The Thackray Museum, Leeds

I visited the Thackray medical museum in Leeds this weekend, and it was well worth it.  A fascinating and well put-together exhibition of medicine & health through the ages, with a particularly good section on a street in Leeds in 1842 (http://www.thackraymuseum.org/leeds-1842.html) including a very smelly section around the slaughterhouse!  You can choose a character and follow them around to find out what their life was like, what health risks they faced and what illnesses they may have had, and whether they survived them!

There would be enough to interest youngsters in this section, without too much dumbing down for grown ups; and the other exhibitions were very good too, more aimed at grown ups, but still with interactive bits & pieces for little ones.

The collections of Victorian medical equipment were wonderful, and it makes me want to collect that sort of thing all the more!

I have to admit that the 'Pain pus & blood' exhibition did make me a little squeamish, especially the video of the leg amputation, done with anaesthetic but otherwise in the same way (& speed) that it would have been done pre-anaesthetics.  Nyargh!  

One piece that made me laugh was in the section on 'taking the waters' from a visitor to Harrogate Spa in 1997: "It tastes horrible, like very salty egg sandwiches.  Anyone who can swallow it deserves to get better."  !


Onward & upward, or something like that!