Medicine:The Wellcome Galleries

Hunter’s Gravid Uterus at the Science Museum

I recently visited the Science Museum in South Kensington to look at their brand new Medicine Galleries. Of particular interest is one of our very own items. Some time ago the Science Museum approached me to ask if they could borrow one of our copies of the First Edition of William Hunter’s The Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus, therefore I was particularly excited to see how it had been displayed in this brand new gallery.

William Hunter was a pioneer in obstetrics and was able to increase knowledge of foetal development and human anatomy by dissecting the bodies of women who died in pregnancy. A pupil of William Smellie, and later Physician to Queen Charlotte, he became a leading anatomist and obstetrician in his own right. His book: The Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus was first published in 1774. The drawings in this book were done by a Dutch artist, Jan van Rymsdyk as well as other unknown artists and it was printed by printer John Baskerville.

The new galleries are entitled: Medicine:The Wellcome Galleries and largely contain medical artefacts from the collections of the Science Museum Group and the Wellcome Collection.

https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/medicine-wellcome-galleries