Records of the autopsy of Chang and Eng Bunker

Collection

Identifier: CPP 10/007-06

Scope and Contents

Letters, minutes, contracts, and receipts for payment, 1874-1875, associated with autopsy of Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker. Autopsy begun on 1 Feb. 1874 at Bunker home in Mt. Airy, N.C., and completed in Mütter Museum of College of Physicians of Philadelphia later in Feb. 1874. Letters and minutes concern transport of bodies and arrangements for College of Physicians to oversee conclusion of autopsy. Contracts and receipts are for photographs, casts, and anatomical drawings, and supplies used during procedure.

Added 6/30/09 from Museum files: 1 receipt; Reprint of Report on the surgical considerations in regard to the propriety of an operation for the separation of Eng and Chang Bunker ... (from Transactions & studies ..., 3rd ser., 1L149-69, 1875)

Dates

1874 - 1875

Creator

College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Committee on the Mütter Museum (Organization)

Biographical / Historical

The Committee on the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia was first appointed in Jan. 1863 and charged with the general supervision of the anatomical and pathological museum established by the articles of agreement made between the College and Thomas D. Mütter in 1858-1859. The chairman of the committee was to report annually on the condition of the museum and semi-annually on its financial situation and also receive the income from the Mütter Trust and make disbursements to the museum’s curator and the Mütter lecturers. In 1886, the duties of the College’s Committee on Lectures, which chose and supervised the Mütter lecturers, devolved onto the Committee on the Mütter Museum. In 1935, the College formed a Committee on College Collections to care for, exhibit, and loan objects received by the College which were not covered by the Mütter Trust. The officers of this committee were identical to the officers of the Committee on the Mütter Museum, and the two bodies met consecutively. In 1990, the Committee on the Mütter Museum became inactive, and general oversight of the Mütter Museum was assumed by the College’s Committee on Program.