Napolean's toothbrush on display at museum

Britain's newest medical museum features Charles Darwin's walking stick, Napoleon's toothbrush and anatomical drawings by Leonard da Vinci.

The $60 million Wellcome Collection in London is filled with items collected by Henry Wellcome, a pharmaceutical tycoon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

When he died in 1936 at the age of 83, he had gathered some 1 million objects, The New York Times said Wednesday.

James Watson, the Nobel prize winner scientist who co-discovered the structure of DNA was at the opening this week, The Guardian newspaper said.

"Where else can you browse the more than 3 billion letters of the human genome, see one of the robots that helped to sequence it and contemplate the reactions of contemporary artists to this major scientific development? In the pioneering Wellcome Collection -- how wonderful!," Watson said.

Wellcome Trust director Mark Walport said the museum includes a forum that will host debates encouraging people to "really think and be challenged by important contemporary issues around biomedicine."

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

Citation: Napolean's toothbrush on display at museum (2007, June 21) retrieved 29 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2007-06-napolean-toothbrush-museum.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Explore further

NASA's Perseverance rover deciphers ancient history of Martian lake

0 shares

Feedback to editors