Thomas Dent Mutter

Thomas Dent Mütter (March 9, 1811 – March 19, 1859) was an American surgeon.[1] Born in Richmond, Virginia, Mütter was orphaned at the age of 8 and raised by a distant relative.[2] He attended Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia starting in 1824.[3] Mutter graduated with an MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1831 and eventually took a position as an assistant to Dr. Thomas Harris at the Medical Institute of Jefferson College.[4] At the age of 30, he became the Chair of Surgery at the Jefferson Medical College and held this position from 1841-1856, when he resigned because of gout and lung disease.[5] He operated on hundreds of patients to repair deformities and became the first surgeon in 1846 to administer ether anesthesia in Philadelphia.[2] He is best known for the “Mutter Flap” which he used in order to treat burn victims; the grafting procedure is still used today.[6][7][8]

Mütter in the 1840s

During his life, Mütter collected artifacts relating to surgery, which he used when teaching. These ranged from illustrations and wax models to actual specimens of human anatomy. The collection formed the basis for The Mutter Museum, which opened in 1863 in Philadelphia.[9] The museum has a collection of more than 25,000 specimens assembled by Mutter .[9] Today, it includes a vertebra of John Wilkes Booth, a piece of Albert Einstein’s brain,[10] a cancerous growth from the mouth of President Grover Cleveland and the livers and plaster cast of the Siamese twins Chang and Eng.[9][1]

Mütter married Mary Wright Alsop in October 1836. There were no children from the marriage.[5]