"My Favorite Museum Exhibit": The Bishop's Rectum

Earlier this week, I challenged readers to send me photos of their favorite museum exhibits and specimens, preferably from museums that might go overlooked in the tourism pantheon. Over the next few days, I'll be posting some of these submissions, under the heading, "My Favorite Museum Exhibit". Want to see them all? Check the "Previously" links at the bottom of this post.

It's "My Favorite Museum Exhibit"—celebrity edition. Marc Abrahams is the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, the journal that awards the annual Ig-Nobel Prizes. He sent me this: An actual rectum cut from the corpse of the Bishop of Durham. It resides in London's Hunterian Museum.

Here's the museum's description of Object RCSHC/P 192, as quoted by Abrahams in a 2010 Guardian column:

A rectum showing the effects of both haemorrhoids and bowel cancer. The patient in this case was Thomas Thurlow (1737-1791), the Bishop of Durham. Thurlow had suffered from some time from a bowel complaint, which he initially thought was the result of piles. He consulted John Hunter after a number of other physicians and surgeons had failed to provide him with a satisfactory diagnosis. Hunter successfully identified the tumour through rectal examination, but recognised that it was incurable. Thurlow died 10 months later.

Previously in this series:

Museum photos: Mummified Ice-Age bison

My Favorite Museum Exhibit: Arab Courier Attacked by Lions

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: audience participation • curiosities • happy mutants • medicine • my favorite museum exhibit • Science

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

http://chicagoscooterclub.com Chicago_SC

Rectum? Hell it killed him.

rim shot..

Good night folks!
- BombBlastLightingWaltz
  
  looks like hammer head haven.
bcsizemo

Hunter successfully identified the tumor through rectal examination…in 1791.

I’m more curious about HOW than the actual exhibit.
- A. .
  
  goatse is more ancient than we could have known
- chgoliz
  
  “Hunter wrote extensive notes about how he entered the case, examined the rectum (which at the time was, of course, still an integral part of the bishop), and immediately recognised, by feel, that it had an incurable tumour.”
schr0559

Christ, what an…
Mujokan

So sad.
LogrusZed

“annals”. heh
spacemunky

Barely contained the spit-take when loading the page….
tamgoddess

Hello? Unicorn chaser??
- http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan
  
  Looks like the unicorn caught him.
A. .

I think the unicorn poop cookies (google em) are the best chaser for this.
http://lectiblog.blogspot.com/ lecti

Jesus, not during dinner!
teknocholer

From the depths of the crypt at St Giles
Came a scream that resounded for miles.
Said the vicar, “Good gracious!
Has Father Ignatius
Forgotten the Bishop has piles?”
- http://www.iandicomputing.com Clifton
  
  Hah! I immediately had the same automatic response.
http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie

Religious relics taken to the extreme.
blueelm

Wow. That is a huge lump there, the guy must have been in a lot of pain :(
creatinganaccountbecauseanonym

Slight correction: Anals of Improbable Research
rattypilgrim

I can’t read it. Can someone explain what I’m looking at? What is that little wormy thing?
http://orbitnet.com JIMWICh

“You mean ‘Blossom’?”

- Quagmire
http://twitter.com/Kbkibbe Kevin

Anyone who finds this their “favorite museum piece” is an ass hole.
Jonathan Roberts

Is there a snow globe of this piece, too?
- http://twitter.com/frederikvdz Frederik
  
  Yes, but it’s not snow that falls when you shake it….
Doug Nelson

I clicked on the title link expecting to see some quaint Anglicism about church construction.
Halloween Jack

Over 22o years later, and it still looks a little clenched. Impressive!
Bookburn

Ughh… I mean really ughhh… I’m a science teacher with my own collection of preserved nasties… but this… ughhh…
regondi

His A$$holiness
Peter Chylewski

I love Boing Boing and I read it almost every day. But why is every other story so engrossing, monstrous or something the like? Am I the only one to think like that?
http://cefn.myopenid.com/ Cefn Hoile

So glad the rector was able to save this for posterity.