"Medicine Show: Putting Science and Health on Display"

Time: 6:00 p.m.

Place: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

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Sponsored by the F. C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine.

Wellcome Collection, London, opened its doors to the public just over 18 months ago. Since then it has welcomed close to 500,000 visits and has received lavish plaudits from all corners of the UK’s press and media, as well as internationally. It presents an uncompromisingly brainy approach to putting medicine on public display, but within a broad cultural context that seems to appeal to a wide grown-up audience.

In this talk, Dr. Ken Arnold outlines the Wellcome’s inquisitive curatorial approach to exploring medical science (past and present) within the broad context of the whole human condition. He discusses the permanent display of Henry Wellcome’s museum collection Medicine Man, and a recent temporary exhibition Skeletons: London’s Buried Bones, one of seven shows to have been mounted since June 2007. Dr Arnold will argue that while the work of the Wellcome represents a refreshing and innovative approach to engaging the public with medicine and its history, the approach owes much to the incurably curious instincts that led to the setting up of Europe’s first museums in the Renaissance. His conclusion is that there is something timelessly full of wonder about putting medicine on show.

Dr. Arnold is Head of Public Programmes at Wellcome Collection, London, and functions as creative director for the Collection.