Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum began with a donation of more than 1,700 objects from Thomas Dent Mütter, MD, in 1858. It has since grown to include more than 25,000 medical curiosities, including sections of Einstein’s brain, an entire wall of human skulls, the liver of conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker, President Grover Cleveland’s jaw tumor, the tallest skeleton on display in North America, and the World’s Largest Colon.

Established during the Civil War, the National Museum of Health and Medicine‘s mission “to preserve and explore the impact of military medicine spans more than 150 years and includes each major U.S. armed conflict.” Located in Silver Spring, Maryland, on the campus of the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the museum’s collection includes 15,000 objects from the history of medicine, dating from the late 1660s to the present day.

The entrance (and exit) to the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, is through the gift shop, which includes a portrait painted with real human blood, candles scented like skeletal remains, and spices such as “The Masque of the Red Death Sriracha Sea Salt.” The largest museum collection of Poe memorabilia in the world is spread over three historic buildings and organized chronologically.

Founded in 1995, the Museum of Death was originally located in a San Diego mortuary. Now located in New Orleans, the museum claims to have “the world’s largest collection of serial killer artwork, antique funeral ephemera, mortician and coroners instruments, Manson Family memorabilia, pet death taxidermy, crime scene photographs, and so much more.”

When it opened in 1874 with 250 patients, the mission of Missouri’s State Lunatic Asylum No. 2 was dedicated “to the noble work of reviving hope in the human heart and dispelling the portentous clouds that penetrate the intellects of minds diseased.” In the 1960s, hospital employee George Glore created exhibits for the Mental Health Awareness Week open house, which remain a part of the Glore Psychiatric Museum’s collection today.

This Oklahoma City museum is dedicated to osteology, the study of bones. With more than 300 skeletons from all over the world, the museum’s skeletal specimens range from the minuscule to the massive. In the 1970s, Jay Villemarette found a dog skull in the woods and began a lifetime of collecting. He opened his first retail location selling bones in 1990; the Museum of Osteology, billed as “largest privately held collection of osteological specimens in the world” opened in 2010.

The motto of Houston’s National Museum of Funeral History is ​​“Any day above ground is a good one.” The museum’s exhibits include mourning art made from human hair, whimsical carved coffins, hearses, and artifacts once belonging to presidents and popes. Founded by R.L. Waltrip in 1992 (with objects from his family’s funeral business), the museum’s collection of presidential memorabilia continues to grow thanks to chairman Bob Boetticher, a renowned mortician for prominent politicians.

The New Orleans Pharmacy Museum is located in the Vieux Carre Historic District of the French Quarter. In 1804, when Louisiana became the first state to require a licensing examination for pharmacists, Louis J. Dufilho, Jr. became the first licensed pharmacist in the U.S. Dufilho’s 1823 apothecary shop now operates as a small museum packed full of historical medical artifacts including an extensive collection of bottles, boxes, and tins housed in beautiful wooden and glass cabinets.

Opened in February 2020 by Black Moth Super Rainbow guitarist Ryan Graveface, The Graveface Museum is located in a historic row of former cotton warehouses in Savannah, Georgia. The macabre collection includes a human spine belonging to Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, a two-headed calf, paintings by “killer clown” John Wayne Gacy, and Charles Manson’s sweatpants. The lower level of the museum is full of pinball machines.