TO the long and growing list of Scotland's 'must-see' attractions can be added one that is genuinely at the cutting-edge.
Surgeons' Hall Museums, part of the venerable Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, has re-opened after an 18-month-long, £4 million transformation, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. All of its famous exhibits are here, including, in the Wohl Pathology Museum, the pocket-book bound using the skin of William Burke. The collections also include many artworks and surgical instruments.
As befits a modern-day redesign, however, no opportunity has been wasted to educate and inform visitors through innovative, educational audio-visual and interactive features. They will, for example, be able to experience the dissection of a human body by means of the latest digital technology, a concept entirely unfamiliar to the medical students of three centuries ago. A notable aim in all of this is to encourage visitors to think not just about advances in surgical principles and processes but about their own health and wellbeing as well.
Something else comes to mind, too. The College, founded in 1505, is one of the world's oldest surgical incorporations, and, in its own words, its museum collections trace the story of medicine, from perceived witchcraft to a more recognised science. History is indeed writ large in this absorbing array of artefacts, even if some of them might be "upsetting" to some visitors.
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