Surgeons' Hall

   I felt a multitude of sensations and emotions as I walked round the fascinating History of Surgery Museum inside Edinburgh's Surgeons' Hall today.

   The first was nausea, which brought back memories of rough ferry crossings and ill-advised rides on roller coasters. I'm sure I wasn't the only man present whose stomach was performing somersaults. Indeed, how else could you feel when confronted by a wax and plaster cast of a pair of testicles deformed by a tumour? 

   At the same time, I had to admire the brilliance of Charles Bell, who made this replica of a man's abdomen. He was, I read, 'a talented artist', as well as 'a renowned surgeon and anatomy teacher'. His gifts as an artist were also evident in a painting (from 'about 1809') of a naked and grimacing soldier suffering from tetanus, his muscles rigid and his body forming an arch. It had the haunting, otherworldly quality of a painting by William Blake. 

   The same sense of sickness washed over me when I saw an image of a man called Robert Penman. The cracked oil painting from 1828 showed a man with what looked like a red balloon or a whoopee cushion in his mouth. It was a tumour, and I felt horrified at the sight of it. 

   As I read his story, however, I was greatly moved, and I felt the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. He had the tumour removed at the age of 24, with no anaesthetic, as there were none at the time. The surgeon, James Syme, 'was amazed at the courage of the young man who did not complain once.' I couldn't help but compare his bravery to the self-pity displayed by so many people in our social media-obsessed age. 

   Strangely enough, the grisly skeletons I saw, which had been injected with coloured wax to indicate the arteries, heart and blood vessels, made me somewhat nostalgic. They were shiny, having been varnished, and they brought to mind the two hundred year old mummies I had seen during my travels in northern Japan in 2014. Yet again, I could sense the travel bug rising within me. 

   It was a pleasure to see an exhibit on Arthur Conan Doyle and his teacher Joseph Bell, who was once the president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. There's a video of an elderly Conan Doyle in a pin-striped suit, describing in his Scots brogue how Bell had inspired him to create Sherlock Holmes. 

   I went to Surgeons' Hall with  a slight feeling of trepidation, as I feared it might have been infected by the same historical revisionism that has blighted other museums and historical attractions in recent years. I was elated to find that it wasn't the case. 

   Unlike many museums in Edinburgh, you must pay an entrance fee of £9 to visit Surgeons' Hall. It's well worth the expense.