Medicine man

An exhibition at the British Museum shows off some of the vast collection of objects collected by Henry Wellcome, marking the 150 anniversary of his birth. Wellcome was someone who recognized the importance of scientific research in developing new medicines and who established the first research laboratory linked to a UK pharmaceutical company. His pioneering activities have proved to be an enormous benefit to UK science, through the current Wellcome Trust. Wellcome cared deeply about the past, believing that previous ways of life acted as a vital spur to progress. This passion — awakened at the age of four when his father explained to him how a Neolithic stone implement was more important in its time than the invention of the steam engine or electric telegraph — kindled lifelong interest in human history. Wellcome's collecting began in earnest at the turn of the last century and escalated after World War 1, when he employed an international network of buying agents. By his death in 1936, he had amassed one of the UK's largest collections of objects-five times the size of that of the Louvre in Paris. Now, 150 years after his birth, a selection of objects are on display in the Medicine Man exhibition at the British Museum in London. His great vision was for a Museum of Man. He wanted to show the development of humanity from primitive times to civilization through our material culture. To this end he collected more than one million objects from around the globe and across the centuries. Together in bewildering variety, they mirrored the diverse ways in which, throughout history, people have sought to obtain food, fight disease and other enemies, and ultimately ward off death. After Wellcome's death in 1936, it became clear that his vast concept of a Museum of Mankind could never be realised and the museum would have to limit its scope to medical history. Between the 1930s and the 1970s, therefore, many non-medical artifacts were distributed to other institutions in the UK and and in other countries. The exhibition at the British Museum brings together some of the key components of this vast collection for public view. Life and death: The picture shows a mummified male body from the Chimu people of Peru from around 1200–1400. The body would have been wrapped in layers of fabric and buried with personal possessions, ritual objects and food offerings.