The Collection

The Museum has a large and growing collection of approximately 8,000 pathological specimens, all are catalogued. The teaching collection is arranged in most part systemically but with some smaller specialised sub-collections on, for instance, Forensic Medicine and HIV - AIDS.

The Museum is arranged into four bays, each of which is divided into three floors. The two upper floors are galleries, which ring the bays and hold the specimen collections.

The Museum's collection includes the following notable specimens, artefacts, models and paintings.

Additional collections

The Gordon Museum has a smaller satellite collection called the Shattock Museum, which is on the St Thomas' campus. An additional satellite collection has recently been added on the Denmark Hill campus. Both of these Museums have good collections of teaching specimens.

In 2009 the Museum opened an extension – the Life Sciences Museum housing around 3,000 life sciences and zoological specimens.

The scientific study of disease: Specimens in the Gordon Museum

One of the greatest leaps forward in the history of medicine was made in the nineteenth century when scientific method was applied to the study of illness, coupling together the study of living patients and the findings of post-mortem examinations. Thomas Addison, Richard Bright and Thomas Hodgkin, sometimes called ‘the three great men of Guy’s’, worked simultaneously at Guy’s Hospital. Their historical reputation is not just for their eponymous diseases but also for being three of the first to adopt scientific methodology in the study of diseases.

The Gordon Museum collection contains the significant specimens and instruments of these men that have impacted significantly on the development of medical studies. The specimens which have been assimilated into the collection over the past 400 years show ‘classic’ and ‘rare’ cases of many diseases and are arranged systematically by organ or as ‘topics’. Each of the specimens is fully documented and all the relevant details of the condition and medical history of the patient are on show with the specimen.

Thomas Hodgkin’s stethoscope

Thomas Hodgkin (1798-1866), appointed Lecturer in Morbid Anatomy and the first curator of the Gordon Museum then called the anatomy museum, was an early advocator of the stethoscope, having taken a year out of his medical studies to visit Paris, where he met Laënnec, the inventor of the instrument. Whilst still a student in 1822, Hodgkin delivered a lecture on the stethoscope at a meeting of the Guy’s Hospital Physical Society, where it was initially received with scepticism. The stethoscope is displayed in Aesculapius Room on the ground floor of the Museum.

Thomas Hodgkin’s disease specimen

This specimen, studied by Hodgkin, shows a portion of the abdomen from a case of Hodgkin’s disease. Thomas B was admitted with a two year history of enlarged glands in the neck axillae and groins with progressive emaciation. Autopsy revealed mediastinal and abdominal lymph node enlargement. The specimen, part of the Gordon Museum collection, shows the aorta encased in enlarged lymph nodes.

In 1832 Hodgkin published On Some Morbid Anatomies of the Absorbent Glands and Spleen, a description of seven cases of enlargement of the lymph glands and spleen. Hodgkin’s name was attached to this condition by Guy’s physician, Samuel Wilkes (1824-1911) who making similar, independent observations in 1865, became aware of Hodgkin’s work. The specimens of Hodgkin’s Disease are on display in Aesculapius Room on the ground floor of the Museum.

Thomas Addison's Disease specimen

The Gordon Museum contains a number of specimens and wax models associated with the work of Thomas Addison (1795-1860). This model, by Joseph Towne (1806-1879), records the case of Robert B, admitted aged 12 with abdominal pain, vomiting and discoloration of the skin. Robert B died eight months later. At autopsy the only abnormalities were the skin colour and the adrenal glands shown, also on display in the Museum, which were converted into fibrocaseous material. Microscopy showed giant cells indicating tuberculosis, a common cause of Addison’s disease at the time. The specimens showing Addison’s Disease are on display in Aesculapius Room on the ground floor of the Museum.

Thomas Addison was the son of a grocer and was educated at Newcastle. He qualified in Edinburgh in 1851 then moved to London to start his practice. In 1817 he enrolled as a pupil physician at Guy’s and was eventually appointed physician in 1837. For a period he was a joint lecturer with Richard Bright, with whom he was to write the well known textbook, Elements of the Practice of Medicine.

Addison’s name is attached to two diseases, pernicious anaemia (Addisonian Anaemia) and adrenal insufficiency (Addison’s Disease). At the outset he did not distinguish between them, until his findings of post-mortem abnormalities in the adrenal glands made him realise that disease of the adrenals could not be related to the patients with anaemia. Addison made several other original descriptions: of the pathology of pneumonia (showing that inflammation was actually in the airways, in the alveoli, and not confined to the interstitium), and of skin disorders such as xanthoma diabeticorum, morphea and xanthomata in hyperlipidaemia. His lifelong interest in dermatology led him to found the department of skin diseases at Guy’s in 1824. Wax models of skin disorders are still in the Gordon Museum today.

Bright’s Disease specimen

This specimen shows the kidney of Mary B, aged 34, a patient of Richard Bright, who was admitted with proteinuria of five years duration. She died in a fit and at autopsy the heart was healthy and of a moderate size. The kidney is of normal size and has a granular surface. Histologically there is interstitial fibrosis and destruction of the glomeruli.

Richard Bright (1789-1858) advocated careful clinical descriptions based on a ‘chemical test’ to be carried out during the patient’s life, combined with postmortem examination findings. He attributed oedema and albuminuia to be the consequence of kidney disease. His descriptions of pathological dieases were known as the syndromes of Bright’s Disease.

Bright had studied medicine at Edinburgh, Guy’s and Cambridge (briefly), qualifying from Edinburgh in 1813. He settled and began to practise in London and was appointed physician at Guy’s in 1844.

In his studies of morbid anatomy Bright was inspired by the surgeon and anatomy teacher Sir Astley Cooper. Between 1827 and 1836 Bright published three works describing and linking dropsy (oedema), urine which coagulated on heating and postmortem changes in the kidneys. His work clearly differentiated between renal and cardiac dropsy, i.e. cardiac failures. He described subsets of postmortem renal changes and recognised that the clinical appearances in his patients could be due to a number of differing renal pathologies. For his early observations, Bright is known as the ‘father of nephrology’. The specimens showing Bright’s Disease are on display in Aesculapius Room on the ground floor of the Museum.

Gordon Museum Astley Cooper Aortic Ligation 10

Sir Astley Paston Cooper’s ligation of the abdominal aorta

Sir Astley Paston Cooper (1768-1841) was an authority on the pathology of aneurysms and in particular of aneurysm of the aorta. One of these specimens is an injected, dried and varnished specimen showing the collateral circulation of the first successful experimental ligation of a dog’s aorta. There is a large display of the original specimens of Sir Astley Cooper’s, including this example, in the Aesculapius room on the ground floor of the Museum.

Having qualified at Guy's in 1789, became Anatomy Demonstrator at St. Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals. He had studied the French methods of surgery by a visit to Paris during the Revolution. Appointed surgeon to Guy's in 1800, he operated on George IV in 1821 and was rewarded with a baronetcy. The prestige of Sir Astley Cooper was such that Guy's Medical School, opened in 1825, was an immediate success with his appointment as lecturer in anatomy and surgery.

He instituted the organised system of case recording by students, and was appointed lecturer in comparative anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, where he restricted himself to four and a half hours sleep in order to dissect animals to enhance his knowledge. Cooper continued to serve both hospitals with ever increasing distinction until his resignation of both appointments in 1825

Permanently on display are a number of important historical medical object collections including the Joseph Towne anatomical, dermatological and pathology wax model collection and the Lam Qua tumour paintings.

Also contained in the collection are a number of original medical artefacts including Joseph Lister’s original antiseptic spray; the earliest form of a hypodermic syringe; vaccinators for the mid-nineteenth century and early nineteenth-century medical instruments from the field cases of military surgeons.

Joseph Towne’s wax model collection

Within the Dunhill Dermatology Room and the Anatomy Room of the Museum are many wax models created by Joseph Towne (1808-1879) of the interior structure of the human body and also replicas of the exterior skin conditions sent to Towne by Thomas Addison, the foremost authority on skin disease of his day.

Joseph Towne held the post of wax modeller to Guy’s Hospital Medical School for 53 years and in that time he produced over 200 anatomical, dermatological and pathological models, based on the dissections of demonstrator John Hilton. Towne’s models are on display in the Museum and are still used for teaching. Towne was awarded many prizes for his work including the silver medal from the Royal Society for Arts.

A selection of Towne’s models were lent to the Wellcome Trust for the ‘Exquisite Bodies’ exhibition in 2009.

An example of the anatomical modelling of Joseph Towne showing the spine and organs of the lying figure

Example of the anatomical modelling of Joseph Townes showing the spine and organs of the lying figure

The paintings of Lam Qua

The Museum contains the collection of paintings of pre-operative Chinese tumour patients by Lam Qua (1801–1860). Lam Qua was a successful artist living in Canton in the nineteenth century. He had been the senior pupil of George Chinnery, a British portraitist of the academic school. Chinnery, whose own master was Joshua Reynolds, became the first English painter to settle in China.

Lam Qua became an expert in portraiture, which was virtually absent from the Chinese tradition. The Rev. Dr Peter Parker (1804 -1888), started work in China in 1834 as a medical missionary and Lam Qua's nephew became Dr. Parker's apprentice. In gratitude for Parker's work, Lam Qua offered to paint Parker's most interesting cases. Lam Qua's only proviso was "As there is no charge for cutting, I can make none for painting". These paintings adorned the Canton hospital waiting room. Parker donated some twenty three paintings to Guy's hospital. In 1841, whilst visiting Guy's, Parker provided the original descriptions of his patients.

These paintings are now on exhibition in the Percy Robert's room of the Museum. A further 105 paintings can be seen at Yale, where Parker had completed a twin course in theology and medicine in 1834.

Lord Joseph Lister’s antiseptic spray

Within the collection, in the Aesculpius Room, is Sir Joseph Lister’s carbolic antiseptic spray. A common report by surgeons in the early 19th century was, 'operation successful but the patient died'. Sir Joseph Lister (1827-1912), Professor of Clinical Surgery at King's from 1877 to 1893, introduced an antiseptic system which changed the practice of medicine and drastically reduced mortality rates from major operations. Convinced that putrefaction was caused by airborne bacteria, Lister initially used carbolic acid-soaked bandages on wounds to create a barrier against infection.

The antiseptic spray device worked on the throat-spray principle. A jet of steam from the copper boiler blew over the tops of the two tubes passing to the glass jar which was filled with carbolic. The carbolic was suckered up these two tubes and carbolic vapour was produced. Lister finally abandoned the spray in 1887 however the influence of his theories was convincing. By 1910 post operative mortality for major operations reduced from 40 per cent to less than three per cent and Lister’s principle - that bacteria should never gain entry to an entry wound – remains a basic principle of surgery top this day.

Sir Joseph Lister’s principle - that bacteria must never gain entry to an operation wound - remains the basis of surgery to this day.

Thomas Hodgkin’s Stethoscope

Thomas Hodgkin’s Stethoscope is on display in the Aesculpius Room of the Gordon Museum. Hodgkin (1798-1866) encountered the new instrument in Paris and presented a paper on its use to the Guy’s Hospital Physical Society in 1822. Although he was an early advocate of the instrument, it was initially received with scepticism by the medical profession in England.

Thomas Hodgkin's Stethoscope, the first to be used in England