Departments
Four Facts
By Steve Lange
In 1933, Dr. Will Mayo created a medical display for the Chicago World’s Fair. The display was centerpieced by the 6-foot-tall “Transparent Man,” one of the earliest examples of life-sized, see-through mannequins with various organs that lit up to accompany a recorded scientific message. (Transparent Women, with their non-protruding reproductive organs and pregnancy subplot, were far more popular.)
In 1935, the items were put on permanent display as the “Museum of Hygiene and Medicine” in downtown’s old Central Junior High School building. The name was later changed to the Mayo Medical Museum.
In its 55 years, the museum drew over 5 million visitors to the free exhibit, which included an old iron lung (the size of a small submarine), the World War Two pressurized fighter pilot suits developed at Mayo, amputated limbs preserved in large glass jars, a collection of swallowed objects (coins, needles, etc.), and full-sized dioramas depicting things like farm accidents (including “Man with Pitchfork in Foot”).
In 1988, the museum, which had been relocated to the first floor of the soon-to-be-demolished Damon Parkade, was closed for good. Most of the displays were put in storage. The Transparent Man, eventually, found his way into the Patient Education Center, in the subway level of the Siebens Building, where he still stands today.