DEAD MAN'S PARTY: THE SIRIRAJ MEDICAL MUSEUM

WARNING:

THE FOLLOWING BLOG ENTRY CONTAINS IMAGES THAT SOME PEOPLE MAY FIND GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING.

PLEASE CONTINUE READING AT YOUR OWN RISK.

REMEMBER, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED...


The Siriraj Medical Museum is described as a faculty of Medicine for Siriraj Mahidol University. It is located in a hospital near the Grand Palace and Chao Phraya River, which makes it quite an excursion from the rest of downtown Bangkok. Still, if you don't have a weak stomach and are a looking for a truly unique destination, it's kind of worth the trip.

4o Baht (a little more than one dollar) will gain you entrance into the museum's six departments: the Ellis Pathological Museum, the Ouay Ketusingh Museum of History of Thai Medicine, the Congdon Anatomical Museum, the Sood Sangvichien Prehistoric Museum & Laboratory, the Parasitology Museum and the Songkran Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum. The last one is by far the most popular and notorious.

This is the place you want to go to see photos of car crash, train wreck and burn victims (among other fatal accidents). If you were ever curious about what a skull with a bullet hole looks like, then a trip to the Forensic Medicine Museum is what you have been waiting for.


Was the skull too tame for you?

Wanna see what an actual severed head with a bullet lodged in it looks like?

Well if you do, gaze upon a cranium which has been neatly sawed in half and put it on display in two formaldehyde-filled square jars!


If that's not enough, other results of decapitations are also on display for your viewing pleasure at the Forensics Medical Museum!


Along with various other appendages (some with tattoos!)


And now for something completely different...

Are you a fan of abnormally large hearts?


Cirrhosis of the liver?


Or blackened lungs? Then the Forensic Medicine Museum is right up your alley!

The Museum is also famous for housing the mummified remains of Si Quey, a serial killer who gained notoriety in Thailand during the 1950s for raping, killing and then cannibalizing his victims. From what I've heard about this guy, he makes Hannibal Lector look like the Easter Bunny. After he was hung and mummified, his body was brought here as a grim reminder of what people capable of such grisly acts can look forward to if they are caught (there are a few other similar corpses of other rapists and murderers close by). The Forensic Medicine Museum is sometimes even referred to as "Si Quey's Place."


Right around the corner from Si Quey is another area with plenty of information and a life size diorama of people treating horrible wounds caused by Thailand's recent tsunami disaster.


One thing I didn't take pictures of were the numerous corpses of fetuses and toddlers displayed at the Museum that were the results of things like miscarriages, abortions, drownings and other tragic misfortunes. As the father of three, I just couldn't bring myself to record these kinds images. All of these displays are surrounded by things like candy and small toys, apparently left as a tribute by other Museum visitors.

Right next door to the Forensics Museum is one dedicated to parasitology, where one can go to read up on the dust mites that most likely inhabit your mattress, see photos of someone with spaghetti-like worms coming out of their butt and an actual preserved scrotum (and accompanying photo) from someone who was afflicted with elephantiasis. This has got to be one of the worst conditions anyone could have the misfortune of living with.


In summary, there are a few reasons that I can think of to visit the Siriraj Medical Museum:

1) You are a medical student or plan on getting a job at a hospital, morgue, funeral home or some other location that could potentially involve extensive gore and guts. I assume that the main purpose of the Museum is for educational reasons rather than for the sheer exploitation of severed body parts. There has to be someone out there learning something from this collection of macabre artifacts to justify its existence in an actual hospital.

2) You are a fan of morbid or simply bizarre things and are tired of searching the Internet for autopsy and crime scene photos. Your favorite movies may include films like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Dawn of the Dead," and "Saw III."

3) You are someone who abuses things like alcohol and tobacco and are curious about what your internal organs could possibly look like.

4) You are someone who lives in Bangkok, writes a blog and are tired of visiting wats, temples and other cultural places for your material.

Personally, I would fall into the last category. I really have no real interest in this stuff, but enough people in town have told me that it was a weird place to go, so I thought it was worth the trip. Unfortunately, I had to go twice because I lost the photos from my first excursion about a month ago. I spent ten minutes there today, snapping pictures (you're not supposed to, but no one was around to enforce this policy) and then was stuck in traffic for two hours on the way home. Oh, the lengths I will go to for my art...

That being said, the place didn't really creep me out too much. I didn't have nightmares about it the first time and don't think I will this time. I can handle this sort of thing although it's not really my cup of tea. It's somewhere that can inspire a plethora of emotions depending on the personality of one who chooses to visit. For me, these feeling amounted to nothing more than ones of numbness and indifference.