MUSEUMS AND MEDICAL LEGITIMACY
"In America, panacea puffs meet you every where; the hotel books and directories are interleaved with them; they present you with fans covered with them, and they desecrate the grandest scenes."
Scottish physician E.D. Mapother, "An Address on American Medicine,"" 1870
The United States' international reputation was marred by the abundance of "quacks," who sold cure-all potions which, in the best case scenario, did nothing. In the worst case, they were deadly.
In 1874, the deaths of the most famous twins in the world provided an opportunity for the United States to separate itself from its shady reputation and prove its medical legitimacy.
Chang and Eng Bunker were born in Siam, now Thailand, in 1811. Chang and Eng were conjoined twins, permanently connected together on their chests by a band of cartilage and flesh.
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The brothers were brought to the United States in 1829 and performed in both Europe and the United States for ten years. Initially, they were represented by managers. However, after realizing their managers were cheating them out of their hard-earned money, Chang and Eng exhibited themselves independently.
Poster of Chang and Eng Bunker, showing all of the physical feats the two could perform. Lithograph by Currier and Ives, New York, 1860. National Library of Medicine.
In 1839, the brothers retired. They bought neighboring plantations in North Carolina, married two sisters, and fathered twenty-one children between them. Owning a plantation in North Carolina in the 1840s, of course, meant owning enslaved people to work the land. Chang and Eng, reportedly, were especially cruel enslavers.
Though they attempted to re-enter show business in the late 1860s after the Civil War, Chang and Eng's "Southern proclivities," as one journalist politely put it, made them unpopular in Northern states.
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Chang and Eng both died on January 17, 1874, at the age of sixty-two. Chang died about two hours before Eng. Chang most likely died from a blood clot, while Eng's cause of death was unclear.
"Diagrammatic representation of the Livers, portraying the relations of the Vessels, etc.," Drawn during the autopsy of Chang and Eng Bunker. British Medical Journal, 1874.
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia assembled the "Commission on the Siamese Twins" soon after the twins' death to perform an autopsy.
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The stakes were incredibly high. A successful autopsy would prove that university-trained American physicians could navigate rare medical cases and complete complicated procedures.
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While American physicians certainly wanted to understand Chang and Eng's bodies, they were also very concerned with their international reputation. As one member of the Commission wrote,
"One of the reasons why the Commission made exertions to obtain this post mortem examination, was that the American profession might not be charged with having neglected an effort to obtain an autopsy."
Dr. William H. Pancoast, 1874
Spectators published accounts of the twins' autopsy across the United States and abroad. For example, the above quote comes from an article in the British Medical Journal. By acquiring the Bunkers’ corpse and performing an autopsy, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia enforced the claim that orthodox, university-trained medicine represented the true American medicine.