Surgery Through Art – Chicago Health

A unique view of Chicago's International Museum of Surgical Science, at the crossroads of art, history and medicine

In 1553, the Spanish priest and surgeon Miguel Servetus published a groundbreaking book describing how blood flows through the heart and lungs. Today, this process – pulmonary circulation – is a fundamental principle of medicine. But at that time, city officials in the town of Servetus accused him of heresy. They sentenced him to be burned alive along with all copies of his book. However, three copies have survived, and today he is known as the first person to correctly describe the pulmonary circulation.

Servetus' tragic story is one of many historical tales unfolding within the four floors of Chicago's International Museum of Surgical Science, along with paintings, artifacts, and more. This stately Lake Shore Drive mansion dating back to 1524 was built in 1917 and is one of the Seven Houses Historic District on Lake Shore Drive.

“You can't see what it really is until you come here,” says Michelle Renard, director of exhibitions and development. “Medical history is not a straight line of progress. It is important to show medical errors in history to get where we are today.

At the museum, visitors can see amputation saws, pierced skulls, a large jar filled with ancient kidney stones, and more. But this museum doesn't pay tribute to shock. Instead, it is an eclectic tribute to Chicago's countless contributions to medicine—the city that has produced such giants as Abbott, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Provident Hospital, the first black nursing school, the American College of Surgeons, and the International College of Surgeons (ICS).

The man behind the museum

Max Thorek, MD, a Hungarian-born, Chicago-educated surgeon (and founder of what is now known as Thorek Memorial Hospital in Uptown), created the ICS in 1935 to unite surgeons through education, fellowship, and humanitarian work. Through the organization, he purchased the mansion that currently houses the Surgical Museum.

Turek proceeded to assemble a collection of artifacts, paintings, manuscripts, sculptures, and books from surgeons, collectors, and college departments. Besides its contents, the palace itself is a masterpiece: it was designed by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw on the historical lines of Le Petit Trianon, a French palace on the grounds of Versailles designed by architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel. This building was dedicated to Marie Antoinette and today it is also a museum.

“Max Thorek was a truly influential person, collector, artist, and musician. He had a vision to create the museum through art,” says Reynard. Narrative visual explanations make dense topics easier to digest.

The museum's mission is to celebrate the work of international surgeons. One permanent exhibit, the Taiwan Hall of Fame, showcases the country's blend of traditional herbal medicine, folk remedies and Western medical technology.

The museum feels like a time machine, there are no sterile laboratories or laparoscopic surgery here. It's hard not to imagine what it was like to live in a four-story mansion, walking down the marble staircase, hearing the sound of traffic on Lake Shore Drive 100 years ago, pulling your volumes from the shelves in the library, or hosting a fireside party in the Hall of Immortals ( Currently filled with 12 large sculptures of medical innovators).

“When you learn about these numbers, you see that the surgery was brutal and very painful. Doctors do not yet understand the human body and human anatomy,” says Reynard.

Museum organizers celebrate the connections where art, medicine and history come together. After all, art has had a clear role in medicine, from Leonardo da Vinci's pioneering anatomical drawings to Harold Gillies' drawings documenting his plastic surgeries on mutilated soldiers in World War I. As a tribute to the history of the business, the museum includes a pharmacy that includes installations and artifacts from two 19th-century stores, donated by the personal collection of Chicago native Charles Walgreen Jr.

Pick Your Poison showcases some of our most powerful medicines, from medical miracles to social menaces. Items such as advertisements for toothache drops made with cocaine often spark conversations about prescription drugs and how we use them today, and contemplation of what has changed and what has not changed over the past 100 years.

“I didn’t know before I came here how far we had come in medicine,” says Renard, who has worked at the museum for nearly a decade. “You don't think about it, because you live in the present. But here you learn about surgery and medicine through art – painting and sculpture.

Merge artists

In addition to its regular exhibits, the museum devotes galleries to contemporary artists such as José Luis Benavides, a local video artist, photographer, and adjunct professor at the City Colleges of Chicago. Benavides' letters to lost loved ones highlight the medical treatment of prisoners in Illinois during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2020, museum organizers planned an exhibition about nurses who practiced art — painting, textile arts, poetry — but their collective works evolved into a reflection of Covid-19. The following year, the museum hosted an exhibition dedicated to nurses who were lost during the pandemic.

Artists in residence at the museum have access to the museum's archive and collections, as well as space for exhibitions. Chicago-based artist Sheri Lee Charlton's illustrations, for example, explore medicine through the lens of how women have historically and repeatedly been misdiagnosed and misdiagnosed.

Museum directors have also launched a series of events, including a Speed ​​Friendship event, designed to introduce new acquaintances to each other with the museum as a backdrop. The series has been very popular and is continuing.

Just as it was during the Countess's reign, the mansion remains a social center for exchanging ideas, appreciating the past, and learning about Chicago's place in medicine.

Photography and additional reporting by Katie Scarlett Brandt