Siriraj Medical Museums - Medical Exhibits that Could Make You Queasy
24.11.09
The Siriraj Medical Museums in Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok
display exhibits relating to pathology, forensic medicine,
parasitology, anatomy and the history of medicine in Thailand.
Siriraj Hospital is the first public hospital in Thailand
established by King Rama V in 1886 and named after one of
his sons who died of dysentery at the age of two. The Faculty of
Medicine here, set up in 1890, is also the oldest medical school
in Thailand.
Six separate museums make up the Siriraj Medical Museums:
Ellis Pathological Museum
Songkran Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum
Ouay Ketusingh Museum of History of Thai Medicine
Parasitology Museum
Congdon Anatomical Museum
Sood Sangvichien Prehistoric Museum & Laboratory
Let's start our tour of the Siriraj Medical Museums with the
Ellis Pathological Museum
named in honor of Professor A G Ellis, the first
pathologist in Thailand who worked in the Pathology
Department in 1921 and stayed on as Director of Siriraj until
1938.
The babies preserved here are either stillborn or dead shortly
after birth. There're dissected sections of babies, Siamese twins
showing their joined organs and babies born with one eye.
Some have external or internal deformations arising from
various diseases or with organs protruding outside the body.
Specimens of preserved organs used for pathological tests are
displayed with organs infected by various diseases. Medical
students were scribbling away in their books, though not all
visitors were as enthusiastic.
One visibly shaken woman visitor
was seen sitting out the tour.
Our next stop in the tour of Siriraj Medical Museums was the
Songkran Niyomsane Forensic
Medicine Museum named after Professor Dr
Songkran Niyomsane, a pioneer in forensic medicine who
started the museum.
The latest addition to the museum records the efforts by Siriraj
Hospital during the December 2004 tsunami, when pathology
teams assisted in the disaster victim identification. The scenes
are simply gruesome.
The rest of the displays cover skulls, bones, damaged organs
and photographs of murder and accident cases used in
investigations, including the preserved bodies of a couple of
rapists/murderers!
I gather that the founder, Dr Songkran's skeleton is also on
display in the museum, though I couldn't quite identify it!
The Ouay Ketusingh Museum of
History of Thai Medicine started by Professor
Ouay Ketusingh, who headed the Departments of Physiology
and Phamacology, was started in 1979.
The traditional Thai medicine shop display was a pleasant
relief. Also featured are the traditional practice of child
delivery by village midwives and the quaint practice of getting
the new mother to sleep by the fire for quick recovery.
In the Parasitology Museum
started in 1970 by Dr Vichit Chaiyaporn,
Department of Parasitology, you'll be exposed to every
conceivable form of parasite or worm infecting every movable
form of edible life.
Lungworms, pinworms, roundworms, tapeworms, whipworms
infecting livestock, fish, crustaceans, vegetables and viruses
causing food poisoning are identified here.
So are the
mosquitoes that cause Elephantiasis, an enlargement of the leg
and the scrotum.
If it's not what you eat, then pay heed to the venomous snakes,
spiders, scorpions, centipedes and tarantulas.
The last two Siriraj Medical Museums are in the Anatomy
block. The Congdon Anatomical
Museum was started in 1927 by Dr Edgar D
Congdon, Professor of Anatomy and father of modern
Anatomy in Thailand.
Row after row of showcases display skeletons, skulls, organs,
dissected sections, preserved nervous, muscular, arterial and
venous systems.
Being the oldest museum, the creaking
floorboards added to the creepy air about the place.
By the time we reached the last of the Siriraj Medical
Museums, the Sood Sangvichien
Prehistoric Museum & Laboratory, it was
closed for lunch. This was just as well, as we've had an
overdose medical museums by then. As it turned out this
museum, started in 1972 by Professor Dr Sood Sangvichien,
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, dealt with evolution!
For those keen on anatomy, pathology, forensic medicine, the
Siriraj Medical Museums could probably be a wealth of
information.
These museums were in fact set up as resources
centers for medical students.
If you can indifferent to preserved corpses, dissected sections,
organs damaged by disease or violence,, thailand travel, you'll probably be able
to cope with the tour.
If you're not, we strongly suggest you skip the Siriraj Medical
Museums and go straight for lunch.
If you really want to go there, here's how,
map to the Siriraj Medical Museums.
For something that's really different, visit the Siriraj Medical
Museums.
They're some of the many Bangkok Museums
covered in Tour Bangkok Legacies, a
historical travel site on people, places and events that left their
mark in the landscape of Bangkok. The author Eric Lim, a
free-lance writer, lives in Bangkok Thailand.
Posted byKhannayao at 11:12 AM
Labels: siriraj medical museums
