I bought tickets to the Mutter Museum on the recommendation of an acquaintance, and because I have always been curious about it.

The museum bills itself as a medical diagnosis library, but that is misleading at best.

It's obvious the Mutter has made some attempts in recent years to correct their severely problematic collection; and, it's also clear they are unwilling to take the steps necessary to actually remedy it.

The Mutter is a display of people's body parts. The display attempts to acknowledge where the collection came from (mostly non-consensually), but the signs are little more than lip service. In fact, acknowledging that these humans did not consent to have their remains displayed just reinforces that the Mutter organization thinks it's OK to do so!! Now that is profoundly NOT COOL. It's like saying, "I know you didn't want me to humiliate you in front of all these people, but I'm doing it anyway because they paid good money to see it, and I'll just let them know when they get here that you never wanted this to happen." Da fuk?! How to improve this situation, understanding that you'd never just close down the museum:

1. remove any remains that were not given to the collection consensually.
2. curate the display so it actually TEACHES about the history of DIAGNOSIS in more detail, showing the TRANSFORMATION over time in history.
3. display no more than 5 skulls. That's enough to identify difference and EDUCATE people on what they are looking at. It shouldn't be this overwhelming display with zero meaning except shock value. Do not display any skulls from people who were executed (murdered)  (you have no evidence... Displaying with their accused crime is cruel and dehumanizes people who deserve better, and feeds in to this idea that people accused of crime are less than human instead of having compassion for them and their individual life circumstances.... Instead maybe present a history of the development and issues present in our current criminal justice system?)
4. out in the garden display detailed descriptions of what the lives were like for the women, indigenous, and enslaved people's whos knowledge created the basis of contemporary pharma. Discuss the pros and cons of herbal treatments vs contemplate pharmaceuticals in a scientifically accurate way.

Let's hope Mutter is only in the beginning steps of their transformation.

Closing thoughts: Do better.