works

Galleries and Reading Room

Library

Wellcome Café

Wellcome Kitchen

Wellcome Shop

To make your visit as safe and enjoyable as possible, you’ll need to follow our safety measures inside our venue, including wearing a face covering unless you’re exempt. Find out how we're keeping you safe. You no longer need to book a ticket to enter the museum or library.

We’re undertaking research with website visitors to find out some more about you and what you thought about your visit. This survey will take less than 10 minutes to complete. Thank you for your time!

What brought you to our website today?

Medical Heritage Library

Catalogue of anatomical objects : constituting the main part of the museum of Professor Cleland, handed over by agreement for the use of the Anatomical Department to the University of Glasgow.

2 unnumbered pages, 23 pages ; 24 cm (4to)

Description of the anatomical museum of the school of Great Windmill Street.

<p>In 1768, the anatomist, surgeon and obstetrician William Hunter moved to the house he had built in Windmill Street, London. This included a lecture theatre, dissecting room and a museum, which featured his collection of anatomical preparations. These were used in the anatomy school which he had run in London since 1746. This anonymous caricature, published a year before Hunter's death in 1783, shows his museum on the day of resurrection, when all men will rise again, in their whole bodily form, to be judged. This has been the cause of the breakage of the jars of preserved body parts, which Hunter is bemoaning. He stands clothed and wigged at the centre of the print while on either side figures demand the return of their missing parts, one his head and the other her virgin womb. On the left, two one-legged men dispute the ownership of a lower leg while the man on the far left despairs at the prospect of the resurrection of his wife. On Hunter's right, a male and female skeleton cordially greet each other, while the figure on the right is in search of his missing stomach. In the background, a hunchbacked figure is ringing a bell to call the souls back to life, and in the distance, two figures embrace each other. Two winged devils prance along the two-storied colonnade in anticipation of those souls who will be damned. In 1763, Hunter fell into dispute with his brother, John, over the ownership of the preparations which John had made while in William's employ (Brock, ed. 1983, p. 45). Eventually the two brothers fell out altogether and William bequeathed his entire collection and library to Glasgow University, where it remains today. John Hunter's own collection of anatomical preparations survives in his museum in the Royal College of Surgeons, London</p>

1 print : engraving ; platemark 18.8 x 31.2 cm

William Hunter (1718-1783) in his museum in Windmill Street on the day of resurrection, surrounded by skeletons and bodies, some of whom are searching for their missing parts. Engraving, 1782.

98 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), portraits, plan ; 21 cm

Die Hallesche Anatomie und ihre Sammlungen : ein Instituts- und Sammlungsführer / Rüdiger Schultka ; Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Medizinische Fakultät, Institut für Anatomie und Zellbiologie.

Catalogue of anatomical preparations in the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow ... / [compiled by] G. Fordyce, David Pitcairn, W. Combe.

1 print : engraving, with watercolour ; image 18.1 x 13.8 cm

The Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London: the interior of the Hunterian Museum. Coloured engraving by E. Radclyffe after T. H. Shepherd.

2 volumes in 1 : illustrations, plates (part folded) ; 22 cm

Pathologisch-anatomisches Museum : enthaltend eine Darstellung der vorzüglichsten Krankhaften, Veränderungen und Bildungsfehler der Organe des menschlichen Körpers, nach ältern und neuern Beobachtungen : zum Gebrauch für Ärzte, Wundärzte und Geburtshelfter / herausgegeben von Dr. Ludwig Cerutti.

444 pages : illustrations (some colour) ; 24 cm

Anatomy museum : death and the body displayed / Elizabeth Hallam.

<p>William and John Hunter were Scottish brothers who came to London in the 1740s and established an anatomy school in Covent Garden. In the 1760s William Hunter moved to a larger building in Great Windmill Street in Westminster. There he constructed a purpose-built anatomy theatre, library and museum. After his death in 1783 the anatomy theatre remained in use for teaching, but William Hunter's library and museum went to Glasgow University, to which he had bequeathed it. From 1832 to 1842 the London anatomy theatre was run by the surgeon John Gregory Smith, and it was at that time that the present watercolour was made by Robert Blemmel Schnebbelie. The students paid to attend, and they included art students as well as medical students and other interested persons. The big heating pipe in the centre was essential as the anatomy lessons took place in the winter, when the corpses would survive longer without putrefying, and much of the heat would disappear through the big skylight which was needed to provide light for viewing. Big watercolours of anatomical processes are pinned to the back wall,John Gregory Smith was Lecturer on Anatomy and Surgery at the Great Windmill Street School (Theatre of Anatomy) from 1832 to 1842 (Plarr's lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, revised by Sir D'Arcy Power et al., Bristol: J. Wright & Sons for the Royal College of Surgeons, 1930, vol. 2, p. 317). The theatre had previously been used by William and John Hunter, and the building housed William Hunter's museum and library. The building was later occupied by the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue (with the stage door in Great Windmill Street)</p>

1 painting : watercolour ; sight 22.8 x 29.3 cm

Wellcome uses cookies.

More filters

Active filters:

Catalogue of anatomical objects : constituting the main part of the museum of Professor Cleland, handed over by agreement for the use of the Anatomical Department to the University of Glasgow.

Description of the anatomical museum of the school of Great Windmill Street.

William Hunter (1718-1783) in his museum in Windmill Street on the day of resurrection, surrounded by skeletons and bodies, some of whom are searching for their missing parts. Engraving, 1782.

Die Hallesche Anatomie und ihre Sammlungen : ein Instituts- und Sammlungsführer / Rüdiger Schultka ; Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Medizinische Fakultät, Institut für Anatomie und Zellbiologie.

Catalogue of anatomical preparations in the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow ... / [compiled by] G. Fordyce, David Pitcairn, W. Combe.

The Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London: the interior of the Hunterian Museum. Coloured engraving by E. Radclyffe after T. H. Shepherd.

Anatomy museum : death and the body displayed / Elizabeth Hallam.

A lecture at the Hunterian anatomy school, Great Windmill Street, London. Watercolour by R.B. Schnebbelie, 1839.

Descriptive catalogue of the osteological series contained in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England / ... by Richard Owen.

Stay in the know

Wellcome collection

Finding us:

Opening times:

Today's opening times

Wellcome uses cookies.

Search the collections

More filters

Active filters:

Catalogue of anatomical objects : constituting the main part of the museum of Professor Cleland, handed over by agreement for the use of the Anatomical Department to the University of Glasgow.

Description of the anatomical museum of the school of Great Windmill Street.

William Hunter (1718-1783) in his museum in Windmill Street on the day of resurrection, surrounded by skeletons and bodies, some of whom are searching for their missing parts. Engraving, 1782.

Die Hallesche Anatomie und ihre Sammlungen : ein Instituts- und Sammlungsführer / Rüdiger Schultka ; Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Medizinische Fakultät, Institut für Anatomie und Zellbiologie.

Catalogue of anatomical preparations in the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow ... / [compiled by] G. Fordyce, David Pitcairn, W. Combe.

The Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London: the interior of the Hunterian Museum. Coloured engraving by E. Radclyffe after T. H. Shepherd.

Anatomy museum : death and the body displayed / Elizabeth Hallam.

A lecture at the Hunterian anatomy school, Great Windmill Street, London. Watercolour by R.B. Schnebbelie, 1839.

Descriptive catalogue of the osteological series contained in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England / ... by Richard Owen.

Stay in the know

Wellcome collectionWellcome Collection

Finding us:

Opening times:

Today's opening times

Wellcome collection