Pennsylvania Hospital marks its 275th anniversary with new museum

Pennsylvania Hospital, one of the nation’s oldest hospitals, is celebrating its remarkable 275-year history by opening a new museum this week.

The museum, located in the historic Pine Street Building of the hospital, will open to the public on May 8.

The exhibits cover multiple floors and showcase centuries of medical care and innovation.

Visitors are invited to explore pages of notes written by Benjamin Franklin in the historic library. They can open doors to listen to correspondence from nurses who served during the world wars, pull out drawers to discover remedies that would have been prescribed in the original apothecary, and even attempt to perform surgery on a life-size 3D touch-screen table in the nation’s first surgical amphitheater.

Organizers said each gallery is dedicated to a story central to Pennsylvania Hospital’s legacy. Highlights include:

Brain and mental health: The hospital was first established to provide psychiatric care to Philadelphia’s poorest residents, which at the time was groundbreaking. Since then, Pennsylvania Hospital continues to pioneer cutting-edge technologies to treat complicated conditions, including using Deep Brain Stimulation for binge-eating disorder and thought-powered prosthetics.

Women’s health: Today, Pennsylvania Hospital is the busiest birthing hospital in Philadelphia, welcoming over 5,000 babies into the world each year. It paved the way for modern obstetrics and gynecology for centuries, from establishing the first maternity ward in 1803, to addressing racial disparities in maternal health care today.

Apothecary and pharmaceuticals: In a reconstruction of the hospital’s original apothecary, the museum traces the history of how illness is treated, from the early therapies created from plants through modern day innovative therapies developed at Penn Medicine, like CAR-T cell therapy and CRISPR gene editing.

Leading through conflicts and perseverance: Pennsylvania Hospital played an important role in guiding the nation through challenging times; Starting with the American Revolution, Pennsylvania Hospital cared for soldiers during times of war. The hospital also provided care to Philadelphians during pandemics, from the Spanish Flu all the way through COVID-19.

“Pennsylvania Hospital is not only linked to the history of just Philadelphia – but to the history of the United States of America:  From caring for soldiers during the American revolution to sending physicians and nurses abroad to care for soldiers in World War I and World War II, from the Yellow Fever in 1793 to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, from brewing healing teas from herbs grown on hospital grounds to developing brain-computer interfaces that can treat conditions like Parkinson’s disease and obsessive-compulsive disorder, ” Stacey Peeples, Lead Archivist at Pennsylvania Hospital said in a statement on the hospital’s website. “I am thrilled to illuminate the huge contributions of generations of caregivers, patients and staff, so that every visitor can share in the pride we feel in the history of Pennsylvania Hospital.”

Older than the United States itself, Pennsylvania Hospital was founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond.

Over the last 275 years, the hospital has continued to be a leader in patient care and is nationally recognized for programs in neurosurgery, obstetrics and high-risk maternal and fetal services, neonatology, behavioral health, and orthopedics.

For more information and to sign up to receive updates on the museum, ticket sales, and museum events, visit www.PAHospitalMuseum.org.