The biology museums at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok have got to be one of the most underrated highlights in this entire SE Asian megopolis! While not in any guidebook, Pierre, a South African who is living here, teaching English, insisted I go.
First stop: The Parasite Museum In all of my years studying physiology, biology, entomology, and emergency medicine, there have been only been a limited number of times where I had to step back, scrunch-up my forehead and say out loud to complete strangers standing near by, "#*^%"! Well, elephantiasis of the scrotum proved to be one of those times. It is caused by a tiny parasite carried by mosquitoes. This isn't really the most comforting piece of knowledge in a place where mosquitoes are as common has houseflies. And those are only the ones you can see -- most of them, I am certain, hang out under the bed until you turn the lights off. Then it's dinnertime -- buffet style.
So the exhibit in this gallery consisted of a 5"x7" black and white photograph of the unfortunate man who was posing on a stool. The stool happens to be a critical feature in the image because it illustrated the magnitude of the problem. His scrotum rested on the floor between his feet.
Above the framed image, in a liquid filled Plexiglas case the size of a large sleeping pillow (not that this is the best analogy for measurement) was the actual "item" in all of its awe-inspiring splendor. I made a mental note to look into what vaccinations there might be for this microscopic monster. Then, in my head, I underlined that note.
Next stop: The Anatomy Museum Where else can you go to see the actual skeletons of former kings and other royalty of Thailand? This is it -- and it's free! The skeletons hang in simple wooden cases with glass doors. Above each is a photograph or painting of the honored individual and a caption that briefly describes them. Amazing how in their old age, many had developed miraculous under bites; their lower jaws, jutting out seemed to me to be the dominant skeletal structure, certainly of their upper bodies. I kept wondering why that happens in old age? And now, to the dissection rooms. Amazing exhibits all kept in mostly leak-proof containers of formaldehyde. Portions cleanly removed or pulled back in layers so that the structures on display can be viewed and given the attention they deserved. I thought back to my favorite anatomy book from college. It was an optional text, a photographic atlas of the body; it was from Japan. It contained hundreds of large full color photographs of the most skillfully dissected and exhibited prosections of the body. With every page, it was a "wow -- look at that! How did they do that? Look, you can see the sympathetic nerves! Look at how much fatty tissue there is. How'd they cut that?!" And here it was just centimeters away on the other side of the Plexiglas.
Everywhere I looked, in every adjoining room was something amazing: entire nervous systems, arterial and venous systems all hung vertically without any other distracting anatomy. And they were displayed in their three dimensional forms, all starting at the brain or along the spinal cord and branching out, ending at the tips of the fingers and toes. There were skeletons of babies with disproportionately large or small skulls. The boy with hydroencephaly floating in preserving fluid. But the highlight had to be the extensive collection of preserved babies with birth defects. The combinations were mind boggling: the baby with two heads that share one forward looking face, two babies connected only at the hip shoulders and head, one baby with four legs, a baby with a face but no brain, etc... It was all so horrifying but at the same time awe inspiring. What better way to prepare future doctors?
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