How surgery has transformed in the last 100 years

The new Royal College of Surgeons Museum in Lincoln’s Inn tells the story of scientist and surgeon John Hunter, whose collection of human and animal anatomical specimens form the basis of the collection.

Casson Mann have designed the new displays at the Hunterian Museum (as it is known). They have brought their customary deftness to the task, with graceful arrays of objects and intuitive interactives. I really loved a large-scale brass eye-piece which showed a digitised selection of 19th-century microscope slides. A number of projected book-like interactives gave a depth of content in a beautiful way.

The spirit collection is arranged along The Long Gallery and packs a tremendous visual punch.

But I had come to see the Modern Surgery displays, for which I wrote the text under the patient eye of curator Alice Deane, a medical doctor. She gave vital advice and context, as did director of museums Dawn Kemp, as I navigated the process of distilling huge topics into short panels and labels.

We were guided by the work of audience expert Ben Gammon, a friend and colleague whose insights always help you see the wood for the trees, or in this case the story for the (gory) detail.

To get to grips with the project, I developed an interpretation strategy along with my colleague Laura Waters, who has much experience with object-based galleries. The space as a whole has the aim of presenting the colossal changes in surgery since the First World War and its industrialised horror. This theme is illustrated by the story of plastic surgeon Harold Gillies and his work with servicemen ‘without half their faces; men burned and maimed to the condition of animals’.

The major areas of content to cover – and this gives a snapshot of the astonishing developments of the last hundred years – included brain surgery, heart implants and transplants, microsurgery, CT and MRI imaging, keyhole surgery and paediatrics – a speciality that only came into being in the 1950s. Together with these advances came the NHS, the blood and organ donation services and the advent of antibiotics.

And of course the human stories are where the exhibits come to life. As I wrote the text, I was sharing the experiences of patients, and also the stories of surgeons who made breakthroughs with their teams to change outcomes so dramatically.

An artwork by Barbara Hepworth captures the social developments that have accompanied the medical during the 20th century. The label reads:

Concourse (2) by Barbara Hepworth, 1948
Sculptor Barbara Hepworth wanted to portray the ‘extraordinary beauty of purpose and co-ordination’ of surgical teams in her series of Hospital Drawings. Central in this scene is surgeon Norman Capener, who treated Hepworth’s daughter Sarah for osteomyelitis (bone infection). He invited Hepworth to observe operations, and she consciously reflected the cooperative, caring endeavour she saw. This drawing is from 1948, the year of the foundation of the National Health Service.

I was visiting with my daughter, and we talked about grandad’s pacemaker as we saw how they had been invented in his lifetime. We discussed antibiotic resistance, 3D printing of implants, and how VR is changing surgery. On a personal level I had to note that her brother and I would not be alive without the surgery that saved us both at his birth.

Everyone who visits this wonderful new museum will have stories like these, and be able to to reflect on how surgical advances mean that, nowadays, we often live to tell our tales.