If the thought of a medical museum conjures unpleasant images of dusty implements or gruesome displays, then the International Museum of Surgical Sciences will pleasantly surprise you. This informative, tasteful and visually appealing museum offers as much for the art lover as it does for the medical history buff…and the squeamish won’t need the smelling salts.

The museum exhaustively describes the history of surgery as well as a variety of other medical disciplines, including optometry, orthopedics, medical imaging and pharmacy. A number of rooms celebrate beyond-the-States surgical achievements of regions such as Canada, Europe, Japan and South America. The museum is a shrine to the great figures from the history of medicine: men like Galen, Andreas Vesalius and Louis Pasteur, and women like Marie Curie and Clara Barton. There are also reconstructions of an apothecary's shop and dentist's office from the nineteenth century. Artifacts in the museum range from verdigris-encrusted Roman surgical implements to color images from the first magnetic resonance imaging machine. There are medieval devices for cupping as well as a working iron lung. The displays of medical instruments are exquisite. Kits for trephination and amputation reveal themselves to be marvels of craftsmanship. Old x-ray tubes glimmer in their display case like fine porcelain.

The art in the museum merits close attention, especially the paintings in the regional rooms. The museum's Hall of Murals contains huge historical paintings of Gregorio Calvi de Bergolo. In the Hall of Immortals loom Chassaing and Linck's WPA-style statues of medical heroes from Imhotep to Curie. The fourth floor of the museum features "Anatomy in the Gallery," a rotating exhibition of contemporary works with medical motifs. $6 adults; $3 seniors. Tuesdays are free days.

Centerstage Reviewer: Alan Simmons