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Author:
Eric Lim

The Siriraj Medical Museums in Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok display exhibits relating to pathology, forensic medicine, parasitology, anatomy and the history of medicine in Thailand.

Siriraj Hospital is the first public hospital in Thailand established by King Rama V in 1886 and named after one of his sons who died of dysentery at the age of two. The Faculty of Medicine here, set up in 1890, is also the oldest medical school in Thailand.

Six separate museums make up the Siriraj Medical Museums:

• Ellis Pathological Museum


• Songkran Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum


• Ouay Ketusingh Museum of History of Thai Medicine


• Parasitology Museum


• Congdon Anatomical Museum


• Sood Sangvichien Prehistoric Museum & Laboratory

Let's start our tour of the Siriraj Medical Museums with the Ellis Pathological Museum named in honor of Professor A G Ellis, the first pathologist in Thailand who worked in the Pathology Department in 1921 and stayed on as Director of Siriraj until 1938.

The babies preserved here are either stillborn or dead shortly after birth. There're dissected sections of babies, Siamese twins showing their joined organs and babies born with one eye. Some have external or internal deformations arising from various diseases or with organs protruding outside the body.

Specimens of preserved organs used for pathological tests are displayed with organs infected by various diseases. Medical students were scribbling away in their books, though not all visitors were as enthusiastic. One visibly shaken woman visitor was seen sitting out the tour.

Our next stop in the tour of Siriraj Medical Museums was the Songkran Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum named after Professor Dr Songkran Niyomsane, a pioneer in forensic medicine who started the museum.

The latest addition to the museum records the efforts by Siriraj Hospital during the December 2004 tsunami, when pathology teams assisted in the disaster victim identification. The scenes are simply gruesome.

The rest of the displays cover skulls, bones, damaged organs and photographs of murder and accident cases used in investigations, including the preserved bodies of a couple of rapists/murderers!

I gather that the founder, Dr Songkran's skeleton is also on display in the museum, though I couldn't quite identify it!

The Ouay Ketusingh Museum of History of Thai Medicine started by Professor Ouay Ketusingh, who headed the Departments of Physiology and Phamacology, was started in 1979. The traditional Thai medicine shop display was a pleasant relief. Also featured are the traditional practice of child delivery by village midwives and the quaint practice of getting the new mother to sleep by the fire for quick recovery.

In the Parasitology Museum started in 1970 by Dr Vichit Chaiyaporn, Department of Parasitology, you'll be exposed to every conceivable form of parasite or worm infecting every movable form of edible life.

Lungworms, pinworms, roundworms, tapeworms, whipworms infecting livestock, fish, crustaceans, vegetables and viruses causing food poisoning are identified here. So are the mosquitoes that cause Elephantiasis, an enlargement of the leg and the scrotum.

If it's not what you eat, then pay heed to the venomous snakes, spiders, scorpions, centipedes and tarantulas.

The last two Siriraj Medical Museums are in the Anatomy block. The Congdon Anatomical Museum was started in 1927 by Dr Edgar D Congdon, Professor of Anatomy and father of modern Anatomy in Thailand.

Row after row of showcases display skeletons, skulls, organs, dissected sections, preserved nervous, muscular, arterial and venous systems. Being the oldest museum, the creaking floorboards added to the creepy air about the place.

By the time we reached the last of the Siriraj Medical Museums, the Sood Sangvichien Prehistoric Museum & Laboratory, it was closed for lunch. This was just as well, as we've had an overdose medical museums by then. As it turned out this museum, started in 1972 by Professor Dr Sood Sangvichien, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, dealt with evolution!

For those keen on anatomy, pathology, forensic medicine, the Siriraj Medical Museums could probably be a wealth of information. These museums were in fact set up as resources centers for medical students.

If you can indifferent to preserved corpses, dissected sections, organs damaged by disease or violence, you'll probably be able to cope with the tour.

If you're not, we strongly suggest you skip the Siriraj Medical Museums and go straight for lunch.

If you really want to go there, here's how, map to the Siriraj Medical Museums.

For something that's really different, visit the Siriraj Medical Museums. They're some of the many Bangkok Museums covered in Tour Bangkok Legacies, a historical travel site on people, places and events that left their mark in the landscape of Bangkok. The author Eric Lim, a free-lance writer, lives in Bangkok Thailand.

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