Tickets to the Warren Anatomical Museum

Unfortunately, the museum is currently closed.

At the time of writing, the museum is still closed. We suggest waiting until winter or 2023 to get an update on its status.

This museum is one of the few remaining collections on anatomy and pathology in the United States. John Collins Warren, a renowned surgeon and professor, donated his collection to Harvard Medical School. Here are some of the exhibits that are on display in this museum:

• The Skull of Phineas Gage. The skull belonged to a railway worker who survived an iron bar through his brain’s left frontal lobe. Also preserved in the museum’s collection is the tamping iron that caused that injury.
• Various models of respirators. These include the inhaler used during the first public ether-assisted surgery, Emerson’s “Iron Lung” respirator, and many others.
• Surgery equipment. The museum’s extensive collection holds many medical instruments like amputation kits, microscopes, scales, doctor’s birthing kits, stethoscopes, and many more.
• Human and animal bones. The museum’s vast collection includes skulls, fingers, femurs, vertebrae, and many other bones.
• Prints of animal and human skeletons. Many of the exhibits demonstrate various pathologies and irregularities in the human body. On these prints, you can see a hand with seven fingers, a child with a tumor, a head cast of William Burke, etc. 
• Documents. Treatises, reports, letters, surgical observations – you can find all these papers and more at the museum.

The Warren Anatomical Museum is on the fifth floor of the Countway Library of Medicine in Boston. The following bus routes pass the museum: CT2, 39, 47, and 66. You can reach the museum by subway via Green Line D and Orange Line; the closest subway station is Brigham Circle. 

There is no admission fee at this museum.

There are several places of interest close to this museum. Here are some of them:

• Museum of Fine Arts
• Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
• Wheelock Family Theater
• Temple Israel
• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum