Philadelphia's Medical Art - PhillyWired.com

Philadelphia is home to the nation’s first hospital and medical school, as well as the first art school and museum. So it’s not surprising that the city has an extensive collection of medical art ranging from a recently-unveiled outdoor mural honoring nurses to Thomas Eakins’ painting The Gross Clinic at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.

Among the medical firsts in Philadelphia are: the nation’s first hospital (Pennsylvania Hospital), first medical school (University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine), first children’s hospital (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia), first eye hospital (Wills Eye Hospital), first college of pharmacy (Philadelphia College of Pharmacy & Science) and the world’s first women’s medical school (Medical College of Pennsylvania). The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is the nation’s first art school and museum.

Medical art enthusiasts can find historic illustrations and medical collections at hospitals and medical schools throughout the area, as well as in the city’s art museums, including:

College of Physicians of Philadelphia and Mütter Museum
The fine arts collection at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia includes 170 oil portraits (of fellows of the College, medical pioneers and scientists) and 80 portrait busts in marble, bronze and plaster. The three most famous portraits are: Thomas Eakins’ painting of Dr. William Thomson; a Thomas Sully portrait of Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, a College Fellow who went on to become the first president of the American Medical Association and president of the American Philosophical Society; and Charles Willson Peale's portrait of the great scientist, explorer and geographer, Alexander von Humboldt.

In addition, the College has a program linking medicine and art called the “Section of Arts and Medicine.” While fellows of the College are distinguished physicians, scientists and leaders of major health care institutions who are elected to membership, anyone interested is invited to join the College's Section on Arts and Medicine. The Section brings together both doctors and non-physicians who share an interest in the relationship between medicine and literature, music and painting. Section members are particularly interested in the potential of the arts to provide fresh perspectives on the experiences of patients and physicians alike. The Section also explores the lives of physicians who pursued second careers in the arts.

Upon retiring from teaching in 1856, Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter offered the guardianship of his personal museum to the College of Physicians. The college accepted in 1859, just before Mütter’s death. The Mütter collection was combined with the College’s previous collection of pathological anatomy specimens that was started by Dr. Isaac Parish in 1849. Throughout the years, the museum made additions to its inventory. Now the Mütter Museum's collections include more than 20,000 objects, including fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological specimens, medical instruments, anatomical and pathological models, items of memorabilia of famous scientists and physicians, and medical illustrations.

Groups wishing to schedule a tour of the portrait collection or individuals interested in joining the Section of Arts and Medicine can contact the director of the Mütter Museum, Gretchen Worden, at 215/563-3737 extension # 242. 19 S. 22nd Street, 215/563-3737, www.collphyphil.org.

Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University
From its modest beginnings near Independence Hall, Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University is today one of the largest private medical schools in the United States and houses one of the city’s most prized paintings, Thomas Eakins’ The Gross Clinic. The painting depicts a heroic physician calmly performing the multiple tasks of instructing students, training assistants, and operating on a patient. This work is on display at Jefferson Alumni Hall’s Eakins Gallery and is considered the finest work by one of America’s premier realist painters. Also hanging in the gallery are Eakins’ portraits of professors Benjamin H. Rand and William Forbes, the “Father of the Anatomical Act.” Eakins studied anatomy at Jefferson Medical College and later become chief demonstrator of artistic anatomy at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. 1020 Locust Street, 215/955-6000, www.tju.edu/eakins/.

Nursing Mural
One of the newest highlights on the city’s long list of medical attractions is a five-panel mural at the southeast corner of Broad and Vine streets. The mural honors some of the nation's greatest nurses, including Helen Fairchild, Mary Ann Krisman-Scott and Walt Whitman, and was created to raise the awareness of Philadelphia as a nursing center at a time when the nation faces a major nursing shortage. The Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau’s Nursing Committee of the Greater Philadelphia Health Care Congress, The Independence Foundation and 16 nursing alumni associations in the Philadelphia area initiated the project in 2002.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts specializes in the work of American artists. The permanent collection contains many examples of medical artwork, including Thomas Eakins' anatomical casts and his many drawings of human and animal dissection studies. In addition, the museum is home to portraits of Dr. Howard Steel and Will Porter, and busts of Dr. Philip Syng Physick, Dr. Benjamin Rush and Dr. Caspar Wistar. Several medical-related paintings can be found in the collection, including Anatomical Lecture by Dr. William Williams Keen by artist Charles Stephens and Dissecting Room by Thomas Anshutz. Please call to see if these works are currently on view. Broad and Cherry streets, 215/972-7600, www.pafa.org.

Pennsylvania Hospital
Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation’s first hospital, has been serving the Philadelphia region and beyond for 252 years. The hospital has a large medical art collection, the first and largest medical library in the United States, the country’s first surgical amphitheater, a nursing museum and the physic garden featuring plants used in early American medicine. The centerpiece of the hospital’s valuable art collection is Christ Healing the Sick in the Temple, a dramatic 160-square-foot work by Benjamin West. Also among the collection are Thomas Eakins’ painting of Dr. Jacob DaCosta, a staff physician; and Thomas Sully’s portraits of Samuel Coates, hospital manager, and Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the father of American psychiatry. Portraits of Dr. Philip Syng Physick, the father of American surgery, and Jacob Ehrenzeller, the colonies’ first medical resident, also grace the walls of the hospital and can be seen on a walking tour. 800 Spruce Street, 215/829-7352, www.pahosp.com.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of the largest art museums in the United States. It showcases more than 2,000 years of exceptional human creativity in masterpieces of painting, sculpture, decorative arts and architectural settings from Europe, Asia and the Americas. Various works involving medicine through the ages can be found within its permanent collection and are often on display. There are resplendent Italian Renaissance apothecary jars (some of which are gifts of highly decorated earthenware from the Howard I. and Janet T. Stein collection) and a wonderful collection of "Ars Medica" works on paper that reflect a wide variety of medical themes. Please call to see if these works are currently on view. 26th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway, 215/763-8100, www.philamuseum.org.

Physick House
Several works of art are on display at this Federal townhouse, which was home to Dr. Philip Syng Physick, including Thomas Sully’s portrait of Dr. Physick, copies of illustrations by John Syng Dorsey, M.D., from his book Elements of Surgery (circa 1815), and a copy of a caricature by political cartoonist Thomas Rowlandson that depicts men studying medicine at the Hunter School where Dr. Physick studied. 321 S. 4th Street, 215/925-7866, www.philalandmarks.org.

Temple University School of Medicine
The Temple University School of Medicine is home to The Babcock Surgical Clinic by Furman J. Finck, a well-known portrait artist on Temple's faculty who also painted portraits of Presidents Eisenhower and Truman. The painting was commissioned in 1943 to mark Dr. W. Wayne Babcock's retirement after 40 years as Temple University Hospital's Chairman of Surgery. It depicts Dr. Babcock, the father of spinal anesthesia, surrounded by 10 of his former students, associates and a nurse. The painting hangs in the lobby of the medical school's Kresge Building, 3400 N. Broad Street, 215/707-4839, www.medschool.temple.edu.

Temple University School of Pharmacy
The Temple University School of Pharmacy’s H. Evert Kendig Memorial Museum houses a collection of pharmaceutical antiques, as well as rare books and documents. Authentic fixtures from a 19th-century Philadelphia pharmacy greet visitors, including an elaborately carved walnut waiting counter and matching wall cases completely filled with products in original containers. Wooden drug jars, scales and weights from the early Germantown Pharmacy, a notable collection of Old World and American pharmaceutical equipment, shelf ware, specie jars, gold needles, nursing bottles, an impressive collection of powder and liquid glass-label bottles, and ceramic drug jars are on display; many elaborately decorated with pictures depicting a pharmacy of the late 19th century; and other tools of the apothecary profession. Please note that the museum is shown by appointment only. 3307 N. Broad Street, 215/707-4990, www.temple.edu/pharmacy.

University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine
The John Morgan building on The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine campus houses some of the city’s most treasured medical artwork, including Thomas Eakins’ The Agnew Clinic. Completed in 1889, this large canvas depicts an operation in progress, involving the removal of a tumor from a woman’s breast. The piece is currently on temporary loan to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 3450 Hamilton Walk, 215/898-8001, www.med.upenn.edu.

University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (originally the College of Pharmacy)
The University of the Sciences in Philadelphia is home to the Marvin Samson Center for the History of Pharmacy, which contains more than 10,000 pharmaceutical and medical science objects that date back more than five centuries. The collection includes mortars and pestles, apothecary jars, weights and balances, patent medicines, signs and other rare items. 600 S. 43rd Street, 215/596-8800, www.usip.edu.

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