Exploring the Body Parts Museum

Baylor College of Medicine, which is located in Houston, Texas, sits within the campus of the Texas Medical Center. More than 46 member institutions can be found within the college and the campus, making it the largest medical center in the world. It's also home to a strange little museum referred to as "The Body Parts Museum."

Aside from its interesting and unique museum, Texas Medical Center is a leader in biomedical research and clinical care. In fact, The Biomedical Research Center found on the campus is a whopping 800,000 square feet and another 320,000 square feet is scheduled to be added in the near future. In this massive research area are some of the top centers including the Human Neuroimaging Lab, The Cancer Center, The Center for Cell and Gene Therapy and The National Center for Macromolecular Imagery.

The center also houses one of the top nursing anesthesia facilities in the country and sees some of the greatest minds in the arena of critical care nursing. They currently accept 14 students a year in this field, who undergo twelve months of intense training before moving on to the clinical anesthesia training.

Baylor's excellence in research and its many other areas of expertise are quite fitting considering its interesting history. John C. Haley, who was a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, had this similar interest in human research, which may be what prompted him to create one of the most intriguing museums in the country. At the John C. Haley M.D. Museum, which is referred to as The Body Parts Museum by Houston residents, both students and tourists alike can get up close and personal with real life human body parts. Students of human anatomy can inspect both healthy and diseased ravaged hands, arms, legs, feet, and internal organs.

Haley created all of the exhibits in The Body Parts Museum himself, with the help of his students and other students who attended Baylor College of Medicine. The Museum lies in the basement of the Debakey building, which is named after the former director of the college, and has seen steady growth as a tourist attraction over the past few years.

Given the popularity of this strange museum, other museums of this kind have steadily been erected across the United States. Perhaps one of the most gruesome, and most interesting, is the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, DC. Founded in 1862 with the intention of studying and improving medical conditions, this museum specializes in odd, deformed, or disturbing human remains, most notably a man's head with large growths covering the front and a set of infant Siamese twins. This museum also has been called "The Body Parts Museum" by local residents. If you plan to visit this museum it isn't a problem to get last minute hotel reservations in Washington, DC.

Although these museums are fascinating, and perhaps a little dark and weird, it leaves one to wonder what kind of people venture into them and for what reasons. Dr. Haley's museum may have been intended for the research of human bodies without having to slice open a live human, but what brings in tourists from around the country, all intent on seeing graphic human remains shown on display?

Perhaps author Steven King had it right when he said in several essays compiled in the book Secret Windows. In these essays, he argued that we all are driven to see what it is we are afraid of. Perhaps we face death in this way so that, for the time being, it cannot harm us. It is not unthinkable that death holds a certain fascination for all of us since, at one time or another, we will all die. As such, somewhere deep in our subconscious, each of us wants to see that which seems to be forbidden. Or, perhaps still, human beings are simply curiously complex creatures who want to know about the inner working of their own bodies.

Whatever the reason for the popularity of such museums, they have continued to grow in popularity and will likely keep growing. So, the next time you plan on staying at a hotel in Houston, stop in at Haley's museum and have a look without fear or guilt. Just be glad it isn't you.