Surgeons' Hall Museum

The Surgeons' Hall Museum sits behind a grand, classical facade of yellow sandstone on Nicolson Street. This is the home of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, a professional institution that began training medical men in the early sixteenth century. Inside, the galleries hold thousands of anatomical specimens collected over centuries for the study of disease and trauma. When the surgeon Robert Liston operated here in the eighteen thirties, he famously amputated a patient's leg in under three minutes, unfortunately taking the assistant's fingers too.