This ghoulish exhibition at the Royal College of Surgeons, now 2 centuries old, chronicles the life’s work of John Hunter (1728–93), who elevated surgery from something your barber dabbled in to something a saw-wielding, germ-spreading scientist would, ahem, undertake. It’s a macabre scene, crowded with thousands of specimens, including extinct animals, all tastefully presented in a modern, gleaming facility. Most of your time will be spent squeamishly perusing some 3,000 black-lidded jars of human and animal pathology and anatomy (many originally obtained by grave-robbers, a common practice then), plus a bone-grinding collection of crude surgical instruments that could rattle even the steeliest physician. Check out the cross-section of a chicken’s head that Hunter grafted with a human tooth. Such Frankenstein projects were his stock in trade, and as creepy as they seem to us, they were crucial in helping mankind advance its understanding of our anatomy and how to heal it. The Hunterian is free to visit and takes an hour, max, but it does ask you to make a timed advance reservation. That can happen minutes ahead on your smartphone as long as there's space.