Tooth growing cocks

The Royal College of Surgeons of England  (RCSE) were hosting an Open Day last week. They have a number of lecture and meeting rooms available as well as their library, the Hunterian Museum and a great Hall for social events including receptions, dinners and weddings.

With grand staircases and lots of wood paneling and at the same time, high class AV, it's a great venue. They will open their doors as part of the Open House London weekend (21-22 September).

The Hunterian Museum of Anatomical wonders is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm and best of all admission is free! We just had a quick walk through, but if you are into that kind of stuff, I would strongly recommend a visit! They have a lot of exhibits on display. Such as a cock's head, with a tooth growing out of it....

They also have the skeleton of the then tallest man in Britain, who was 2.33m. The poor man had paid a ship's captain to ensure that nobody would experiment with his dead body and died in the belief that he would get buried at sea. John Hunter (1728-1793) managed to get his body anyway though. And thus it is still on display today! A lady who was also visiting exclaimed just how tall this man had been in his time. I said I thought, he would have been regarded as very tall even nowadays! To which she replied that it was much more special back then. I restrained myself from asking how many people she knows who are 2.33m tall...

Not surprisingly, the world of surgery is still very much dominated by men. And up to this day the RCSE has never had a female president. In order to celebrate female surgeons, they have portraits of six successful female surgeons outside their lecture halls and a painting in one of the lecture halls with a number of female surgeons. The painting also includes James Barry - born Margaret Ann Bulkley. She pretended to be a man all her live and otherwise wouldn't have been able to study medicine at the time.

Just one example of their wedding table decorations

And lots of pink!