Boing Boing » curiosities

Museum inside a freight elevator

David Pescovitz — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:12:04 +0000

Hidden inside a nondescript freight elevator in a NYC TriBeCa alley lies Museum, a delightful cabinet-of-curiosities drawing from weird collections around the globe. Museum is now open for its second season and includes such items as: "Personal Ephemera from Al Goldstein, The Rocks and Tools from Tom Sach's Mars expedition, Objects Made For Prisoners or by Prisoners in US Prisons, Fake Vomit from Around the World, Tip Jars collected by Jim Walrod, Surf and Turf Potato Chips, and more."

Museum

Devilish vintage books

David Pescovitz — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:45:19 +0000

Invisible Brooklyn, sellers of fine curiosities and devilish artifacts, just posted two terrific tomes from the early 1900s to Instagram. I think both would best be enjoyed accompanied by a puff on the antique skull pipe, while wearing a smoking jacket. Red, of course.

Scary weapon: "Man Catcher" from 1601-1800

David Pescovitz — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 18:38:17 +0000

According to the Science Museum, London, this item from Henry Wellcome's curiosity collection is a "man catcher… used in Europe in the late 1700s during times of war. The terrifying collar pulled riders off horseback. In peacetime, it is thought the device may have caught and held escaped prisoners." "Man catcher, Germany, 1601-1800" (via Neatorama)

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

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:07:26 +0000

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