National Portrait Gallery & Surgeon’s Hall, Edinburgh
When someone says let’s go to a portrait gallery, it takes a certain kind of person to be enthusiastic about it. I’d been trying to drag Chris along for a while. Lucky for me we got caught in the rain right outside it a couple of days before we left. Wandering in (mostly for shelter) we were astounded at the place - it’s not just old dead white dudes in beautiful surroundings (which by all means is great in this instance - their foyer is incredible), but it’s also the history of Scotland told through its famous figures, and even celebrates more recent Scottish pop culture icons, like Annie Lennox, Karen Gillan, and Susan Boyle.
My favourite portrait though was the one of the three surgeons - it’s somehow eerie and candid and hilarious all at the same time. And these dudes did some excellent science shit. Which leads me to the Surgeon’s Hall, which we visited after seeing the death mask at the portrait gallery pictured above.
Surgeon’s Hall is essentially a mausoleum of curated human bits preserved in formaldehyde, both given to and taken for the University’s school of medicine. There is some dark, disturbing shit in there - a notebook made of human skin, a portrait that a man in the full grip of tetanus could not have possibly consented to sitting for. Cancers and overgrown thyroids and foetuses. More boobs and balls in jars than I’ve seen outside of jars in my entire lifetime. It’s all as gruesome as it sounds. But also the best seven quid I’ve ever spent. If you like to be equal parts fascinated and disgusted when you go on a weekend excursion, I couldn’t recommend Surgeon’s Hall highly enough.
