[1] The museum dated from 1794 when Honoré Fragonard, demonstrator and professor of anatomy, collected specimens for the Faculty of Medicine of Paris's new anatomical cabinet.
Appointed dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris in 1832, Orfila visited the Hunterian Museum and was inspired by its collections of comparative anatomy.
According to the museum's web site, precious wax models by Laumonier were consumed for lighting, and only a few hundred of Houel's cataloged items still remain.
Since 1953 the museum occupied the vast exhibition halls and galleries of the eighth floor of the Faculty of Medicine.
It contained a wide range of anatomical specimens, including a small monkey preserved by Fragonard in 1797; Paul Broca's castings brains of birds, mammals, and humans, including the brains of children, criminals, and representatives of various races, as well as his own brain; showcases of comparative anatomy of reptiles and birds; casts of the heads of criminals executed during the 19th century; a collection of skulls from asylums for the mentally ill; major exhibits of different stages of growth of the skeleton, splanchnology (casts of livers, hearts, lungs, and trachea), and of the viscera and major vessels of the human body; and displays of malformations of the brain caused in rats (Giroud-Delmas), lymph systems (Marie Philibert Constant Sappey), kidney structure (Augier), trachea (Eralp), esophagus (Sussini), and liver.