The San Francisco call., 1910-09-06
MUSEUM HAS A
GREWSOME HOST
Hundreds of Skeletons and Rich
Collection of Interesting
Exhibits Are Shown

Visitors to the wonderful museum Of
the Royal college of surgeons need no
longer be bewildered by the endless
array of pathological and other speci-
mems The new illustrated guide, pre-
pared by Professor A. Keith, the con-
servator, makes it possible to obtain
a general idea of the richness of the
collection and at the same time fill him
with an acute sense Of the mystery of
life, growth and death.
A student OF the science of human
ology viii be deeply interested, but
the timorous and sensitive will be sub
jected to ''creeps." Row upon row of
grinning skulls. some with cleaning
white teeth. others toothIess skeletons
of all sizes, from an IS inch dwarf
TO foot inch Irish giant, Charles
Byrne or Brien, hundreds Of cases and
lars filled with portions of the human
body sections OF once living things
culled from all quarters Of the globe.
meet the eye at every turn, says the
London News.
The catalogue is written for the use
of those who make their first visit to
the museum AS Professor Keith says,
the museum may be regarded as a
discourse on the human body. The ami
nal kingdom has been ransacked to
show the meaning Of its structure and
the manner of its working" While
the museum makes it's chief appeal to
the medical student and the anthro-
pologist, il has distinctly human in
terest.
Among the skulls may be seen sew
eral of the earliest known European
race-the Neanderthal-and the cranial
and other bones of prehistoric inhabit-
ants OF England. The earliest human
form discovered in England is repre-
sented by the Galley Hill man, found
near Dartford eight feet down in a
bank of gravel which showed undis-
turbed stratification. The great col
lection Of skulls brings US UP through
the neolithic, bronze, ancient British,
Roman and Anglo-SaXon periods-in
fact, UP to the present time.
An examination of the skulls Of
various races reveals some striking
features. The early Tasmanians show
a remarkable size and strength of teeth
and Jaw The ancient Peruvians re-
veal a peculiar reformation caused by
artificial compression of the skull. The
work of the primitive dentist is in
evidence in some of the Bornean skulls.
The front teeth are deformed by fling
and drilling and the cavities filed with
shining metal Other fashionable
deformities of the teeth are seen in the
African and islands of the Pacific sec
tion.
Students of criminology have an op-
portunity of examining the skull of
Eugene Aram and the skeleton of
Jonathan Wild. executed at Tyburn In
1925. Readers in other fields may see
the fractured rib of Robert Bruce
King of Scotland. an injury sustained
in a jousting match during visit to
England in his youth. This rib was
obtained when his skeleton was disin-
TERED in 1919. There also are a cast
of the arm of DR.. Livingstone, mauled
bv q lion. the brain OF Professor
Charles Babbage. and series of speci-
mems representing deformities of the
spine. and skeletons of women whose
bodies have beer deformed by tight
lacing.
great collection of calculi, over
!. 900 in number, illustrates the danger
to which the human secretory organs
are subject These form the collection of
Sir Henry Thompson, the famous sur
geon. and include the calculi he re-
moved from Leopold, king of the Bel
gians. and Napoleon Ill
There is sufficient in this weird
museum TO fascinate the visitor for
hours at a time, ranging from the
Oldest mummy in the world to the tat
tered and shredded clothing of a man
struck by lightning, who marvelously
escaped personal injury though his
clothes were destroyed.