THERE can be few museums in Scotland which greet visitors with a warning – some people may find what lies behind these doors “upsetting.”

But while the revamped Surgeons’ Hall Museums in Edinburgh have all the usual features of modern exhibitions - touch screens, interactive exhibits and a gift shop – they also house the extraordinary. A hand deformed by leprosy, skeletons of children with blood vessels depicted in dark red and a book made from a murderer’s skin.

It sounds macabre, a freak show of the dead, but it is offering people the chance to see the human body with a doctor’s eyes and follow the way surgery advanced with the help of clinicians who studied the weird and wonderful, who passed on their learning through extensive notes, anatomical models and jars upon jars of specimens.

Mr Ian Ritchie, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, said: "Some people will find some of the things upsetting depending on their view of life.

"On the other hand, the main aim of this is to put these things in context. It brings a sense of reality which maybe reduces the grotesque nature of it with understanding."

The museum was closed for refurbishment 18 months ago and has undergone a £4 million transformation. In the past it has been of more interest to those studying medicine than the general public and was accessed by a rather circuitous route around the college's William Playfair building on Nicholson Street, Edinburgh.

Now the museums are being aimed at the general public with adverts on bus shelters and taxis inviting people in.

For the price of £6 (£3.50 concessions) they enter to find they can attend a digital dissection. A 17th century lecture theatre has been mocked up and a body awaits the surgeon's knife - modern technology showing onlookers what lies beneath the layers of skin.

Around the walls popular items are back on display: There is a letter Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote to the exceptional diagnostician Dr Joseph Bell crediting him for inspiring his fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes.

Another cabinet houses a pocket book bound using the skin of the infamous William Burke, who was hanged in 1829 for his part in killing people and selling their corpses to Dr Robert Knox for his well-attended anatomy lectures.

However, there are also items which have never been displayed before - among the curiosities an amputated swollen limb. Records show this was removed from a man who lived in the Highlands and was born with a third leg growing at the base of his spine. He spent his life hidden from society, disguising the deformity beneath a kilt and it was only when he was forced to take his sick brother to the doctor that his problem was revealed and treatment offered.

Chris Henry, director of heritage for the college, said it had been a privilege to oversee the museums' renovation.

It involved altering the buildings created to house the collection nearly 200 years ago - structures which had not been meddled with since 1908. A £2.7m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund has supported the overhaul.

Dame Seona Reid, chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Scotland Committee, said: “The SHM has undergone a glorious transformation which will surprise and delight all those who cross its magnificent pillared entrance.

"A new addition to Scotland’s portfolio of ‘must-see’ visitor attractions, it contains some of the most fascinating and intriguing artefacts in the world.”

Surgeons’ Hall Museums are open to the public from 10am to 5pm, seven days a week and are being officially opened by The Duke of Edinburgh on Monday.