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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Edward Helmore in New York

‘Macabre curiosities’: top US medical museum confronts skeletons of its past

The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Among its collection are unusual or deformed organs, an iron lung and Einstein’s brain.
The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Among its collection are unusual or deformed organs, an iron lung and Einstein’s brain. Photograph: Allentown Morning Call/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia looks like any other respectable establishment in the United States: a trim brick building with an American flag outside.

But behind its doors lies a remarkable medical collection of the dead, diseased and disfigured that has attracted visitors and tourists for decades but is now at the center of a roiling dispute over the ethics of such exhibits in the 21st century.

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