Author: Anna N. Dhody

Saponification and Deceit in 19th-Century Philadelphia

By: Anna N. Dhody

Old and probably ugly, with a nut-cracker profile. That is how Joseph McFarland, M.D., referred to the Soap Lady, one of the Mütter Museum’s most famous and enduring specimens. McFarland, the Curator of the museum from 1937 to 1945, also called her “one of the most revolting objects that can be imagined.” And, while it […]