London’s reopened Hunterian Museum occupies a maze of rooms on the ground floor of the Royal College of Surgeons, a handsome neoclassical building on the south side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Both the Hunterian and the RCS have been through an extensive renovation, and walking in through its historic portico, I was surprised by the airy modernity of its gutted interior. The venerable institution is looking to the future, “reflecting the college’s changing functions as a home for surgical excellence in the UK and across the world”, to quote its director.

A similar sense of pleasant surprise followed me round the museum which, despite my imaginings of a stuffy collection of oddities, proved to be much more than that. The collection’s timeworn origins are now offset by illuminating contemporary curation telling the story of surgery. The unassuming entrance leads to womb-like rooms full of exotic animal remains, severed penises, and a famously large array of foetuses.

Closed for six years, the updated Hunterian thoughtfully engages in current debates about the ethics of displaying sensitive objects. For example, the only glimpse we get of the 7ft 7in skeleton of Charles Byrne (known as the Irish Giant) are his bony feet in the corner of a Joshua Reynolds portrait of John Hunter, the museum’s namesake. After Byrne died in 1783, Hunter reportedly paid the man’s friends £500 to hand over his body despite his explicit wish to be buried at sea. And since the Hunterian still retains his body (albeit out of the public gaze), they may yet face a legal campaign from medical ethicists, who want to see Byrne’s remains respectfully laid to rest.

The removal of this best-known item in the collection is indicative of the museum’s desire to recontextualise the fanatical collecting of 18th-century surgeon, physician and anatomist Hunter. As an introductory wall text states: “The museum contains thousands of specimens of human remains, gathered before modern standards of consent were established. We recognise the debt owed to these people – named and unnamed – who in life and death have helped to advance medical knowledge.”

Following Hunter’s death in 1793, the Government bought his collection of 14,000 specimens and preparations, and in 1799 gave it into the safekeeping of what is now the RCS for medical education and training. The story of Hunter forms the core of the new museum; he was the best-known surgeon and doctor of his day, and his insatiable curiosity led to advances in medical knowledge and practice.

The final galleries explore modern surgical breakthroughs and state-of-the-art techniques, such as robotics and augmented- and virtual-reality-assisted surgery. Although these rooms made me glad to be living in the present day – at a comfortable distance from the worst horrors of syphilis – the older displays were by far the most absorbing.

As demand for bodies soared, anatomists and surgeons entered into an uneasy partnership with grave robbers

The museum examines the intimate historic connection between criminals and surgeons – a moral quagmire from which emerged crucial medical developments. The skeleton of the notorious criminal Jonathan Wild in the 18th-century display provides an example of how hanged criminals once provided the only bodies available for dissection. As demand for bodies soared, anatomists and surgeons entered into an uneasy partnership with grave robbers – known as resurrection men – paying high prices for fresh cadavers.

Although art and surgery may now feel worlds apart, Hunter’s emphasis on detailed observation and accurate representation of anatomical structures through art played a significant role in advancing surgical knowledge. Anatomical illustrations, such as those by the Dutch artist Jan van Rymsdyk, showcase the artistic skill involved in documenting and visualising the complexities of the human body.

Hunter’s anatomical collection is displayed in the Long Gallery and this delicately illuminated collection of 3,100 specimen jars forms a jewel-like Wunderkammer. There are four different turtle intestine tracts, human foetuses in each stage of development, and bones, genitals and brains ravaged by syphilis and elephantiasis.

We see not just life stilled, but life in flux. Hunter was particularly interested in pregnancy and disease, and much of his collection relates to this subject – including pregnant lizards dissected so that their ovaries and oviducts are on full view.

We’re not just looking at bodies, but at an obsessive anatomist’s view of them in their most extreme moments. It’s no surprise that artists such as Damien Hirst and Jenny Saville have been drawn to these morbid corridors chronicling the miracle, struggle and vulnerability of life.
The museum stands as a memorial to a brilliant, irritable and ambitious man – who, on his death, left his wife penniless and without a home. He had spent everything on his collection.

Royal College of Surgeons of England, 38-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE; Tuesday to Saturday, 10am-5pm; free admission, booked in advance; 020 7869 6560; hunterianmuseum.org

Max Lunn is a journalist based in London