as images that the real things are objects of fascination rather than horror. That's not to say that these mortal remains aren't poignant, though, especially the two small infants, or the handful of tiny foetal bones piled in the pelvis of one skeleton.
After the first couple of skeletons I - perhaps feeling a touch of the CSIs come over me - made a point of looking over the bones to see what I could deduce before reading the accompanying placard. It helped that the skeletons on display had been selected as interesting and in all likelihood extreme examples of some of the unusual attributes found amongst London's dead; whilst rickets was probably common, some of the cases in the exhibition were painfully obvious. For some other skeletons I spotted what was odd, but had to look at the information placard to see the significance. Unusual excrescences on the long bones, it turned out, were a peculiar form of bone cancer, whilst the gross distortions in one small skeleton were the signs of congenital syphilis. Healed breaks were surprisingly common, including one example of the sort of skull fracture you would think only survivable with modern brain surgery. And some oddities were very odd, such as the otherwise unremarkable skeleton whose skull and neck were quite obviously green. Apparently, a mint had been built atop the old cemetery, and copper leaching into the soil had stained some of the bones beneath.
Having had my fill of bones, I wandered around the two permanent exhibitions. One showcased Henry Wellcome and his remarkable penchant for collecting medical miscellanea. Artificial limbs, medical paintings, oriental sex toys - if it had anything to do with the body, he would have it. Lots of very pretty scientific and ornamental glassware too. The other exhibition covered a very eclectic range of exhibits on the theme of 'modern medicine', from instructional models to a thought-provoking display on the history of dieting. (And which seemed to jar oddly with the monumental cake portions in the cafe.) I particularly liked the 3D fabricator models of brain activity elicited by different senses, not surprisingly in light of my recent dissertation studies. I have to confess I was also rather fond of the vertical slice man, a millimetre-thick translucent head-to-toe plasticised section of an adult male. I really doubt that it would be appropriate in one's living room, though. The wall of plain white volumes of DNA printout was not, to my surprise, an art installation; it really was the hardbound output of the Human Genome Project. A more amusing interpretation of our genome was a photograph of 23 varied pairs of socks, looking remarkably chromosome-like (at which point I'll plug my own chromosome reflections picture)
If you've not been to the Wellcome Collection I can very much recommend it. Almost directly opposite Euston Station, it is free and open every day except Monday. It also has a very good cafe, and an extremely dangerous bookshop (a branch of Blackwells). Despite the medical theme, it's pretty safe for the squeamish, with far more 'gosh' than 'yuck'.
Some two dozen skeletons are displayed in glass cases, laid out on a faux black gravel that nicely emphases the colour and detail of the bone. I wondered if the exhibition would be ghoulish or creepy, but in actual fact it's anything but. Perhaps that's because skeletons seem somehow very divorced from the bodies that they once were, and are so iconic and commonplace as images that the real things are objects of fascination rather than horror. That's not to say that these mortal remains aren't poignant, though, especially the two small infants, or the handful of tiny foetal bones piled in the pelvis of one skeleton.
After the first couple of skeletons I - perhaps feeling a touch of the CSIs come over me - made a point of looking over the bones to see what I could deduce before reading the accompanying placard. It helped that the skeletons on display had been selected as interesting and in all likelihood extreme examples of some of the unusual attributes found amongst London's dead; whilst rickets was probably common, some of the cases in the exhibition were painfully obvious. For some other skeletons I spotted what was odd, but had to look at the information placard to see the significance. Unusual excrescences on the long bones, it turned out, were a peculiar form of bone cancer, whilst the gross distortions in one small skeleton were the signs of congenital syphilis. Healed breaks were surprisingly common, including one example of the sort of skull fracture you would think only survivable with modern brain surgery. And some oddities were very odd, such as the otherwise unremarkable skeleton whose skull and neck were quite obviously green. Apparently, a mint had been built atop the old cemetery, and copper leaching into the soil had stained some of the bones beneath.
Having had my fill of bones, I wandered around the two permanent exhibitions. One showcased Henry Wellcome and his remarkable penchant for collecting medical miscellanea. Artificial limbs, medical paintings, oriental sex toys - if it had anything to do with the body, he would have it. Lots of very pretty scientific and ornamental glassware too. The other exhibition covered a very eclectic range of exhibits on the theme of 'modern medicine', from instructional models to a thought-provoking display on the history of dieting. (And which seemed to jar oddly with the monumental cake portions in the cafe.) I particularly liked the 3D fabricator models of brain activity elicited by different senses, not surprisingly in light of my recent dissertation studies. I have to confess I was also rather fond of the vertical slice man, a millimetre-thick translucent head-to-toe plasticised section of an adult male. I really doubt that it would be appropriate in one's living room, though. The wall of plain white volumes of DNA printout was not, to my surprise, an art installation; it really was the hardbound output of the Human Genome Project. A more amusing interpretation of our genome was a photograph of 23 varied pairs of socks, looking remarkably chromosome-like (at which point I'll plug my own chromosome reflections picture)
If you've not been to the Wellcome Collection I can very much recommend it. Almost directly opposite Euston Station, it is free and open every day except Monday. It also has a very good cafe, and an extremely dangerous bookshop (a branch of Blackwells). Despite the medical theme, it's pretty safe for the squeamish, with far more 'gosh' than 'yuck'.
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Date: 2008-08-26 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-28 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 11:53 am (UTC)Will certainly make more of an effort next time. Thanks for the heads up.